Winds of Change.NET: Sweden, Rape and Responsible Speech

Sweden, Rape and Responsible Speech

by Robin Burk at March 4, 2005 11:54 PM

Is there a way to talk responsibly about the possibility that religion, culture and violence are intersecting in a deadly way in some places? As I write towards the end of this post

These trends are deeply disturbing, dangerous and important. Yet how do we talk about them without unfairly stigmatizing all Muslim immigrants in Sweden and elsewhere - many of whom are victims of these trends themseves?

A few days ago I posted a short entry that quoted another blogger about an alarming rise in rapes and other violent crimes in cities such as Malmo, Sweden's second largest city which is home to many Muslim immigrants. Fjordman also noted a particularly notorious case elsewhere in Sweden in which a 13 year old girl was gang-raped by 4 Kurdish men.

In a moment I'll get to other criticisms of that post and of Fjordman's entry. I've spent about 6 hours yesterday and today researching the situation in Malmo and the response to that situation on the part of Swedish officials and of feminists (my primary point in the original post). I'll be posting a long entry about this on Sunday, when our Good News Saturday is over. But first I want to respond to an important question one of our readers wrote:

Why not just post, "They're coming for our women!" Isn't there enough tribal hatred and racism in the world, without us trying? Don't you know the history of its consequences? What do you want for your grandchildren, world wars and genocides or peace and prosperity. What are you acheiving by attempting to inflame hatred?

And then there's the less subtle comment at a liberal blog, calling both La Shawn Barber and me "KKK moms".

As it turns out, something similar to the Klu Klux Klan is actually active in the Malmo story, which is one reason our reader's question is a very important one to consider and to answer carefully.

Background

I make no apologies for my own outrage over rape. I volunteered at a rape crisis center when I was younger, in a very large U.S. city with a signficant immigrant population. I ached to see hard working, modest women suffer double violence, first the physical violence of being assaulted and then the more subtle violence of being invisible to the people around them. The Los Angeles area is home to a lot of wealthy white people, many of whom purport to care about social issues. And yet the Latina and black women I tried to help got little attention from the local National Organization of Women chapter, whose 25 year old president told me I was "sleeping with the enemy" as a heterosexual married woman. She was far more interested in abortion legislation and gay rights than those rape victims who had little money, sometimes little English and who were far from their extended families. Often they were totally dependent on the men from their own communities who abused them.

I've also worked with young women who were sexually assaulted as children, often by family members.

So when I noted the newspaper article about the leap in rapes of girls under age 15, my blood boiled and I posted an entry that was way too short for the sensitivity of the topic. Insofar as I failed to unpack my comments, back them up and make clear where my real criticism was aimed - at American feminists - the charge that I was attempting to inflame hatred against Muslims is understandable even though it is not correct.

What follows here, and in part 2 after our Saturday break, is an attempt to provide detail and context, to acknowledge what is being done by many responsible and brave people, and to discuss responsibly what I believe remains to be done about a serious problem.

Crime Trends in Sweden and the Marginalization of Immigrants

Crime issues in Sweden have been in the news and under discussion in the blogosphere for some time. In May 2002 Instapundit noted that the U.N.-sponsored International Crime Victims Survey reported that people in Sweden were in the group most likely to suffer from crime. You can read the whole study here.

More recently, last September and October, the Swedish city of Malmo came under specific scrutiny in response to translations of Swedish news stories posted at Robert Spencer's JihadWatch and DhimmiWatch blogs. Ali Dashti summarized, and then cited, stories about a signficant rise in violent crime in Sweden, especially in immigrant-populated suburbs of several cities. A series of articles then appeared in the US press, including the Washington Post and Fox News, both of whom interviewed people in Sweden.

The population of Malmo as a whole is about 25% immigrant or the children of immigrants, primarily from Bosnia, Iraq (especially Kurdish areas), North Africa and Turkey. These immigrants are concentrated in old housing in the suburban ring around the city center. There are few jobs there. The student body in some of the schools is nearly 100% immigrant, drawing very heavily from countries that are predominantly Muslim. Last September, Swedish newspapers reported that bus service in a Stockholm suburb similar to Malmo's was suspended in response to violent attacks.

This was reported in a dramatic way by Fox. But you can read a similar account of the school situation in this dry report of a visit by Spanish educators to the Malmo suburban schools in 2003.

