Earlier quoted context omitted.
Sweden murder rate over time, it trends down until the mid 2010s: https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/SWE/sweden/murder-homi...
Are we looking at the same chart like? Because that chart shows it's been roughly steady since 1990, with some peaks up and some peaks down: 1991 was an outlier upwards, 2012 an outlier downwards, but overall: roughly stable. This kind of variation is to be expected since in absolute numbers it's a relatively small number of people.
Gang crisis shaking Sweden
281–290 of 384 posts
Re: Gang crisis shaking Sweden
#282I grew up in Sweden, moved around a bit in Europe and lately came back. What worries me about the country is not primarily gang criminality, but the general degradation of everything that was once good about Swedish society. Probably still better than a lot of places. Immigrants who come here often praise the system, how well everything works here; but they have no idea how well it used to work.
Can you offer some specifics? In what parts of Swedish society is this degradation most acute?
I moved to Sweden 2 months ago (from Seattle, where I grew up) but over the last decade I’ve lived in Seoul, Singapore, Bangkok, and Reykjavik. The government here feels most similar to the US, worse in some ways. Paperwork is like a hobby and doing it slowly is almost glorified.
I love it in many ways, but it’s baffling that I still don’t have a government ID, and am months away from getting a bank account. (Which would block me from getting a paycheck if I wasn’t high enough to at my company to get an exception and wire to my U.S./EU accounts. But for most relocated employees, they just don’t get paid for the first few months). The HR here says this is something they can’t change because it’s legal requirements from the government? But they just shrug and say that’s the Swedish way it works because it’s been working. And now I’m too embarrassed to hire the people I need to until I have good workarounds for these processes (there are many more issues).
As a Swede with history of what used to be good, and what’s working in other places, what would it take to get Sweden to correct these aspects of the way things are run?
Re: Gang crisis shaking Sweden
#283Earlier quoted context omitted.
Not sure why it is so controversial. * A region with instability, poverty and agrarian-tribo-rural-economy will imprint emergent traits onto the local culture. * Long ossified culture cannot be shed quickly even in the best of conditions * Agrarian tribal cultural practices are incompatible with hyper-liberal secular society. Integration is the only option. * Integration is hard. Even more so when it is optional, gen…
> The US also heavily vets its immigrants (unlike Sweden) and places the most oppressive integration-force-field second only to France. The air you breathe (Media), the carrot (The American dream) and the stick (the English language) all perfectly align to facilitate integration of the 2nd generation born into the US. Most of America's immigration comes from the southern border and is completely unvetted. Your though…
About 25% of USA's immigration is as a result of unvetted immigrants from the south [2]. It is still a minority. The majority come here through family (pre-integrated) or for work (high bar for productivity).
Also, Mexico is not the same as war torn middle-east. Mexicans are already culturally aligned (Christianity), ethnically aligned (massive white admixture) and economically far closer to the developed world as compared to the recent warn-torn middle eastern nations. There have been large & well-established Spanish-Christian communities within the US for centuries, which makes it much harder for them to ghettoize.
My point about the integration force-field still stands.
[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2020/08/20/facts-on-u-s...
[2] https://www.pewresearch.org/hispanic/2020/08/20/facts-on-u-s...
Re: Gang crisis shaking Sweden
#284> Those on the right largely blame immigration, which has added 2mn people to the country in recent decades. Those on the left point to social factors, including the privatisation of Sweden’s welfare system which has led to worse services in deprived areas. Probably both things are true. When countries take in large amounts of immigration, their generous welfare systems can become stressed. Sweden didn't balance the…
It's largely the result of an ideological deadlock, where legitimate logistical concerns about immigration and integration were lumped up with islamophobia and racism. Immigration was also seen as desirable in order to address the demographic crisis and low birth rates. This in turn had the ironic side-effect of cementing a sort of structural racism where all these immigrants showed up and were given at best estate h…
There are some nationalities doing low-paying jobs in disproportionate amounts. Turkish for example, the largest immigrant group here. If I divide my current company by "high paid" and "low paid" jobs, Turkish (plus Germans with Turkish background) are over-represented in the "low paid" half (more than 60% I estimate). On the other hand, there are only a handful in the "high paid" part (no engineers, for example, only a handful engineering-adjacent). These exceptions are often people coming straight from Turkey, from wealthier backgrounds, rather than 2nd/3rd generation German-born. This has been the situation in pretty much every company I worked or observed.
With recent housing problems, they also don't have as many options of where to live, so they end up in the same neighborhoods, where they rarely have a chance to speak German, let alone to integrate with the culture. Integration courses are crowded and extremely difficult to get into. If you're working full-time it's borderline impossible to find something after 5-6 PM. Religiousness also plays a role in making integration via integration courses hard (EDIT: but Turkish are more secular, this applies more to Arabs), there are specific classes for women, which is often composed only of Muslim women (since there are so few women-only classes, Muslim women are given priority), so few chances to chat with non-Muslim women.
