
Carl Bildt: The truth about refugees in Sweden - imartin2k
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2017/02/24/the-truth-about-refugees-in-sweden/?utm_term=.eff3b1b79791
======
redsummer
Asylum seekers are now 2-3% is Swedens population. If the US did the same
thing that would mean 10 million people. (Israel, next door, has taken in
zero)

The people coming in now are completely different from Balkan refugees,
Persians and Lebanese. In the case of the Balkan refugees, they were European.
And the Persians were fleeing from an Islamic theocracy - they didn't share
their values. Ironically, it was a women of Christian Lebanese descent who was
murdered by these new arrivals:
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Alexandra_Mezher](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Alexandra_Mezher)

Bildt mentions Spotify and Minecraft, but the new arrivals are making a
different use of modern technology:
[http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/sweden-facebook-
gang...](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/sweden-facebook-gang-rape-
live-streamed-men-court-a7548371.html)

Carl Bildt has his head in the sand. Look at these most-wanted pictures from
Sweden and Denmark:
[https://www.interpol.int/notice/search/wanted/(RequestingCou...](https://www.interpol.int/notice/search/wanted/\(RequestingCountry\)/290/\(current_age_maxi\)/100/\(search\)/1)

[https://www.interpol.int/notice/search/wanted/(RequestingCou...](https://www.interpol.int/notice/search/wanted/\(RequestingCountry\)/157/\(current_age_maxi\)/100/\(search\)/1)

Try not to notice any patterns, since that would be crimethink.

~~~
tobltobs
What pattern special to Sweden or Denmark do you see in your Interpol links?

~~~
BrandoElFollito
I do not believe they are specific to these countries. I had a look at France
(where I am from) and that are no Jean-Marc Duponts.

This is a metric like others, with its shortcomings but it has its use. I
would be honestly delighted to see a competitive one about, say, volunteering
in pediatric hospitals showing that there are no Jean-Marcs but rather plenty
of Mohameds. The positive metrics, so to speak. One which is neutral (do not
volunteering in the streets for instance whet you need to be "alike" in order
to be accepted) but something truly showing integration. I do volunteer work
and, sadly, do not see such trend.

~~~
redsummer
Mono-ethnic modern states have high levels of altruism and 'civil society' \-
Japan, Finland etc. Multi-cultural societies don't since there is less trust
and more us-vs-them mentality.

------
pavlov
Americans pointing fingers at Sweden is bizarre in light of any actual data
because Sweden is a very successful society in terms of economy, crime rate
etc. ("Sure, we have a beam in our eye, but did you hear what happened last
night to the guy with the mote in his eye...")

I get the impression that Sweden is a favorite target of the alt-right because
it's a formerly homogenous white and culturally monolithic country, the kind
that white nationalists see as an ideal. Now that Sweden has a major refugee
population, they await its impending collapse (despite any economic evidence
so far).

~~~
bordercases
I doubt that there would be a catastrophic collapse in any sort but instead a
gradual boiling that we don't identify because we refuse to thoroughly look,
where it either spirals into a harsh, violent reaction on behalf of the
population or a shift in demographics that's only noticeable ten years later
and then we wonder where all the blondes went. Sex crime is intertwined with
shame, more so when race is involved. The UK had a pedophilia scandal stewing
for years: [https://www.amazon.com/Easy-Meat-Britains-Grooming-
Scandal/d...](https://www.amazon.com/Easy-Meat-Britains-Grooming-
Scandal/dp/1943003068/)

------
redsummer
People might wonder why Swedish politicians produce these absurd head-in-the-
sand articles, but the truth is that Sweden has an extremely conformist
political culture.

Recently an artist was imprisoned for 6 months and had some of his artwork
destroyed for going against this groupthink:
[http://www.thelocal.se/20140821/swedish-artist-jailed-for-
ra...](http://www.thelocal.se/20140821/swedish-artist-jailed-for-race-hate-
pictures)

There are plenty of groups whose job it is to make sure you lose your job if
you don't go along with the orthodoxy :
[https://www.vice.com/en_au/article/the-rise-of-swedens-
far-l...](https://www.vice.com/en_au/article/the-rise-of-swedens-far-left-
militants)

------
Yetanfou
It is almost as if the presence of the word 'truth' in a political context has
the same value as the presence of the term 'democratic' in the name of a
country - Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea, German Democratic Republic,
etc.

Which is a shame as it is possible to say a few things which have the ring of
truth about them concerning the 'migrant crisis' in Sweden. Instead of writing
a long diatribe I'll just link to a video made by someone calling himself 'an
angry foreigner' ('en arg blatte' in Swedish, the last word is a derogative
term for foreigner) someone who came to Sweden in one of the previous waves of
refugees during the Balkan wars.

