Riots in Sweden

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Riots in Sweden raise questions about nation's egalitarian culture

Sweden has long been a bastion of generous social welfare and an egalitarian political culture. So many people were shocked when scores of youths hurled rocks at police and set cars ablaze during rioting in several largely immigrant areas near Stockholm this week.

Fox News,

23 May, 2013

Few dispute that the violence was probably touched off by the fatal police shooting of an elderly man who had locked himself in an apartment wielding a knife. But some residents in the area accused police who responded to the violence of racism.

For some, the real reason for the unrest is the high unemployment and isolation of youths in the southern and western Stockholm suburbs where the violence occurred -- ones who see little future for themselves or access to Sweden's prosperity.

"The segregation in Stockholm increases all the time, and it's happening fast," said Nina Edstrom, a social anthropologist who promotes integration at a center for multiculturalism in Fittja, where some of the violence occurred. "There are very large social differences. There are many unemployed, frustrated young people. I'm not surprised something like this happens," she said.

Still, Edstrom added, it would be a mistake to see the youths involved in the riots as political activists.

Overall, about 15 percent of Sweden's 9.5 million people were born abroad, compared to 10 percent 10 years ago. The influx has mostly come from war-torn countries such as Iraq, Somalia, former Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Syria.

In 2012 alone, Sweden accepted 44,000 asylum seekers, up by nearly 50 percent from a year earlier.

During the rioting, 15-year-old Sebastian Horniak said he saw police firing warning shots in the air and calling a woman a "monkey."

Quena Soruco, a representative for Megafonen, an organization that represents citizens in Stockholm's suburbs, said she heard police say "rats, hobos, Negroes."

The unrest in Fittja and the Husby area is a challenge for the center-right government of Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, which after seven years in power is trailing in polls and has come under fire for failing to address social problems.

The rioting also has added fuel to arguments from the far-right Sweden Democrats party, which polls now show as Sweden's fourth biggest party.

Some say that one reason such immigrant areas can feel isolating is the growing disparity between the haves and have nots in Sweden, as in many other Western countries.

Despite Sweden's high living standards and its egalitarian ways, the country has seen the biggest surge in inequality of any Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development country over the past 25 years, according to a recent OECD report.

The difference is striking between native Swedes and the fast-growing immigrant population.

In Husby, the neighborhood west of Stockholm where the violence started Sunday, around 80 percent of the 11,000 residents are either first or second generation immigrants. Still, the area appears well kept and nothing like a slum.

"We have such wonderful things. We have a mixture of cultures. You go out on the streets and you know your neighbors," said Soruco, 26, who lives in Husby.

However, she also said youth unemployment is high there and that nearly 50 percent of the kids in Husby finish junior high school with grades too low to get into high school.

"I do not think that Sweden is as equal as some people try to paint it to be. We see it every day: people trying to get jobs and get rejected because of their last name, because of how they look, or even because of where they live," she said.

Outside a grocery store, local soccer coach Shain Akbari, 30, stood talking to a group of youths. He is upset that youths hurled rocks at police and firefighters, burned down buildings and set nearly 100 cars ablaze.

"It is tragic ... it's wrong," he said. But Akbari, a Swede of Iranian background who grew up in Husby, said the neighborhood has changed drastically in the past 10 years.

"Before it wasn't like this. Before we had Swedish friends who played on the same football team. We went to school together and they helped us integrate into society. You got a job through friends. But it isn't like that now. Now they are locked in here. They don't leave the area. ... They have no possibilities."

Camilla Salazar, who works at the youth center Fryshuset, agreed.

"I speak to young people in certain suburbs who say, `It would have been fun to get to know a Swede,"' she said. She also noted that as the violence began in Husby, many Swedes in more prosperous areas were preoccupied celebrating their country's World Cup ice hockey victory.

Prime Minister Reinfeldt has acknowledged that Sweden's income disparities increased, but said it primarily occurred before he came to power in 2006, and that he remains proud of his country's liberal immigration policies.

Reinfeldt said the transition can be trying, but he added: "We are more open than other countries. Long term, as a society, we win on this. It will lead to more people getting jobs. It will contribute to a more exciting and open society."

He urged citizens to come together to stop the violence, and on Wednesday night hundreds of Husby residents took to the streets to oppose the violence.

From RT

‘They don’t want to integrate’: Fourth night of youth rioting rocks Stockholm

RT,
23 May, 2013

Youth gang riots have rocked the Swedish capital Stockholm for four straight nights. Hundreds of mostly immigrant teenagers tore through the suburbs, smashing windows and burning cars in the country’s worst outbreak of violence in years.

