Swedish "No Go Zone"

 

Credit: Calle Eklund/V-wolf

Previously posted on January 29, 2022

"Riskområde: Tjärna Ängar" is a Swedish documentary recently aired on SVT, the Swedish public service TV network. It´s only available in Swedish. Tjärna Ängar is a neighborhood in Borlänge (in the county of Dalarna or Dalecarlia). Most of the inhabitants are immigrants, and half of those are from Somalia. Swedes have nicknamed the neighborhood "Little Mogadishu". Tjärna Ängar is officially on the Swedish government´s list of areas with dangerous social problems (really a euphemism for No Go Zones). These are heavily immigrant neighborhoods with high rates of crime, unemployment and welfare dependency. For some reason, Tjärna Ängar is often mentioned in Swedish media, perhaps because it´s the northernmost of the problem areas (it´s actually in central Sweden). There doesn´t seem to be anything particularly unusual with this particular barrio compared to all the others.

Officially, the population of Tjärna Ängar is 3,500. The houses are built for 5,000 people. However, many suspect that the actual population is around 10,000. The documentary doesn´t explain who these additional people might be. Illegal aliens? Unregistered children, or what? The camera crew is threatened by stone-throwing masked criminals who (bizarrely) demand that the TV documentary must "concentrate on the positive things" in the neighborhood. A local Somali association refuse to participate in the documentary after realizing that it will be critical. At one point, the reporters interview a group of young drug dealers who spout politically correct rhetoric, as if they were left-wing activists! Meanwhile, 49% of all elementary school children fail to qualify for senior high school. Kids in the area tell stories of shootings and other disturbances. 

The reporters interview Mursal Isa, a Somali immigrant who represents the Green Party on a regional government committee. Isa was threatened by criminal gangs from Tjärna Ängar for wanting to speak to SVT. He believes that the failure of integration in the neighborhood is to a large extent caused by the Somali community itself (hardly the official Green Party position). When new Somali immigrants arrive at Tjärna Ängar, the local ethnic networks tell them three things: it´s pointless to learn the Swedish language, it´s not worth the effort to seek employment, and everyone who reports local crime to the police risks being attacked by the criminals (hint hint nudge nudge). Isa believes that the immigrant associations in the neighborhood, which get enormous public grants, form a kind of elite group and do very little to actually solve the social problems. (One of the Somali associations teach Quran classes. I´m sure this aids the integration process.) 

Foreign students who study at the Dalarna University have been placed at Tjärna Ängar. Their house has been burglarized several times. When the students complained about the high rate of criminality to the student union, and the union supported them, the union was (surprise) accused of "racism" by the Somali associations. But who are these foreign students? They turn out to be...Black Africans! The irony is palpable. Perhaps the real racists are the politically correct bureaucrats who decided to place Third World students in a "Third World" barrio?

The documentary is concluded by an interview with Borlänge´s long-time mayor Jan Bohman (Social Democrat). He mentions all the programs the local government has initiated to help Tjärna Ängar. They aren´t working and Bohman has no real answers, except that the politicians simply have to stay the course. For instance, he promises an upgrade of the old houses in the neighborhood. I admit that I feel sorry for him - he looks like a typical Swedish local politician who is trying to administer the crisis as best as he can. Bohman at one point says that welfare payments should be the responsibility of the national government. He does have a certain point. And while the alcalde can´t say it, the problems are *created* at the national level, including the Social Democratic Party (which is currently in government). 

Here is a heretical thought: what if the overwhelming majority of Somalis *actually don´t want to be integrated into Swedish society*? Why *should they* want to be integrated? Isn´t this just a smug liberal myth, that everyone in the world wants to be like "us", meaning the modern-liberal Western middle class? 

Another thought: why was this "racist" program aired on Swedish public service TV? Managed dissent? 

With that, I leave you for now.  

Begging the Question

 

Previously posted on January 12, 2019. 

“Varför tigger romer?” (Why do the Roma beg?) is a controversial book by Stanislav Emirov, a priest in the Calvinist Church in Sweden. Roma or Romani people is the “official” designation of the ethnic group (or perhaps cluster of groups) popularly known as Gypsies. Many Gypsies from Romania and Bulgaria regularly travel to Sweden in order to beg in the streets and on the commuter trains. Most are strictly speaking illegal aliens, but the police do nothing since the Swedish establishment doesn´t care. Emirov has interviewed beggars, former beggars, and Roma activists in an attempt to understand the underlying problems. His book contains material from several European nations, although the emphasis is on Sweden.