The WaPo notes:

But the biggest problem in Malmo, and in other parts of Sweden, is what people here call "ghettoization": White Swedes typically live in certain areas, in this case the city center, while immigrants are increasingly clustered on the outskirts in their own communities. As Hosseinkhah put it: "People physically live in this area, but they mentally live in their former countries." "They don't feel they are a part of this community," he said. "They don't know this society. They don't know the codes. . . . There's that feeling of 'we' and 'them.' "

This ghettoization is only growing worse as the demographic makeup of Sweden changes. Ove Sernhede, a Swedish scholar, wrote back in 1990

Marginalised groups have during the last two decades been forming ghettos all over Europe. In Sweden this development is related to the rapid changes in economy and society during the last 5 to 10 years. The Swedish ghettoisation is most visible in the modern multi-ethnic suburbs outside the highly segregated big cities. Along with Moss Side (Manchester), Bobigny (Paris), Gutleutviertel (Hamburg) we can today also list Angered (Gothenburg), Rinkeby (Stockholm) and Rosengard (Malmo). In Gothenburg, to give one example, there are many areas where 75-95 of the population (neighbourhoods with of 5-10 000 people) are immigrants, the city is one of the most segregated in Europe.... The parliamentary committee on 'big city conditions' recently presented statistics about the 'exposed urban districts' - more than 50 of the children between 0-6 years of age have unemployed parents, in Gothenburg social entitlements increased by 100 between 1990 and 1993, the unemployment for certain 'exposed' ethnic minorities are more that 90 . - etc., etc. These circumstances have put Sweden more or less into a state of shock.

The problem of unassimilated immigrants in Sweden, mostly from Muslim countries, is especially acute because of differences in birth / arrival rates. As an official brochure notes:

There are 0.9 million young Swedes [out of a total population of 8.9 million - rkb] aged between 16 and 24 today, and by about 2010 the figure is expected to exceed a million. The majority of these young people were born in Sweden and have Swedish nationality. 10 per cent of them have one Swedish and one foreign parent. A further 10 per cent were born abroad, and of these 5 per cent still retain their foreign nationality. After Swedish the most common nationalities are Finnish, Bosnian, Iraqui, Turkish, Yugoslavian and Somalian. This means that slightly more than one young person in five living in Sweden was born abroad his/herself or has at least one parent who was.

At this point 2 out of every 3 new Swedes is from a non-ethnically-Swedish ancestry.

Both Sweden and France, the two European countries with the largest immigrant populations from Muslim countries, housed their waves of immigrants in the 70s and 80s in vast housing developments outside the main cities. While funds were available for generous welfare benefits, these neighborhoods were quiet (and quietly unassimilated). As Sweden and other countries suffered economic downturns however (around 1990 in Sweden's case) the young men who grew up in those concrete jungles, with no job prospects, no integration into the wider society and enough (but declining) funds to live on began in many cases to commit more frequent and more serious crimes.

In Sweden, whose social model is very much oriented to consensus and to non-punitive responses to youth offenses, this has led to a great deal of disagreement about how to characterize the situation with regard to juvenile crime and how to respond to it. That disagreement is carefully and reluctantly evident in this 2004 study .

But disturbing events keep happening, and not just in Sweden. In Norway a recent soccer altercation resulted in threats to decapitate and rape viewers in the stands.

Several of the Djerv 2 players acted aggressively towards both other players and the audience. According to the local paper Bergensavisen, one person was injured after being knocked to the ground by a Djerv player.
The sudden outburst of rage was also directed against several audience members, several received death threats and several were threatened with decapitation. Some of the women in the audience were threatened with rape.

The police had to be called to calm people down.

Neither the players nor the leaders want to comment the incident, but it has been reported to the police.

Section leader Roald Bruun-Hanssen said to the paper that it is not the first time this year that Djerv 2 has been in the media because of negative behavior. Earlier this year, a keeper from the team attacked a referee. He was later refused to play soccer for the rest of the year.
�These are threats of aggravated violence and we don�t want anything like this on the soccer filed,� Bruun-Hanssen said to TV 2 Nettavisen. �I haven�t either heard to anything like this before.�
However, he does not want to condemn the entire team which mainly consist of immigrants.

