Also if the parents don’t speak Danish, how are they supposed to teach it to their kids.
Average Canadian would describe Canadian immigrants in the same way. Yet, there are no riots of that kind here; except if it’s G20 or hockey or that time when Serbian immigrants burned part of American embassy.
So, what gives?
I have my personal opinion that is very hard to presents facts for because it’s very short and very subjective - Canada is the best country in the world.
I would, however, love to read what non-Canadians think about absence of riots like this - despite, say, the fact that we have largest Greek community outside of Greece 
I would say that countries based on a national identity, such as the United States, Canada, or Australia tend to do a better job of assimilating newcomers and immigrants than countries based on ethnic nationalism like Sweden, Germany, Spain, or Israel.
You obviously never learnt to comprehend what has been written.
Where did I say the parents should teach their children Danish?
I said they don’t make them learn- it’s different.
Frankly, I think Ibn Warraq is closer to the truth. Canada is, in a sense, a greenfield country, a place made of newcomers. Indeed**, the people who are REALLY put upon are the original residents,** the aboriginals who have been marginalized by the newcomers. The country (as well as the USA, Australia, Brazil, and some other places) has at it core a concept of nationalism that is based less on ethnic identity and more on a civic partnership.
In the case of Canada this actually is probably more true now than it used to be; once upon a time the country liked to think of itself as Really British, and non-British people were for the most part unwelcome, proportional to how British they did or did not look. Since the country abandoned that it’s gone whole hog “come on in and pick a hockey team.” That’s only slightly a joke; Hockey Night in Canada carries games in Punjabi largely because there’s a huge pack of Punjabi-speaking Leaf fans in Toronto. It seems just like normal market demand to us that Punjabi-speaking people would come here, open up the sports section, and say “well, looks like this is what it’s all about. Better get my jersey.”
The NY Times ran an article about the Punjabi hockey broadcast with a fantastic picture.
I don’t know exactly what the guy on the left is saying, but EVERY Canadian knows the jist of it; he is saying something to he effect of “What? Seriously? No penalty… seriously, thye didn’t call that? That was hooking! That was hooking Seriously? You’ve got to be kidding me, that was hooking. He pulls the guy down! Where the hell is the ref?”
But that’s Canada. The country is to an extent no other country can claim, a blank slate; it is largely settled by people whose first generation arrived after the invention of the steam engine, and it really has no shared cultural identity beyond those we’ve recently chosen as a group, like hockey, beer, Tim Hortons, whining about the weather, and selling crack to Rob Ford. It’s very easy to welcome an ethnic group here because we’ve welcomed so many; hell, Indians and Pakistanis are pretty much old news by now. We don’t even have a single shared language.
In a place like Sweden or Germany or France, you’ve got CENTURIES of established cultural identity. Sweden was a distinct cultural and political entity since before Canada was discovered by Jacques Cartier, and has a well defined apparatus of state when Canada was basically a logging and furrier operation and little else.
I would go even further and say that immigration to Canada is tolerated (and I’m not suggested we do not have racial prejudice, we do) more because, frankly, we need it more. Canada is big. Like, really, almost unimaginably big, and for the most part it’s empty. There is little to oppose about immigration in a country where even at our ideal immigration targets you aren’t making much of a dent in population density, and the country is notably short of workers in a lot of fields immigrants bring. By comparison, I’m honestly not really sure WHY Sweden needs immigrants, beyond a sense of duty and fairness. Sweden is not exactly overloaded with people but its population density is seven times higher than ours.
I was referring to Ibn Warraq. The school is not designed to teach children to speak Danish and the teachers aren’t educated to handle it. The children are assumed to speak fluently when they start school. I don’t think it is the school’s responsibility to teach the kids Danish. It’s up to the parents. If the parents speak bad Danish themselves, it’s their responsibility to put their children in situations where they’ll come into contact with other Danish speaking children. There are heavily subsidized kindergartens which experience has shown greatly help with the language deficiencies, but they’re little used by the groups that could have most benefit from them.
I don’t think there is much debate that the USA is better at handling immigration than is Europe.
It is up to them to actively seek to integrate themselves into society. In any case, they’re (together with all other children in Denmark) given heavily subsidized nurseries, kindergartens and after school clubs. They are given a wide range of free or heavily subsidized sports, arts, and hobby activities. They are given free school camp vacations. They are given 10 years of free primary school education, followed by three years of free youth (college) education of their own choosing, followed by free university or trade education of their own choosing. They are being paid a monthly salary for attending college/trade and university. When adult they’re give heavily subsidized after-work education. They are given free use of doctors and hospitals and medicine for their health, of libraries and museums for their education, of public kept parks, beaches, and forests for their leisure. Etc. etc. Is all this merely flowery words?
There is an interesting difference between the girls and boys of the group. Speaking of education and work, the girls of immigrant background are doing much better than the boys. Almost on par with ethnic Danish girls. (& if the girls are doing much better than the boys and 1/3 of the whole group remains illiterate then a much larger proportion than 1/3 of the boys are illiterate) They obviously have the same social and economic background, which if nothing else is a pretty good indication that there are important cultural aspects involved.
Another matter is that there is supposedly only like 50-60 rioters. It is a piss poor police performance when they can’t handle such a small problem.
Well, since that doesn’t seem to be working very well, I would suggest a change in strategy.
