Building bombings and 14-year-old hitmen: Organized crime overwhelms Sweden
Building bombings and 14-year-old hitmen: Organized crime overwhelms Sweden
Power struggles between Swedish mafia clans make the Scandinavian country one of the most violent in Europe
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I asked Finnish colleagues what they thought of the situation in Sweden - and not just the latest events, but how the country has turned evermore violent and dangerous for the past 20 years. They told me quite unapologetically: "Well, the Swedes opened their borders wide to all kinds of people from wildly different cultural backgrounds coming from really troubled countries and the Finns haven't. Now they have the problems those people brought with them and we don't."
I'm starting to think there's some truth to this. But as a foreigner, whenever I go to Finland, the reverse - the lack of cultural diversity, the sea of whiteness and the absolute lack of non-Finnish-sounding names - is equally unsettling, rather stifling and feels genuinely bizarre sometimes.
I guess you can't have the best of both worlds...
Which is kind of hilarious since Finland has a much higher murder rate than Sweden.
"Much" higher is stretching it. According to Wikipedia, Sweden has a homicide rate of 1.1 per 100,000 in vs 1.2 for Finland.
Meaning it would just take a couple of drunken Swedes with a fruit knife to put Sweden ahead.
Sweden has a homicide rate of 1.2 per 100,000 in vs 1.1 for Finland.
Sweden has 1.1 and Finland 1.2
Yeah, the other way round 🙂 Fixed. Thanks!
"Much higher"
Notably, the murder rate in Sweeden and Finland is a full third below the lowest state in the US. And the US average is about 5 per 100k.https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_intentional_homicide_rate
...not for long if things keep going at this rate. In just a few years we've skyrocketed from having amongst the least violent crime in Europe to being up there with the Balkan countries - and it just keeps getting worse for every year.
I guess you can’t have the best of both worlds
Of course you can, you just have to not maintain an exclusive society, because an exclusive society depends on excluding others, and when the "others" can't be excluded anymore, that's when the full blown racism kicks in. Knowing that people see racism as some inevitability rather than a deliberate system of oppression created and imposed by individuals who benefit from its existence (if to varying degrees) is pretty fucking terrifying.
The idea that there was no crime before immigration, or that the Finns (or Nordic people in general, who all maintain a similar society and are facing similar issues with racism now that they can't maintain their white supremacist exclusivity anymore) are innocent little lambs who have never committed a crime before the brown people arrived is not only absurd, it's pretty racist and disgusting in its own right.
They love to laud themselves as the best most developed most progressive countries, but the reality is they're just a couple of decades, if not a century behind the rest of Europe when it comes to integration (this does not equal equity or equality, just integration), and are following exactly the same route as the other countries have - capitalist government and the media that supports it need a scapegoat (who they've rigged the system against so they'd have to struggle by default, living in poverty, feeling excluded, attacked for their race) to shift blame and attention to, while they continue to exploit the people of their country (the fact that there are Nordic billionaires easily contradicts any claim to socialism they might raise, and you don't need to look far to thoroughly debunk it altogether).
The fact that you're an immigrant and are seriously considering there's some truth in this racism is pretty fucking sad and scary, but mostly goes to show just how powerful the propaganda is (and how similar it is in all countries, which is probably why it hits a nerve with you even though you don't live there).
Sweden also is a sea of whiteness, beyond a small number of BAME immigrants often concentrated in banlieue-like outer suburbs and the adoption of kebab-meat pizza as a comfort food. Even in Stockholm, it’s a lot less diverse than, say, Paris or Berlin.
So then don't go to Finland, then you won't be unsettled. Follow me for more common sense tips.
As a Swede, I sometimes wonder if I would feel more at home moving to one of the other Scandinavian countries - because I don't really feel at home here anymore.
Maybe a compromise