The book feels disjointed and contradictory, more like a draft than a finished product. It´s peculiar in some ways. Emirov claims that the Calvinist Church has a special “team” aiding beggars in Stockholm, but their aid is never specified. Instead I get the impression that they served as the author´s intelligence operatives, mapping the beggar underworld. Emirov does come across as very critical, even hostile, to Gypsy culture which raises the question why the Roma wanted to talk to him (and his team) at all? Perhaps the author became progressively more skeptical to the Gypsies during his travels around Europe. “Varför tigger romer?” has been loudly denounced as “anti-ziganist” (i.e. anti-Gypsy) in the left-leaning parts of the Swedish media, while conservative daily Svenska Dagbladet has given it positive coverage.

Most controversially, Emirov reaches the conclusion that the Roma beg because they are Roma. Begging is one of the traditional Roma “trades”, and is always an option for any Roma who can´t get enough income from some other source. While begging is of course connected to poverty in most cases, other poor groups don´t beg, which to Emirov indicates that begging among the Roma is a culturally conditioned response to destitution. The fact that some Roma are rich but beg anyway also points to a cultural component. Emirov further argues that the Gypsies actually prefer poverty to assimilation. They obviously don´t *want* to be poor, but their hostility and paranoia towards majority society forces them to separate from it, both physically and mentally. To many Gypsies, any form of integration into, or accommodation with, non-Gypsy society is really assimilation and hence unclean by definition. Today, this separatist strategy has become dysfunctional: traditional Gypsy trades such as entertainment, peddling, horse-trading and certain handicrafts have either disappeared or been taken over by non-Gypsies. This forces separatist Gypsies to take up begging and other kinds of criminal activity.

But what should be done about the problem? Emirov advances several different perspectives on the problem of Roma begging, and these are not easily reconciled. When at his best libertarian-capitalist mood, Emirov proposes that begging is a trade like any other. Indeed, begging can be seen as a rational choice for some people. It can be compared to charities asking (begging!) people for a donation. The beggar simply eliminates the charitable institution as a middle-man, taking money directly from citizens in the street. This is also good for the giver, who thus gets some kind of choice in the matter of whom she should give to. Logically, Emirov should therefore call for the wholesale legalization of begging. However, he rather proposes that begging should be regulated by the state according to a quota system and that all beggars be forced to buy a license. The police will make sure that the regulations are followed by more frequent controls. The explicit purpose is to discourage Gypsies (who hate being regulated and registered) from begging, or entering the country at all. Emirov calls this the “nice way” in contrast to the “hard way”, which entails border controls of a more classical type.

However, in a later section, the author also proposes what he calls “the only right way”. This turns out to be a very peculiar “Austro-Marxist” proposal to give the Romani people status as an extra-territorial or non-territorial member-state of the European Union. All Roma (and presumably similar groups) around Europe should become “citizens” of this extra-territorial state, which would have representatives at different levels of the EU hierarchy. In this way, Emirov believes, the Gypsies will gradually become more positive towards the idea of integration. I consider this proposal to be unrealistic in the extreme, but above all, it´s faulty even on the basis of the author´s own premises. Thus, Emirov believes that Romanians and Bulgarians will remain racist towards the Gypsies for the foreseeable future. But if so, why should Romania and Bulgaria accept a non-territorial Gypsy political entity supported by Brussels on their territories? Further, Emirov claims that the only way to stop Gypsy begging without repression is to give them ample welfare payments. Apparently, 80% of all able-bodied Gypsies in Sweden are unemployed and hence live off the tax-payer. If so, the only way to stop Gypsies from the Balkans to beg, in Sweden or elsewhere, is to give *them* generous welfare payments, too. But what makes Emirov think that European tax-payers will accept such a solution? There are literally millions of Romani in Europe, and the Balkan republics are hardly the only places where you can find anti-ziganism.