One interesting anecdote that I can't prove, but I see a lot of people moving to Turkey in large numbers. Some of them are 2nd or 3rd generation and have never been there. Life is not easy.
Re: Gang crisis shaking Sweden
#285Swedish culture still values multiculturalism. And, during my 20 years there, I was never able to convince anyone about the dangers of tolerating intolerance.
When you check demographics’ stats, you realise that these issues will be compounded in the future. It makes me sad.
Re: Gang crisis shaking Sweden
#286[flagged]
Re: Gang crisis shaking Sweden
#287Earlier quoted context omitted.
Europe in general is the backup plan for most immigrants. Our parents preferred immigrating to US, Canada, Australia, or New Zealand instead. You only ended up in Europe if you couldn't end up in those 4. Netherlands and the UK have only started to change in the past 5-10 years. Aside from politics, British Asians honestly aren't that notable in the business space. Most British Asian billionaires tend to be Indian an…
Language. English is greatly preferred as a language these days.
For example, in the 70s-90s Lebanese would have an easy time emigrating to France (and many have) due to French fluency, yet plenty preferred moving to Australia, Canada, or the US instead as there were more opportunities to climb up.
Conversely, there is plenty of Chinese and Indian immigration to Europe, but it tends to be blue collar in origin, as opportunities and social mobility is simply harder in Europe if you're an other.
Take a look at the Arab community in the US versus Germany for example - the American half is heavily Levantine (Palestinian, Jordanian, Syrian, Lebanese) like in Germany, yet better assimilated than the equivalent communities in Germany (even before the civil war). There have been Arab Americans as Governors (Atiyeh, Sununu) and Business Leaders (Maloof, Yagan, Salhany, Halaby), yet not in Germany.
Re: Gang crisis shaking Sweden
#288Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Sweden to (Greece, Denmark, Belgium, Netherlands) have similar immigration patterns without the same violent crime rates. You haven't gone to Brussels I suppose... Especially Molenbeek or Station Zuid. Ps. I'm from Belgium
I stay in that area with friends whenever I visit. It’s completely fine.
- A friend of mine had an escort picking her up at the station from her work.
- My mom + a friend of her felt threatened by a non-native, when taking the train back from the airport. These are retired women and my mom's friend travels 3 x a year everywhere.
She felt the most unsafe here in Brussels and not taking the train again. ( This was after Operation "cleanup")
- Operation cleanup in Brussels South - ( https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/en/2023/08/29/brussels-south-two-d... ) which resulted in 56 arrests and some people on a wanted list ( https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/en/2023/08/28/56-arrested-in-polic... ). Note: this was a criminal cleanup that was mentioned on the media upfront
- 5 younger kids from Brussels raped an ex in Malta ( news update from 16/11/2023) https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/nl/2023/11/16/belgische-jongeren-v...
- News from 2 days ago ( 18/11/2023) The most popular bars ( Delirium, you've probably went ) where 2 female tourists got drugged and raped https://www.hln.be/brussel/elke-keer-ik-wakker-werd-was-mijn...
Plenty of other examples.
Including from people living there or lived there.
https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/en/2022/03/01/molenbeek-police-sta...
Or... it's a coincidence that Abdeslam was from Molenbeek? :) Sure
Re: Gang crisis shaking Sweden
#289Earlier quoted context omitted.
That chart shows a steady rate up to 2005, a decline from 2005-2012 and then a rise back to the previous level between 2012 and 2015, and steady at the previous level since then. The big spike in Syrian immigration started around 2015-2016. Based on these numbers, I’d say these two factors (immigration and murder) appear to be unrelated.
You can't truly say it happened in 2012 because there is noise in the graph. Even when the long term trends are flat it goes up and down. It definitely happened _around_ the mid 2010s. Here is Finland: https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/FIN/finland/murder-hom... And here is Norway: https://www.macrotrends.net/countries/NOR/norway/murder-homi... They do not see this rise.
Finland also has a markedly higher murder rate to start with (for whatever reason), and it absolutely shows a distinct rise in the last few years – much more so than Sweden in fact.
Norway is indeed more stable. However, Norway also accepted significant number of migration. Although it's hard to tell how much exactly because of different definitions, it seems roughly half as much as Sweden (adjusted for population), which is less but not nothing.
And in a quick check Finland has seen even less migration than Norway.
So you will need to explain why Norway sees no rise in spite of migration, and Finland sees a rise in spite of less migration.
And sure, I'm willing to accept that migration is a factor in Sweden. Although I can't tell you how exactly since I'm not familiar enough with the nuances in Sweden. But this "argumentum ad charts" you're making that migration somehow automatically leads to crime is complete bollocks.