Copenhagen is having problems of late as well:

City police are concerned about the rising incidence of immigrant teens wielding knives - and using them. Children of immigrant families are dominating the capital city crime scene like never before, representing an increasing segment of arrests for violent crime, even as crime rates for their Danish-born peers are on the decline.
"The situation is extremely alarming. We've been aware of the trend for a while now, but things are moving in the wrong direction entirely," said Copenhagen Police inspector Per Larsen.

Larsen spoke with Jyllands-Posten after the release of pessimistic figures from Copenhagen Municipal Court. In the first seven months of the year, 63 juveniles were arraigned on charges stemming from violent crimes. 53 of these youngsters came from immigrant families, while just 10 were Danish born. The latest arrest figures represent the highest crime rate for immigrant youth in five years, and the lowest rate for native Danes.

According to Larsen, immigrant teenagers are typically arrested on assault and robbery charges, and these crimes increasingly involve the use of knives.

"We've gone back to the way things were around the year 2000, when the problem was serious. Young immigrant gangs have a much higher profile. And they're not just limited to parts of N�rrebro or the inner city late at night on the weekends - they're present wherever large groups of people gather, and gang members are increasingly quick to pull a knife in these situations," said Larsen.

Copenhageners have been shocked by a number of brutal stabbings over the past year involving immigrant teenagers. First came the killing of Italian tourist Antonio Curr�, who was knifed down in N�rrebro last August. Two young immigrants will stand trial for Curr�'s killing in two months' time.

Last month, a 21-year-old bystander became inadvertently involved in a fight in front of Vestergade discotheque Woodstock, and was stabbed in the heart by a 19-year-old youth of non-Danish ethnicity. Ten days later, central Copenhagen was the scene of yet another late-night stabbing, when an American exchange student sustained multiple stab wounds to the chest after an altercation with five immigrant boys on Kgs. Nytorv. Last weekend, a 29-year-old Norwegian was stabbed in the back by a gang of immigrant youths at Diskotek Barfly on L�vstr�de, after bickering with the youths on the street outside.

"And these aren't the only cases - they're just the stories that make the headlines. Violent crimes are on the rise throughout Copenhagen, and even though the most serious assault cases are at a more or less steady level, the assaults themselves are becoming more violent. This is primarily because immigrant youth are much quicker to pull a knife, so the consequences are far more serious. The reaction pattern in banal confrontations is more violent than we've been accustomed to. You can't expect to talk yourself out of a situation any more. Horrific things can happen - and last weekend's incident is a classic example. I would advise people not to play the hero in street altercations - watch yourself," said Larsen
.
Last year's murder of Antonio Curr� led to a change in city laws, which now prohibit individuals from carrying concealed pocketknives and switchblades. Police have been granted broader powers to search people for weapons without concrete suspicion, if they believe the probability is high that illegal knives are being used within a limited geographical area.
Copenhagen Police have reported a general rise in violent crimes, from 453 cases during the first seven months of 2003 to 553 this year

Other Trends

The second Fox article cited above highlights the dilemma facing Sweden:

Students arrive at age 10 or 12 from countries like Iraq, Iran and Lebanon with no knowledge of Swedish; some have never been to school at all and many classes require interpreters. Still, more than half won't graduate.
"They are not a part of Swedish society, so to speak. It is difficult for them to get inside society," said Torsten Elofsson of the Malmo Police Department.

However, they are the most rapidly growing segment of Swedish society � outsiders who are already inside, posing a challenge to legendary Swedish tolerance that has now been stretched to the breaking point.
Malmo's main mosque was recently set ablaze by arsonists. When firefighters arrived on the scene, they were attacked by stone throwers.

Crime is not the only increasing trend in these communities. Another Swedish researcher, Dr. Anne Sofie Roald of Malmo University, reports on the impact of Islamic preachers from overseas:

This study deals with the message of the two Islamic scholars, Yusuf al-Qaradawi and Ahmad al-Kubaisi. Both are frequently aired on Arabic satellite television. According to a survey made in Sweden and Denmark during autumn 2000, these two scholars have a big audience among Arabic-speaking immigrants.
Muslims living in western countries have few Islamic authorities to
refer back to and it seems therefore that the Islamic satellite television programs have a role to play to fill this void for immigrant Muslims. Globalisation is making a great impact upon the Islamic message and Muslims all over the world are reacting to social changes caused by globalisation. Immigrant Muslims in Scandinavia as well as in the rest of Europe make frequently call-ins to these programs, searching for fatwas as well as for practical advises for how to live as Muslims in the minority situation.
al-Qaradawi's programs often deal with political issues such as democracy, political participation, etc. al-Qaradawi's response towards these questions is very much within a contemporary framework. al-Kubaisi, on the other hand, concentrates on filling the Koranic concepts with new and daring content. In al-Kubaisi's new interpretations contemporary attitudes towards gender issues, tolerance (in the Islamic context: towards all Islamic denominations), and unity (in the Islamic context: of the Muslim Ummah) play a part.