The Gypsy cultural autonomy proposed by the author would simply become an enormous drain on the EU resources – or so it will seem to many EU citizens. The final objection is that even such an autonomous organization would probably be seen by the Roma themselves as a form of assimilation (perhaps the subtlest one yet). The initiative to form it, after all, comes from the unclean EU. It´s integrated into the EU´s structures. And Emirov says himself that “integration” is the ultimate goal, and on his own premises, this will be interpreted as racist “assimilation” by those whom it chiefly concern. Emirov´s liberal “pro-ziganist” opponents also have a problem, however. They really are integrationist, and have attacked “Varför tigger romer?” precisely for its “separatist” tendencies. I happen to agree with Emirov that opposition to majority society is strong among many Gypsies, guaranteeing that only small elite groups willing to interact with mainstream society will be attracted to the liberal perspective. I almost suspect that the welfare money is a way of hiding the fact that most Roma are still fundamentally Roma (for good or for worse).

As for Emirov, he closes his book by describing Moldova and Russia. Moldova is the only nation in Europe where the Romani population *does* intermarry to a relatively large degree with the majority, but the author sees this as a situation unlikely to be introduced anywhere else. In Russia, there is a truce or modus vivendi between Gypsies and Russians, the latter having a romantic picture of the former, something the former use to their advantage. Here the book ends, with the somewhat counter-intuitive statement that Putin´s Russia of all places might be the best place for the Romani people.

Despite everything, “Varför tigger romer?” is an interesting work, if seen as the journalistic report of one man. It does give a sneak peek into the world of beggars (including non-Gypsy ones). That being said, some of the author´s interpretations of Romani culture strike me as weird on the face of it (and I´m certainly no expert). Thus, why does Emirov constantly claim that Gypsies “can´t plan ahead”, “live from day to day”, and so on. His own book proves that those who beg *do* organize their work well in advance – as well they might. How else are they able to compete with all the non-Gypsy beggars? The same with those who form Gypsy associations in order to receive grant money from the state, and so on. Since Gypsies don’t like the prying eyes of unclean gadjos, has it never struck Emirov that the fatalistic and indifferent attitude towards life espoused by many of his interviewees is really a trick to make him, the annoying Calvinist busy-body, loose interest and go away? 

I´m also surprised by the author´s claim that most Gypsies lack a religion! If so, they would be the only people (before the modern era) to do so, a sensational claim that surely calls for a more extensive discussion. My guess is that Emirov construes “religion” and “supernatural” very narrowly. I´ve been informed by a Catholic priest from Slovakia that while most Gypsies are indeed indifferent to the central tenets of Catholicism (except baptism), they do believe in curses and look upon the priest with considerable awe, in the belief that “rasha” is a conduit of supernatural power. Why isn´t this a kind of religion, I wonder?

With these, perhaps somewhat disjointed remarks, I close my review of “Varför tigger romer?”.

In the land of the bajariye

 

Previously posted on August 26, 2018. 

“North to Another Country” by Ulf Björklund is an anthropological study of the Assyrian-Syriac immigrant community in the Swedish town of Södertälje, just south of Stockholm. The book was published in 1980. Still today, Assyrians (the term used by the author) are a highly visible immigrant group in that town. The book contains both general information on Assyrian history, and more specific information on the 1970's immigration of the Suryoyo (Syriac Christians from Tur Abdin in Turkey) to Sweden. Both the reactions of the authorities, those of the general Swedish populace, and those of the Suryoyo themselves are described. With the exception of an incredible complex chapter on various Suryoye lineages, the book is surprisingly free from high-brow scholarly theory, and can therefore be perused with ease by the general reader.

While Björklund's sympathies seem to lie with the Assyrians, none of the actors emerge completely unscathed from his study. The Swedish authorities come across as incomprehensible, first attempting to stop Assyrian immigration altogether, but then extending a very friendly welcome once they had been given the status of “B-refugees”. Of course, the Swedish welcome came in the form of social workers, family pedagogues, language teachers and bureaucrats. While talking about “pluralism”, they also wanted to socially engineer the Assyrians to fit the mould of the Swedish welfare state. Another contradiction: despite this warm welcome, the Swedish authorities often attempted to stop Assyrians from moving to Södertälje, since their numbers there were considered too high. (Much housing in Sweden is publicly or cooperatively owned, making it possible to some extent to control migration within the country. The welfare system could also be used for this purpose.) Björklund makes the interesting observation that the pluralist idea of preserving the culture of the Assyrians is really a *Swedish* angle on the problem, which often led to severe conflicts within the Assyrian immigrant community when “ethnic” organizations recognized by the Swedish authorities should be formed. Perhaps the Suryoyo community didn't acquire a “real” ethnic identity until they reached Sweden?