Immigration to Canada is different than Swedish immigrants. Canada selects its immigrants mostly due to education and skills. Sweden mostly selects its immigrants on refugee status. Thus Canada’s immigrants are people who are educated, intelligent, skilled, and from places that are relatively peaceful. Sweden’s immigrants are people who come from places with lots of strife and were doing poorly in poor countries. Unemployment amoung Canadian immigrants is only a couple of points higher than natives, Labor force participation rates are only a little lower than natives, and after 10 years average income for immigrants is 80% what it is for natives.
Sweden on the other hand the percent of employed amoung immigrants is a fraction of natives, immigrants are 6.2 times likely to be incarcerated than natives, and children of immigrants do much worse in Swedish schools.
Hereis an article from 2011 about problems integrating immigrants into Sweden. (There is a funny quote from an immigrant rapper about wanting to become the president of Sweden.)
When people are surronded by the unknown they tend to cling to the familiar. Thus when large numbers of immigrants arrive in a uniform society they tend to form ghettoes. That is why many older american cities have chinatowns or little Italys.
American and Canadian societies have been dealing with this for over a hundred years, and so have more experience with minority cultures. Sweden is a very homogenous place and its culture is not equipped to deal with large numbers of people of a different culture. That is why the large welfare state works well for native swedish but tends to keep immigrants out of the workplace. Its police are not ready to deal with people who do not share Swedish values and do not respond to riots very well. Criminals can sense the weakness of the police and join the rioting.
Much of Europe is in a similar situation to what America had in the late 1960s. They have a highly concentrated minority population that is doing poorly economically, and has an oppositional culture. Their police and courts are not ready to deal with that fact and it is a combustible combination.
Compton isnt a ghetto; 2013 Compton is a majority Mexican/Mexican-American city.
I think we Americans may have something to say about that claim…
Why are these things mutually exclusive?
Because ghetto implies African American and abject poverty. This is not the Latino experience in the USA. Latinos dont buy into victimization and tend to integrate and advance in the culture ala Euro immigrants in the 19th century. Thusm 2013 Compton has little in common with NWA 1980s Compton.
For starters, the term “ghetto” was used long before blacks in the US were freed from slavery. It actually came from Europe and applied to Jews.
Second, it’s quite offensive and more than a little racist for you to try and imply that African-Americans “buy into victimization”.
Third, I’m not sure how barrios are all that different from ghettos.
Well, maybe to you it does, but that isn’t what “ghetto” means.
And there’s the rub. 2nd generation is the worst of both worlds - the generation without a home. They don’t have any “Old Country” where they’d feel a sense of belonging, as well as within the whole community of 1st generation immigrants from the Old Country ; but they’re Not Insert New Nationality Enough either - particularly if they’ve got any outward signs of foreignness, be it skin colour, a funny accent, a funny name to go with it and so on.
Which means they get discriminated against for employment, for housing, for education, don’t and can’t really fit in anywhere… The New Country tells them to shut up and integrate (while often doing very little, if anything, to make that easy) ; but their own parents & community tend to frown when they don’t stick to the ways and values of The Old Country. And of course, they can expect plenty of xenophobic fucks to yell at them to go back where they came from. Which is, y’know, here. And even *if *they did go back to the Old Country for some reason, they wouldn’t belong any better - there they’d be Not Old-Country-ish Enough.
So they get confused, pissed off and don’t have much hope of seeing things ever change or be any better for their own children. Sometimes the pot boils over. It’s pretty understandable.
Excellent post. Makes very good sense.
I can’t speak to refugees in Sweden per se, but the stereotype that refugees as a rule are not educated, intelligent or skilled, or were doing poorly in their native country, is far from necessarily true. With the exception of those who are brought over through some sort of UN resettlement programme, most of them will have had to pay their own way - and since western states have essentially closed their borders to most refugee-producing states, this usually means paying extortionate costs to a smuggler to get your tickets and forge your documents. It’s not an easy thing to do if you were already desperately poor (which is why most of the world’s refugees remain in Africa or Asia). It’s actually one of the things that tends to cause the most resentment among refugees and asylum seekers who make it to Europe; either they’re not allowed to work or they’re relegated to menial jobs that they’re overqualified for.
One minor issue: these places aren’t even remotely close to being ghettos.
And yes, I have actually been to Husby.
That’s pretty much it.
Up until very recently Native Swedes tried not to live in certain areas, it is less “put the immigrants there” and more “Native Swedes get homes elsewhere”. This, along with a distasteful touch of racism that is far more apparent than my native Britain, has brought about the geographical divide. As an example, I used to see a physiotherapist for a shoulder issue. She was about my age (thirties) and was looking to move to Stockholm (she had a bit of a commute) and happily said that she wanted to “avoid the dark areas”.
But what has changed is the housing problem in Stockholm. There is a massive shortage of homes and so now native Swedes are looking to move to those areas because there is no other option. I live in South East Stockholm in a place that has a large immigrant population and had a terrible reputation in the nineties. I’ve had Native Swedish friends visit me and look quite worried as we walk around, thinking they are going to be jumped or something. That’s the view they have of these areas. But the reality is that, in my opinion, the demographics are changing due to the housing problems, which also has seen the value of my flat double in the past decade.
Why do I think they are rioting? Much like the British riots in 2011, there may have been a real trigger but by now it is mostly kids seeing an excuse to burn stuff.
No it doesn’t, because these places are not ghettos.