[https://youtu.be/y1_viPSD-bY](https://youtu.be/y1_viPSD-bY)

~~~
candiodari
You could just use the words "democrat" and "republican". It's funny when you
think 5 seconds about what those words mean.

The democrats are about as interested in what the people would decide as the
republicans are in letting every state do things for themselves.

------
belorn
Its seems a bit political that the total number of Syrian refugees are not
mentioned in the article to contrast with the total number of Balkan refuges
(and, to be even more fair in comparing numbers, we might include people from
neighboring countries to get a similar land size.)

In my rough understanding, we talking about 100,000 refugees from the Balkans
that came between 1991 and 2001 vs around 300,000 refugees from Syrian and
neighboring countries for the time period 2011->2016.

~~~
candiodari
On the contrary, he is probably quite aware. Immigration's advantages already
come with tiny numbers of immigrants, whereas most problems caused by
immigration get caused by large sudden influxes of immigrants.

So he's taking a tiny bit of immigration to illustrate that an influx at over
6 times won't generate any problems (I think you underestimate the difference.
It's actually about 10x)

------
dimman
I think the hypocrisy reaches its climax when Mr Trump talks about fighting
the fake news, yet uses a story from Fox News as his source in one of his
speeches.

He makes our (Swedens) prime minister look like a pro.

~~~
megapatch
Swedens prime minister is in fact a professional (he is getting paid for what
he does). But when it comes to "pro" in the sense of "knowing what they are
doing", Trump makes everybody look like a pro, compared to himself.

~~~
leereeves
Trump does seem like a fool, and yet he won the election despite the RNC,
Hillary (who outspent him 2 to 1), and a hostile media.

~~~
bediger4000
I'm honestly not sure why you write "hostile media". Anecdotally, and
empirically, Trump got huge mentions and proportion of news time from all the
media entities. Sure, some was unfavorable, but on balance, he came out way
ahead.

~~~
leereeves
I'd say most of the coverage was negative, the kind of scandals that have
brought down many other candidates.

Somehow, in Trump's case, there was no such thing as bad publicity.

~~~
bediger4000
I'd say most of Trump's coverage was pretty positive, despite him undeniably
getting involved in scandals that would have brought down any other candidate.
The disabled reporter mockery alone would have torpedoed every other
candidate.

Somehow, in Trump's case, the media was able to find a false equivalent in
some other candidate every single time.

------
sorokod
That Fox News's 'Swedish defence advisor' is also named Bildt must be
completely coincidental.

[https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/26/fox-news-
nils-...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/26/fox-news-nils-bildt-
swedish-defence-advisor-unknown-to-countrys-military-officials)

------
tobltobs
"I suspect that his [President Trump] actual knowledge of the issue is
extremely limited. If it were not for the massive turmoil that could ensue, I
would urge him to skip one of his golfing weekends and come to us and see for
himself."

------
tomjen3
Yet almost every weekend somebody is getting shot in Malmø, in one area of the
city the police gets rocks thrown at them by organized groups of youth when
they show up.

~~~
pg314
According to this Infowars article [1] (not the most unbiased source, but if
they fudge their numbers I would expect them to exagerate) there were 11
murders in Malmø in 2016. For a city of almost 300,000 people that is about
3.7 murders per 100,000 people. As a point of reference, in 2016, NYC had a
homicide rate of 3.91, LA 7.25, Chicago 28.0 per 100,000 [2]. Those are big
cities, so one would expect the crime rate to be higher.

Anyway, your statement that almost every weekend somebody is shot in Malmø was
incorrect for 2016.

[1] [http://www.infowars.com/culturally-enriched-malmo-sweden-
is-...](http://www.infowars.com/culturally-enriched-malmo-sweden-is-the-most-
dangerous-city-in-western-europe/)

[2] [http://www.newsday.com/news/new-york/nyc-homicide-stats-
comp...](http://www.newsday.com/news/new-york/nyc-homicide-stats-comparable-
to-60s-other-crimes-down-as-well-1.12858407)

~~~
Yetanfou
It is better to compare the murder rate in Malmö to that in Copenhagen, the
'city across the bridge' in Denmark, as both used to share the same
"Scandinavian" culture. For those who do not know, Copenhagen is about three
times the size of Malmö, the two cities are connected together by a bridge
over the 'Öresund' (called the 'Öresund bridge'). Copenhagen has a much lower
crime rate than Malmö and - related - a much lower murder rate. The numbers
are [1 - Swedish article]:

    
    
       City       Murder rate
    
       Malmö      3.4
       Paris      1.8
       London     1.3
       Copenhagen 1.1
       Berlin     1.0
    

The comparison with Chicago is clearly off, but that goes for more or less all
of Europe. The highest murder rate in Europe is to be found in Tirana, the
capital of Albania, with 6.7 murders per 100.000. The highest in the world
seems to be found in Caracas, Venezuela, at 120 murders per 100.000.

So Malmö is no Chicago and Europe is no United States of America. But, also,
Malmö is no Scandinavia.

~~~
pg314
Thanks for the extra statistics. Can you add a link to the article? It seems
to be missing...

~~~
Yetanfou
Yes, I forgot the add the link - that's what you get when you reply to stuff
while waiting for the welder to cool down so I can use it again... Here it is:

[1] [http://www.friatider.se/malm-farligast-i-
norden](http://www.friatider.se/malm-farligast-i-norden)

