In general Swedes do live up to their reputation as being open and tolerant. After all, they let people like me (international students) come and learn for free...at least for this year. There are also a lot of nationalities here in the south of Sweden, particularly in the country's third biggest city, Malmö. I feel like this approach to allowing immigrants has really benefited Sweden and provided them with a rich array of people, cultures and food.
So, today I was walking down the street in Lund with Vik and I wanted to take my camera to the photo shop for them to have a look at it. When we got there it was closed and barricaded with pull down roller guards. It makes good sense to secure your shop at night, after all.
Then I noticed three print-outs along the facade. As you can see in the picture, it says they don't leave valuables in the shop overnight, so thieves please don't bust up our shop for nothing. The thing that caught my eye was of course the word "uwaga," which is "caution" or "attention" in Polish.
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| According to the author of this sign, Polish people are likely to rob their shop. |
Polish however is not a language that is widely spoken here and basically the shop owners have taken the action of fingering Polish people as thieves that are likely to hit up their shop for a easy krona. Not only that, they are illiterate in English and Swedish (unlike all other nationalities) and so they need to be reminded.
It could be that they have been repeatedly robbed by Poles in the past, but I find that to be highly unlikely. Even if it were the case, it is a matter for the police and insurance companies to deal with. Rather, I think someone in the company probably decided that this was a good idea on their own.
Behind the mask of tolerance are the true feelings of the people.
Its not just this person (whoever made this sign) who has demonstrated nationalist stereotyping, and therefore racism, while I've been here. On many occasions, I have had Swedes pull me aside and tell me in low tones about the issues in Malmö with race and ghetto.
There are a lot of Muslim people and other ethnic groups in Malmö that are crammed together in a tight block. They don't seem to integrate from what I've heard and there have been riots and other incidents that have shown how poorly they interact with the locals.
I saw myself when I went to the nice shopping centre (they have everything!) in the immigrant area in Malmö how the people are different. They dress differently to Swedes and they hang out on street corners, a behaviour that is unusual in these parts.
From my own perspective — having seen the immigrant neighbourhood with its restless groups of young men looking for trouble on the street and other examples of ethnic tension like this sign at the photo shop — I can see that Sweden has trouble with immigrants and foreigners.
Its not really surprising because the country lets in so many foreign people, particularly refugees, every year. What Swedes fail to do is talk openly about the problems that this can create. Because of their reputation as a tolerant and open country, there is a taboo in speaking about the issues. Most of the time when you read about issues to do with immigration in the local media they hold their punches and make veiled statements.
What this does is make people angry and they simmer. Like a pressurized vessel, the famous Swedish tolerance for the rapid influx of immigrants who don't integrate and adopt the Swedish way of life seems to have worn thin. People are angry inside about the issue and can't let off steam because they aren't allowed to talk about it.
Of course I can understand why people don't talk openly about issues relating to foreigners, particularly Muslims and refugees in 2010. Just like at home in Australia, if you say anything at all about anything, you are a racist, so you'd better keep your mouth shut, even if you just want to see the problem solved and have no problem with the people involved.
I wonder if this feeling that I have felt in the locals is an explanation of how the far right party actually made it into the parliament? Perhaps it is a manifestation of the feeling that enough is enough and now people want to talk about it.
I think it is a pretty accurate description of how they got in. Far-right parties that convey anti-immigrant sentiment are gaining traction in many countries throughout Europe, my country The Netherlands included.
ReplyDeleteOne notable exception is the UK. In general, non-mainstream parties there have a hard time making it into parliament because of the disctrict voting system. But also, the fact that there are these screamish tabloids that report on immigrant problems obligate mainstream politicians to speak out against immigrants, albeit in more diplomatic terms. This is totally absent in Sweden, where everyone is trying harder than the other to be politically correct.
One last thing about stereotypes. It's pretty natural to have them, but you might not be willing to admit that in public. But there's also something beyond the stereotypes that you hold of which you might not be conscious of. Consider this: "Here is a simple study. This is the sort of study that you might do here at Yale. What you might do, for instance, is be sitting at a computer screen and you'll be given incomplete words to fill out like "hos-" and you have to fill out this word. What you don't know is that pictures of black faces or pictures of white faces are being flashed on the screen but they're being flashed on the screen subliminally so fast you don't even know you're seeing them. Still this has an effect. When you see black faces subjects are more likely to fill this with words like "hostile" while whites more likely to fill it with words like "hospital."" It's an excerpt from a class at Yale University in introduction to psychology. Find the complete transcript here: http://oyc.yale.edu/yale/psychology/introduction-to-psychology/content/transcripts/transcript17.html
I have a feeling that's it not just Americans who are prone to this, but Swedes as well.
The Ms are a big headache here as well..they dont integrate and they create trouble...thanks to ppl like them, me as a foreigner in this country got classified together with them...to top it off...we have the Bs as well...they are trouble makers and violent....and i used to think that the aborigines are bad... the Ms and Bs never try to improve their image either, so, where ever they go, they just play the 'racist' and ' discrimination' card....
ReplyDeleteyou can call me a racist, bigot or ignorant but i learnt that if these ppl dont help themselves, no one would... and crossing path with these ppl means trouble.
-Lesbo
Formula:
ReplyDeleteXenophobia in a normally tolerant society tends to infinity as public discussions of important issues including the integration of ethnic minorities tends to zero.