In contrast to the authorities, ordinary Swedes were more forthrightly negative to the new-comers. During the 1970's, Södertälje was a stronghold of the “raggare” subculture, today often considered a comic anachronism, but regarded as a public nuisance at the time. Björklund's book starts with a tabloid headline referring to the “first race riot in Sweden”, between raggare and Assyrians in 1977. More regular Swedish Joes didn't like the Assyrians either. They often referred to them as “Turks”, believed that all of them were welfare cheats, and spun urban legends about what kind of welfare payments they received. Huge Assyrian purchases of fruit at a local market gave rise to the rumour that the Assyrians were receiving “fruit payments” from the local authorities!

However, it also turns out that the Assyrians themselves had pretty wild expectations of Sweden. Many really did expect free housing and large handouts. A popular urban legend in the Assyrian community claimed that the money paid to Assyrian immigrants weren't really Swedish tax money, but came from the World Council of Churches in Geneva. Sweden supposedly confiscated most of the money, thus cheating the Assyrians of their fair share. Therefore, Assyrians could be on public welfare without incurring a sense of shame (“shame” and “honour” being important in their community). They were simply taking back money that rightfully belonged to them. It's not entirely clear from Björklund's narrative whether the Suryoyo community in Södertälje *really* believed this, or whether it was a kind of “white lie” to avoid being shamed, perhaps by other Assyrian communities?

The author also mentions other clashes between Swedish and Assyrian values, such as the liberal Swedish attitude to sex, different senses of propriety (Swedes – paradoxically – being more prudent in public), the positive Assyrian attitude towards child labour and early marriage, etc. The Assyrians were also intrigued by the large amount of Tayye (Muslims) being allowed into the “Christian” country of Sweden. In general, Assyrians regarded Swedes as extreme “bajariye”. The term “bajari” is apparently difficult to translate, but in this context means something like “impure” or “immoral”.

A follow up study might be interesting…

Five stars.

Det skaver

Credit: Vinterfrid

Intressant analys om konflikten mellan Hooja och Aftonbladet. Misstänkte väl att det var något sådant. Tydligen inget fel på mitt väderkorn, alltså!

Hooja och ideologins vakthundar

How pluralist is pluralism?

 

Some reflections on pluralism…

There seem to be two main versions of religious pluralism. We could perhaps call them “moderate” and “radical”. I suppose it could be seen as ironic that there is a plurality of pluralisms!

Moderate pluralism, often associated in Christian circles with John Hick, is the idea that all/most/many religions are true since they lead to the same goal. In other words, even religions that are very different in theology and practice (such as Christianity and Mahayana Buddhism) point towards the same god or divine reality. With all due respect to Hick, I think many would attribute this position to Swami Vivekananda. And precisely therein lies the problem, at least as far as many Christians are concerned. Vivekananda believed that the ultimate divine reality towards all religions are striving is Nirguna Brahman. But Nirguna Brahman is a distinctly *Hindu* theological concept. Indeed, Vivekananda might have subtly revised it, making the ultimate reality *his* concept of the Nirguna Brahman! But how is this “pluralist”? Isn´t it really a form of Advaita Vedanta Inclusivism? Inclusivism is the theological position that although only one religion (your own) is true, people can get saved through other religions as well, but only because your god chose to arrange salvation that way. Within Christianity, this may be the official position of the post-Vatican II Catholic Church and is also found in the writings and novels of C S Lewis. Isn´t Vivekananda simply preaching a Reform Hindu version of the same thing? (His book “Raja Yoga” could be given an even more narrow interpretation, with Raja Yoga being the supreme path, and all other paths being lower, although perhaps necessary for beginners.) As for Hick, he clearly revised traditional Christian theology (including Christology) to harmonize Christianity with other religions, which may not accept the Trinity or Jesus as the Son of God, but this simply confirmed to his more conservative critics that he was indeed adapting himself to alien creeds…

But what about radical pluralism? That´s the idea that all/most/many religions are true despite the fact that they have strikingly different goals. This position is also (!) associated with Vivekananda, but is perhaps more similar to that of his teacher, Ramakrishna. All religions are true since whatever salvific goal they seek will be accomplished (except, of course, at the expense of any other religion). But even this could be criticized as just another form of Inclusivism. Ramakrishna believed that the Ultimate Divine Reality was Shakti, a cosmic energy or force that can take many different forms. Indeed, Shakti can out of grace take exactly the form religious devotees expect. The implication is that even entirely new religions worshipping fictitious gods could be “true”, since Shakti simply takes their forms! (I´m not sure if Ramakrishna explicitly drew this conclusion, however.) In Hinduism, Shakti is personified as a goddess, and Ramakrishna did indeed worship Her in one of Her personified forms: Kali. Thus, Ramakrishna´s radical pluralism turns out to be the idea that *his* god-concept (or goddess-concept) is the ultimate one, and subsumes all other. A form of Shakta Inclusivism, in other words. No form of pluralism seems to be truly pluralist.

