The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

The Warning From Sweden

Posted on | June 19, 2024 | 2 Comments

Sweden has a population of about 10.5 million, or about the same as the state of North Carolina. Twenty years ago, you had to seek out “far right” sources (which, of course, I did) to learn anything about the problems caused by immigration in Sweden. Many of the atrocity tales came from the city of Malmö which, for some reason, was a magnet for Third World immigration and Malmö became notorious as a “no-go zone” ruled by violent foreign gangs. After the surge of migrants circa 2015, however, a taboo topic that was once relegated to obscure right-wing blogs has recently become the subject of mainstream journalism:

“Everyone feels at risk,” declared Charlie Duxbury of the neo-liberal POLITICO website [in October 2023], as he reported that a fourth bombing had occurred in his area of Stockholm since the start of the year. In total, there have been at least 134 bombings across Sweden in 2023, compared to 90 for the entirety of last year. Meanwhile, there have been 289 shootings since the start of the year, following 391 in 2022. . . .
The scale of immigration to the country, which soared in the wake of the 2015 European Migrant Crisis, has meant that now at least one-fifth of Sweden’s population are foreigners.

After a string of bombings this February, Breitbart reported:

Since the police began keeping such statistics in 2018, there have been at least 650 recorded bombings in Sweden.

In terms of gun violence, Sweden has become the Chicago of Europe, so to speak: “Twenty years ago, crimes involving firearms were almost non-existent [in Sweden]. Yet in 2022 the gun murder rate in capital Stockholm was around 25 times higher than in London.” How much has migration transformed Sweden? Among its vastly expanded foreign population, Sweden in 2022 had about 150,000 immigrants from just three African countries — Somalia, Eritrea and Ethiopia:

“People from Somalia made up the largest group of foreign-born citizens from Africa living in Sweden in 2022, with nearly 70,000 people. Eritreans and Ethiopians made up the second and third largest group, respectively, meaning that a high number of the foreign-born born population from African countries come from the Horn of Africa. This is a region characterized by famines, terrorism, and authoritarian rule over the past decades, resulting in a high number of refugees.”

This is to say nothing at all of the many thousands from Sudan (8,372), Nigeria (8,272), Congo (6,684), Gambia (5,940), Uganda (5,781), Kenya (5,419), etc., and never mind the Turks, Iranians, Afghans, etc.

The political impact has been profound, as Stefan Hedlund, a professor at Sweden’s Uppsala University, wrote in February:

There was a time when Sweden was looked upon by American liberals as an inspirational example of the Scandinavian welfare state. . . .
Present-day Sweden carries the dubious distinction of having the highest rate of gangland killings in Europe. It boasts the lowest average age of serious offenders, with children in their low teens being arrested for murder. Increasing segments of suburbs are officially classified as “especially vulnerable areas,” where it is “hard, bordering on impossible” for the police to operate. In layman’s terms, these are no-go zones, where local clans rule and where first responders will not enter without flak jackets and police escort.
An early warning was provided in 2017 when United States President Donald Trump made a quip about rioting in Sweden: “You look at what’s happening last night in Sweden. Sweden, who would believe this!” Who indeed? At the time, such comments were met with disdain and ridicule. Today, it is not so funny anymore.
Sweden has transitioned from being a model of inspiration to becoming a warning example. As gangland violence is spreading across borders, its Scandinavian neighbors experience growing fears of ending up in what is known in Denmark as the “Swedish condition.”
Defying an old taboo, the Swedish government has called on the military to assist the police. . . .
While the deterioration in physical security is causing Swedish nationals with entrepreneurial skills to leave the country, it is also becoming increasingly difficult for industry to recruit high-level talent from abroad. These problems are amplified by a deterioration in the quality of education that has resulted from increasing ethnic disorder and outright violence in schools. . . .
The main cause of the crisis is a combination of an open-door migration policy with no accompanying policy to help the newcomers integrate. The consequence has been the emergence of neighborhoods where almost all residents are immigrants, where unemployment rates are very high and where the children of immigrants go to schools where no other children, often not even teachers, are proficient in Swedish. This has served as an incubator for crime, as gangs take over where society fails. . . .
Out of a population of 10.61 million in 2022, a total of 2.14 million were registered as foreign-born, more than double the number in 2000. That comes to just over 20 percent. If a broader definition is used, to include those who are born in Sweden with two foreign-born parents, the number rises to 26 percent. . . .
The reason why the problem has been allowed to get out of control is that so many representatives of the media and of the political establishment have for so long been cocooned in naive views of criminal dangers, leading to extremely lax legislation and enforcement, and of dangerous strains of Islamism, leading to a profound inability to scale up defenses against the current wave of radicalization. Those chickens are now coming home to roost. . . .

Sweden’s once left-wing government is now controlled by a center-right coalition with the support of the far-right Sweden Democrats party, which got 20.5% of the vote in the 2022 parliamentary elections. In order to appease (and possibly co-opt) the Sweden Democrats, the governing coalition has begun taking measures to crack down on crime and discourage further immigration, to the dismay of Sweden’s elite.

“The Sweden as we know it is dying,” Karlstad University Professor Tobias Hübinette said last year, lamenting the evaporation of his country’s left-wing policy traditions, and blaming Swedes for seeking to avoid the dangerous foreigners: “Sweden is perhaps more segregated than any other country in Europe. In cities like Göteborg, Malmo and Stockholm, everybody sees it: the white Swedish population does not live in the same area as the immigrants.” Segregation in Sweden?

Theodore Bilbo could not be reached for comment.



 

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Category: Crime, Immigration, Racism, Sweden

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