Al-Kubaisi is a Sunni preacher from Ramadi, Iraq, who broadcasts from Dubai and is a member of Iraq's Association of Islamic Scholars, which is characterized by the Boston Globe as "an outspoken Sunni group close to Ba'athists and insurgents".

Last April, the Washington Post reported the arrest of 4 terror suspects accused of ties to the Kurdish group Ansar al-Islam.

The conversation led Swedish security police to open an investigation into Shahab. In April 2004, he and three other men were arrested in Stockholm and the southern Swedish city of Malmo on suspicion of engaging in terrorism.
Swedish authorities have accused the four men -- three of whom are Iraqi nationals -- of having "strong ties" to Ansar and of planning crimes that were "directed at the state of Iraq and were aimed at striking grave terror into a population," according to arrest warrants filed in Stockholm.
Swedish media have reported that the men are suspected of helping plan the bombings in Irbil last February

Meanwhile, Swedish TV reports that a quadrupling of drug deaths in Sweden during the last 9 years is tied in part to the popularity among Iranians of smoking heroin. The U.S. government says Russian organized crime groups are trafficking both amphetamines and heroin into western Europe and Scandanavia, including Sweden, via the Baltic states. Skane, the region including Malmo, had record drug intercepts in 2004.

The Danger of Talking About This

It surely is the case that some people do seem to be deliberately stirring up hate. A search on 'Malmo' and 'rape' brings up several disturbing sites. One is the American Renaissance site, whose editor Jared Taylor is accused by the Anti-Defamation League of promoting

"genteel" racism: pseudoscientific, questionably researched and argued articles that validate the genetic and moral inferiority of nonwhites and the need for racial "purity."

In criticizing the Bush administration for believing Iraqis want and could adopt democracy, Taylor has invoked the Nazi phrase Blut und Boden (blood and soil).

Taylor is not alone. Nationalist groups have emerged in Sweden during the last decade and they are not shy in their assertions about immigrants.

Scholar Bo Peterson notes the connection between globalization, the loss of national identity and the potential for a serious backlash:

As argued by Ulrich Beck, for instance, �globalization means one thing above all else: denationalisation� (Beck 2000:14). � What seems to be overlooked in much of the literature and above all in the general public debate, however, is that we may well be talking of processes that might take several decades to complete.
In this sense, the awareness seems to be missing that the sandwiched position of the nation-state might in the interim give rise to rather violent recoils, as national identities seek to assert themselves and stave off perceived dangers. � My own preference is instead to study the somewhat neglected national-local nexus, where I assume national and local identity structures to interact and reinforce each other, thus combating the unknown, which one way or the other is perceived as emanating from the global.
There are several examples one could cite here. Those familiar with the Swedish political scene will recall the case of the municipality of Klippan. There vocal ultra-nationalist neo-Nazis have firmly established themselves, propelled by their blend of ideological ultra-Right sentiments, chauvinism, and local patriotism (Wigerfelt & Wigerfelt 2000).

What Then?

I recoil from racism and Nazism. And so I understand the reluctance of many to talk openly about violence in the Muslim immigrant communities. This is not unique to the recent discussion about Malmo and Sweden. You can read the same dilemma and debate on Indymedia UK when discussing rapes in the French cit�s.

Next time: Honor violence against women, the vulnerability of young Muslim - and other - girls in immigrant communities and what some feminists are doing about it.

Original Post: Swedish Rape Stats: Where's The Outrage?

Sweden, Rape & Responsible Speech
Immigrants, Religion and Conflict - the U.S. Experience
Honor-Related Violence: The Feminist Response

Persons wishing to contact the author of this article for reprints etc. should put a request in the Comments section, or send an email to "joe", over here @windsofchange.net.