What´s my take on this? For one, I don´t really care. What makes pluralism vulnerable to the criticism that it´s really Inclusivism (and perhaps that Inclusivism is really a form of Exclusivism since, of course, it excludes such people) is that pluralism is usually put forward as a liberal, tolerant doctrine. For example, Hick was an anti-racist/anti-fascist/pro-immigration activist in his native Britain. Thus, critics can shame pluralism for not being really pluralist, or for being intolerant to Christianity (be it Inclusivist or Exclusivist). Personally, I don´t really care about this aspect of the equation. Pluralism could be true even if it isn´t “really” pluralism, after all. In other words, Ramakrishna or Vivekananda (as interpreted above) could be right! Besides, conservative forms of pluralism also exist, for instance the version proposed by Frithjof Schuon (which I suppose is “really” also Inclusivist – we could jokingly call it Schuonian Traditionalist Inclusivism).  

Second, there is another distinct possibility: that the correct position to take is something we could call “agnostic pluralism”. That is, while spiritual reality looks pluralist, it might not actually *be* pluralist. Maybe we simply lack the spiritual “sixth sense” to see Divine Reality as it actually looks like. For all we know, it could be very exclusivist indeed. Or even more pluralist?

With that, I end my little reflections.

Vårt vänsterblivna predikament

 

Inte vänsterliberal

Det måste vara svårt att vara vänsterliberal. Först ska man stödja muslimernas rätt att bära slöja i Sverige. Och sätta slöjan på småbarn. Sedan ska man stödja protester i Iran mot slöjtvång på kvinnor. Och indirekt mot den islamiska regimen i landet. Och efter det ska alla ha regnbågsfärgade armbindlar under fotbolls-VM i Qatar. För att stödja HBT-rättigheter i detta muslimska land, där det tydligen är förbjudet enligt sharia.

Och sedan ska man fördöma bränningar av Koranen, alltså den religiösa skrift som används för att motivera just slöjtvånget och förbudet mot homosexualitet. Och man ska fördöma denna ”skändning” för att *konservativa* muslimer i x antal länder kräver att vi ska göra det?! Annars får vi typ inte gå med i NATO, och svenska kapitalister kan inte göra affärer i Irak.

Som sagt, det kan inte vara lätt att vara vänsterliberal.

Och det kommer att bli ännu svårare i framtiden, vänta ni bara.

Inga skurkstater i NATO

Sultan Erdogan I 

Turkiet - den internationella skurkstaten? Vilken är den lagliga grunden för att *Turkiet* vill gripa någon för koranbränningar *i Sverige*? 

Det här landet blockerar alltså Sveriges NATO-ansökan och vill bli medlemmar i EU (där det potentiellt kan kontrollera EU-parlamentet via allianser med nyttiga idioter). 

Suspendera Turkiet från NATO. Do it now!

"Turkiet vill gripa Paludan"

Saddam, kom tillbaka, allt är förlåtet

 

Shia-muslimerna och kurderna verkar ovanligt otacksamma för att vi (västvärlden) hjälpte dem att störta Saddam Hussein. Andra gången.

Vi kanske borde ha gjort som första gången...

Dra in det svenska biståndet också. Och blockera deras mobiler!

Will the other primates please stand up?

 

Credit: Rursus

Please indicate the presence of "other primates" on this chart. I´m waiting. 

Darwinist howler monkeys

 

Not a howler monkey!
Credit: psrdotcom

25 years ago, Darwinist nerds would sperge on and on about humans *not* being descended from apes, but from "other primates" (whatever that means). This apparently intended as some kind of polemic against creationism.

And, of course, the nerds were full of shit. In reality, humans *are* apes (well, on one definition anyway), they are certainly descended from apes, and "cladistically" both apes and humans are, ahem, monkeys?! This according to all-knowing Wikipedia. 

Therefore God. Or at least Monkey-God! In the unlikely case anybody is interested:

Ape