Synergetics

I have been writing in my blogs about integration, immigration, assimilation and many other issues which have to do with the multi-cultural aspects of life in Sweden and the reality of the Church in Sweden.

Below you will find articles and links that will help you get some understanding from a secular perspective as I browsed through many articles of “The Local” which is an English edition of Swedish news. As you will notice, the path to diversity is rarely smooth! So here we go:

It’s as if we immigrants stink of rotten fish” When deciding where in the world to study and work, Nabeel Shehzad, an engineer from Pakistan, thought Sweden seemed like the perfect place. But that was before he began to encounter discrimination on a regular basis. READ »

Parents to face jail for child marriages. Parents who allow children under the age of 16 to get married in another country could face up to two years in jail. READ »

Sweden shutting door on refugees: critics. Recent decisions by Sweden to send refugees back to Baghdad and other war-ravaged areas have tarnished its reputation for welcoming victims of conflict, critics say. READ »

Immigration agreement for Greens and government. The Swedish government and the Green Party are to present a joint proposal on Thursday for new rules governing labour force immigration. READ »

Asylum system ’stuck in Stone Age’. The Swedish Migration Board has proposed changing the “stone age” regulations for asylum seekers who have started families with Swedish nationals. READ »

The path to Swedish asylum: A smuggler speaks. Rami Abdelrahman travels to Jordan and tracks down the first link in the chain of an underground operation involved in the smuggling of Iraqi refugees to Sweden. READ »

UNHCR criticizes Sweden’s Iraqi refugee policy. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees has criticized Sweden’s policy of deporting rejected Iraqi asylum seekers to the southern and central regions of their home country. READ »

Dutch ditching dykes for Dalarna. Hundreds of Dutch want to move to Dalarna and the county is using some innovative methods to assist in the process. READ »

Liberals call for compulsory citizenship classes. The Liberal Party has said it wants to introduce a mandatory course for all immigrants seeking Swedish citizenship. READ »

Immigrant girls and sex education - who knows best? Parents, students, or the state: who knows best? David Landes looks at the thorny issue of sex education and editorial reactions to a Liberal Party proposal aiming to bar parents from exempting their children, particularly girls, from classes. READ »

My views on sex and laws: READ

Foreigners can’t bank on Swedish ID. Foreign students continue to feel marginalized by Swedish society as a result of confusion regarding the issuing of Swedish identity cards. READ »

Years ago Lech Walesa former president of Poland and the winner of the 1983 Nobel Prize in Peace said “Europe could become a fortress of luxury protected by a silver curtain in place of an iron curtain.” Now many years later his prediction (prophecy) might come to pass as we start to see a sharpening of the immigration laws in the EU.

The public opinion in Sweden is slowly turning; the Sverige Demokraterna a party bringing together the people dissatisfied with the way things go in our nation and who are focusing on the closing of our borders for immigrants and to give support to those immigrants who want to leave, have for the first time in the polls passed the 4% vote barrier to be able to enter the national political scene.

As the statistics below show, for the first time we are approaching the 50% level where we conclude that it is better to have fewer immigrants in our nation!

In the proposals for immigration we are willing to open the borders for well educated people who are able to make themselves a living as they are offered a job. Notice that we say well educated people!

Sweden has in an agreement with the United Nations declared to be willing to receive a number of the most exposed and needy refugees in the world (1700 individuals’ theses are figures of 2005). However, in those days only 1200 of these were welcomed by Migrationsverket. (I cannot find the figures of the agreement of Sweden and the UNHCR for this year). Hundreds of families and individuals who have been proposed by UNHCR (UN’s refugee organization) have been declined. Notice that these people have gone through a screening process by workers of UNHCR who live on site!
Sweden has however increased its 2008 pledge to SEK 564,000,000 or approximately USD 89 million to support the work among refugees through the UNHCR, which is a 6% increase from last year.

My question however is: “Are we trying to buy off our responsibility by sending more funds to the UNHCR to take care of the unwanted, (read uneducated) refugees, while we as nation will welcome “the cream” of the crop?!

Integration potential…
Back to the most needy and exposed refugees….hundreds of the ones who were proposed by the NHCR were left behind because of tough Swedish requirements which are criticized by the UN and Amnesty. What are these tough requirements?

The whole idea of the UN is to have quotes in different countries to welcome those and give help to those who are in the greatest needs. Instead of looking at the greatest needs and follow the direction of the experts in the camp (who after all work with these refugees day after day), we find that some representatives evaluate people on basis of education, cultural adjustment, language ability, family circumstances and other unclear criteria. It is almost like a recruitment tour where the best potential refugees are picked out from the masses…

Who are the ones whom will be the greatest assets to us? Who will be able to integrate friction-free? Who will be able to be least of a burden to society? It is the survival of the fittest!

We show how inhuman our approach is to human life and human potential… Can human potential only be measured in economics? Can human potential only be measured in terms of strength and abilities and perspectives of integration potential?

We, together with the other countries in Europe are quick in developing our silver curtain to control and hinder the arrival of “Unwanted subjects”… Sad to say that we are rather advanced in our efforts to reduce the painful process of facilitating hurting people.

That’s the Way I see it!

John

The Swedish people’s attitude towards immigrants and racism 1993 – 2007 (percentage)

Another question was asked in the survey done among 3400 people, “Is it good to receive fewer refugees in Sweden?” 40% said it was good to have fewer, 29% thought this was a bad idea.