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How is your part of the world doing?
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this post was submitted on 13 Oct 2023
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I guess I might be a bit late, but I'll write a few lines anyway.
I'm in Sweden. There is a lot of shootings, bombings and arsons in Stockholm and the areas around it. We've honestly never seen anything like it, at this point I'm just surprised it hasn't really been happening in the other major cities.
The city where I live has a fucked budget, the municipality is cutting the budget of schools, health care and in other sectors.
For me personally it's okay. I live in a calm area, I can work from home when I want to. Economically I'm not super solid, but I can put away a little bit of cash every month.
Not late at all. I find everyone's response very interesting. I am curious, the nordic seems to be often held up and the proof of socialists democracy. Do you feel the fundamental system is still working? Is this just a moment of difficulty or is it larger?
Thanks for a great question, really made me think.
So, I am a firm believer in social democracy. The problem as I see it is that there's been a mix of social democracy and libertarianism. We have in many cases sold public companies and spaces to private actors, but we still maintain our high tax rates. We have used the "new public management" for quite a while now, maybe since the 90s, which seems to limit our ability to plan ahead and only look to the next quarter.
I also believe we have dropped the ball on integration. We have received many refugees and migrants, but without a plan. This has led to increased segregation and less trust towards government and agencies.
I do think it's fixable, in most ways Sweden is great and I'm proud to be a part of it. But we have a lot of challenges both national and international. The EU for example looks weaker when we need to be stronger and working together. We also obviously need to get a handle on this recent wave of shootings and murder. After that integration really needs to be the focus.
And thanks for your great reply. I really find this fascinating. I am glad you think it is fixable, hopefully it will turn around here soon without too much pain. If you will permit me one more question. What does integration mean to you? Like do they need to become more Swedish, do the Swedes need to just their culture to accommodate the immigrants. Or more of a live and let live thing where you can be neighbors but not really integrate. As far as I know immigration is always a net positive for a society, but that doesn't make it easy.
It's a really delicate question.
I think the major failings have been that we have allowed a large part of the immigrants to move into neighborhoods with exclusively other immigrants, thus not being exposed to Swedish culture or values. This ties in with learning Swedish, which obviously is central to integration. This has become a vicious circle where entire suburbs can consist of immigrants. An example is where teachers in kindergarten speak poor Swedish and the kids also have poor Swedish. In many cases they don't share a mother tounge and the result isn't great. I get that you want to live with other people who speak your language, but the divide is too big in my opinion.
Then there's the discussion about cultural values which I don't think I know enough about to speak much about. But we can see that there are several groups that don't want to be a real part of society, and that's clearly a problem.
Thank you so much for your thoughtful replies. I could ask your questions about this till you run away, but I will leave it for now.
Let me just leave you with this though. Looking at other counties that have a longer history of large immigration. It seems to take 2 to 3 generations for immigrants to feel native. Maybe a little unconditional acceptance and patience will help this along.
I hope the best for you and your country.
Thank you!
We have several groups who have assimilated: Iranians, Finns, Baltics. Thank you for the hopeful words :)