On the fourth night of violence, youths torched over 30 cars in 15 neighborhoods along with a restaurant in Skogas, south of Stockholm. Three law enforcement officers were injured, police spokesperson Kjell Lindgren reported.

Stockholm firefighters were busy throughout the night, saying they had “never before seen so many fires raging at the same time.” Some 90 blazes were reported in total, most of them reportedly caused by the rioters. Still, the fourth night of violence was relatively quiet compared to the previous three, RT's Peter Oliver reported from Stockholm.

Leaders of immigrant communities were out on the streets in a bid to stop young people from rioting. Despite their efforts, as soon as the night fell, groups of arsonists took to the streets to set cars on fire. RT's Peter Oliver witnessed rioters throwing stones at police and journalists alike.

RT's Peter Oliver. Screenshot from RT video.

Civil disorder in Stockholm started on Sunday, when police shot and killed a 69-old-man in his apartment after he confronted officers with a machete; the unrest has since continued throughout week.

Community leaders insist that a main reason for the violence is the high rate of unemployment in immigrant communities, particularly in the suburb of Husby near central Stockholm, one of the worst affected by the nighttime violence, Peter Oliver reported.

Although Sweden’s unemployment rate is below the EU average, joblessness among those under 25 has reached nearly 25 percent. The RT crew in Stockholm noted that a majority of those taking part in the violence are young.

Parents of the rampaging teenagers and community religious leaders are now spending sleepless nights on the street in an effort to prevent their children from wreaking havoc.

Firemen extinguish a burning car in Kista after youths rioted in few differant suburbs around Stockholm on May 21, 2013.(AFP Photo / Jonathan Nackstrand)

Meanwhile, the Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt blamed the violence on “hooligans” and said they did not represent the majority in the rioting neighborhoods.

“I think it’s dangerous to draw a picture of Sweden with a capital separated from its suburbs. I don’t think that’s true. I think the dividing line runs straight through Husby, with a majority population and then a small group of troublemakers,” Reinfeldt said.

But the Husby youth taking part in riots told Reuters they are indeed divided from the rest of Stockholm, struggling to find a full-time job with their Husby address. Most of the interviewed rioters were reportedly unemployed.

The claims of social exclusion in immigrant-dominated suburbs have been partly conceded by Sweden’s Integration Minister Erik Ullenhag, who said the ministry is aware of discrimination in this area.  

But the riots “don’t improve the image of these areas, where there is a lot of positive stuff going on,” he added

A car set on fire burns, following riots in the Stockholm suburb of Kista late May 21, 2013.(Reuters / Fredrik Sandberg)

For years, Sweden – one of Europe’s most tranquil countries, famous for its attractive immigration policies and generous welfare system – has been accepting an influx of immigrants, which now make up about 15 per cent of its population. 

These migrants have failed to integrate into Swedish society, and are only in the country to enjoy the country’s social benefits system, Swedish journalist Ingrid Carlqvist told RT.

“The problem is not from the Swedish government or from the Swedish people,” the editor in chief of Dispatch International said. “The last 20 years or so, we have seen so many immigrants coming to Sweden that really don’t like Sweden. They do not want to integrate, they do not want to live in [Swedish] society: Working, paying taxes and so on.”

“The people come here now because they know that Sweden will give them money for nothing. They don’t have to work, they don’t have to pay taxes – they can just stay here and get a lot of money. That is really a problem,” Carlqvist added.

“The police could do so much, [instead] they have told the public that they mean to do as little as possible. But they could go there and use water cannons, they could not let people out onto the streets at night. There are so many things they could do within the law – but they don’t do it,” she said.

Firefighters extinguish a burning car, following riots in the Stockholm suburb of Kista late May 21, 2013.(Reuters / Fredrik Sandberg)

Young Muslims who enjoy tolerance, social institutions and welfare while living in Sweden nevertheless refuse to integrate into the West, Gerolf Annemans told RT. Annemans is the parliamentary leader of Vlaams Belang (‘Flemish Interest’), a Belgian far-right nationalist political party.

“They [Muslim youths] have always sought excuse to show that they are not agreeing with the basic values of Western society,” Annemans said, pointing to the recent cases of the Boston Marathon bombing in the US and yesterday’s beheading of a British soldier in the UK.

“It’s always the same problem. There is a massive refusal by Muslim youngsters of the basics of Western society...  and they take any excuse whatsoever to show that with violence – that is where the problem is,” he said.