Hundreds of youths have set fire to cars and attacked police and rescue services in poor immigrant suburbs in three nights of rioting in Stockholm, in Sweden's worst scenes of disorder in years.
On Tuesday night, a police station in the Jakobsberg area in the north-west of the city was attacked, two schools were damaged and an arts and crafts centre was set ablaze, despite a call for calm from Sweden's prime minister, Fredrik Reinfeldt.
The riots in one of Europe's richest capitals have shocked a country that prides itself on a reputation for social justice, and fueled a debate about how Sweden is coping with both youth unemployment and an influx of immigrants.
"We've had around 30 cars set on fire last night, fires that we connect to youth gangs and criminals," Kjell Lindgren, a spokesman for Stockholm police, said on Wednesday. He said eight people had been arrested on Tuesday night, but there were no reports of injuries.
The riots appear to have been sparked by the police killing of a 69-year-old man wielding a machete in the suburb of Husby this month, which prompted accusations of police brutality. "Everyone must pitch in to restore calm – parents, adults," Reinfeldt told reporters on Tuesday.
After decades of the "Swedish model" of generous welfare benefits, Sweden has been reducing the role of the state since the 1990s, spurring the fastest growth in inequality of any advanced OECD economy.
While average living standards are still among the highest in Europe, governments have failed to substantially reduce long-term youth unemployment and poverty, which have affected immigrant communities worst.
The left-leaning tabloid Aftonbladet said the riots represented a "gigantic failure" of government policies, which had underpinned the rise of ghettos in the suburbs. "We have failed to give many of the people in the suburbs a hope for the future," Anna-Margrethe Livh of the opposition Left party wrote in the daily Svenska Dagbladet.
An anti-immigrant party, the Sweden Democrats, has risen to third in polls ahead of a general election due next year, reflecting unease about immigrants among many voters. Some 15% of the population is foreign-born, the highest proportion in the Nordic region.
Unemployment among those born outside Sweden stands at 16%, compared with 6% for native Swedes, according to OECD data. Among 44 industrialised countries, Sweden ranked fourth in the absolute number of asylum seekers, and second relative to its population, according to UN figures.
ilmdge posted:fuck i shouldve checked the Southern People's Struggle Thread before posting about sweden
Ironicwarcriminal posted:someone please outline a scenario for me in which the European multicultural experiment doesn't end in civil war, pogroms or wholesale expulsions.
so i went to the british papers to read some more about Sweden(i don't speak boogen-blaargen and welp:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2329089/Woolwich-attack-Two-men-hack-soldier-wearing-Help-Heroes-T-shirt-death-machetes-suspected-terror-attack.html
The dramatic video obtained by ITV News emerged after terrified eyewitnesses saw two men shot by police marksmen following a machete attack on a serving soldier in Woolwich, south-east London. The two men are thought to have waited at the scene of the attack for 20 minutes, asking people to take photographs of them, until police arrived and then tried to attack them - but were swiftly shot by armed officers, including a woman. They apparently shouted 'Allah Akbar', which means 'God is great' in Arabic, and tried to film the attack, the BBC's political editor Nick Robinson said.
There is Great Reaction brewing
ilmdge posted:left-leaning tabloid
Some 15% of the population is foreign-born, the highest proportion in the Nordic region.
Aren't those people mostly Norwegian
daddyholes posted:Some 15% of the population is foreign-born, the highest proportion in the Nordic region.
Aren't those people mostly Norwegian
yup which is even more worrying because it shows just how hard it is for one of the world's richest, most progressive countries to properly integrate even a small muslim community.
If this is stockholdm what's going to happen in France?
daddyholes posted:Some 15% of the population is foreign-born, the highest proportion in the Nordic region.
Aren't those people mostly Norwegian
That's backwards actually, lots of Swedes (middle to upper class) immigrate to Norway to make higher salaries, not as much the other way around.
KilledInADuel posted:daddyholes posted:Some 15% of the population is foreign-born, the highest proportion in the Nordic region.
Aren't those people mostly Norwegian
That's backwards actually, lots of Swedes (middle to upper class) immigrate to Norway to make higher salaries, not as much the other way around.
ok thanks
Ironicwarcriminal posted:daddyholes posted:Some 15% of the population is foreign-born, the highest proportion in the Nordic region.
Aren't those people mostly Norwegianyup which is even more worrying because it shows just how hard it is for one of the world's richest, most progressive countries to properly integrate even a small muslim community.
If this is stockholdm what's going to happen in France?
I'm not sure what you're saying, mind spelling it out?
babyhueypnewton posted:Ironicwarcriminal posted:
daddyholes posted:
Some 15% of the population is foreign-born, the highest proportion in the Nordic region.
Aren't those people mostly Norwegian
yup which is even more worrying because it shows just how hard it is for one of the world's richest, most progressive countries to properly integrate even a small muslim community.
If this is stockholdm what's going to happen in France?
I'm not sure what you're saying, mind spelling it out?
i am pessimistic of the chances of racial harmony in europe going into the future, it is worrying
Ironicwarcriminal posted:babyhueypnewton posted:Ironicwarcriminal posted:
daddyholes posted:
Some 15% of the population is foreign-born, the highest proportion in the Nordic region.
Aren't those people mostly Norwegian
yup which is even more worrying because it shows just how hard it is for one of the world's richest, most progressive countries to properly integrate even a small muslim community.
If this is stockholdm what's going to happen in France?
I'm not sure what you're saying, mind spelling it out?i am pessimistic of the chances of racial harmony in europe going into the future, it is worrying
good class analysis
babyhueypnewton posted:Ironicwarcriminal posted:
babyhueypnewton posted:
Ironicwarcriminal posted:
daddyholes posted:
Some 15% of the population is foreign-born, the highest proportion in the Nordic region.
Aren't those people mostly Norwegian
yup which is even more worrying because it shows just how hard it is for one of the world's richest, most progressive countries to properly integrate even a small muslim community.
If this is stockholdm what's going to happen in France?
I'm not sure what you're saying, mind spelling it out?
i am pessimistic of the chances of racial harmony in europe going into the future, it is worrying
good class analysis
ok so how do you think it will go?
babyhueypnewton posted:good class analysis
i just googled who those people in your avatar are and apparently the one on the left made friends with nixon and restored deng xiaoping to prominence and the one on the right tried to put the military ahead of the working class. weird.