VABALOG

Christopher Caldwell pikemalt Rootsi immigrantidest

Peaaegu aasta tagasi viitasin Christopher Caldwell’i huvitavale artiklile, mis lahkas immigrantide probleeme integreerumisel Rootsi ühiskonda.

Aasta hiljem pole Caldwell teemast veel loobunud ja 5. veebruari New York Times Magazine’is ilmus mehelt pikem lugu Islam on the Outskirts of the Welfare State Rootsi immigrantide elust ja integreerumisest, mis peaks huvi pakkuma kõigile, kellele läheb korda islamiusuliste integreerimine lääneühiskondadesse. Mõned huvitavamad tsitaadid:

Rootslaste ja immigrantide suhtumisest USA’sse:

The kids’ English — a third language for all of them — is excellent, even if it takes them a while to get over their shyness in using it. They don’t bring up politics, and they are unanimous in considering the United States “cool.” They want to know how much American journalists earn and whether Tupac Shakur is really dead. “You can get famous there,” say two of them. The only dissent on the question of America’s coolness comes from the Swedish-born teacher, and this is not surprising. Particularly since the toppling of the Saddam Hussein regime, which numbered among its victims many relatives of the Kurds and Iraqis who sought asylum in Sweden, you find more unapologetic pro-Americanism among the children of Muslim immigrants than among those of Swedish stock.

Autode põletamise võimalusest Rootsis:

Could something like the French riots, with burning cars and rampaging gangs, happen in Sweden? “Absolutely,” says one lanky boy near the window. “People burn cars here all the time. Not because they’re angry — because they think it’s fun.” And, in fact, the charred patch of ground visible next to the school entrance that day marks the spot where a car was driven up to the wall of the school the previous weekend and set alight.

Rootslaste suhtumisest probleemidesse:

But when Swedes discuss immigrant issues, the background attitude is less often prejudice than political correctness. Problems are constantly fudged — and resolved in such a way as to establish no principles and offend no one. In one recent case, two girls were forbidden to wear full burkas to school in Gothenburg — but only because teachers supposedly could not tell them apart. There are shibboleths: education is hailed as a panacea for the ills of exclusion, even though the “problem” immigrants who came from the developing world after 1980 have, on average, more academic qualifications than the successful ones who preceded them.

Milles siis ikkagi Rootsi probleem:

Demirbag-Sten, whose new book describes honor culture in Kurdish Sweden, says that the larger problem, in her community, at least, is a new kind of political Islam, one that knows how to probe liberal institutions and use them to advantage. She is particularly frustrated that recent government reports, thick with postcolonial theory and quotations from Edward Said, address neither immigrant anti-Semitism nor immigrant antifeminism. “The focus on discrimination is a way of avoiding the real problem,” she says. “Because if the problem is not discrimination, then the problem is the Swedish system itself.”
. . .
Critics of capitalism used to cite Joseph Schumpeter and Daniel Bell to show that the free market is ultimately undermined by its own successes: the wealth the work ethic creates makes people want to work less. The welfare state has its cultural contradictions, too. It rests on consensus, which is another way of saying a lack of cultural variety. The stronger the consensus, the more room a welfare state has to grow. But as consensus strengthens, so does a certain naïveté, a belief that your own idiosyncratic habits are something that no one else could fail to find irresistibly seductive.

Caldwell’i artiklist selgub ka veel üks huvitav tõsiasi: mitmed kuriteod, mis leiavad kajastamist ka Rootsi uudiseid inglise keeles edastavas The Local’is, on toime pandud immigrantide poolt.

Kui uskuda ühte Rootsi immigrandist parlamendisaadikut, kes vestles enda prantslasest kolleegiga, siis on Rootsis oodata sarnaseid rahutusi nagu Pariisi eelmisel aastal mitte rohkem kui järgmise 10 aasta jooksul. See periood tundub olevat piisavalt pikk, et probleemiga tõsisemalt tegelema hakata ja võib-olla isegi mingil määral lahendada, kuid kas rootslased tajuvad probleemi piisavalt teravalt?

TÄIENDATUD: Kellel huvi kulutuurilise mitmekesisuse ja heaolühiskonna ümberjaotamis poliitikate vastu leiab teaduslikuma, kuid samas ka abstrakstsema käsitluse kahest uurimusest:

Banting, K. (2005). Multiculturalism and the Welfare State. Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University conference paper. (PDF)

Soroka, S., Banting, K., and Johnston, R. (2003). Immigration and Redistribution in a Global Era. Canadian Politcal Science Association meeting presentation. (PDF)

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