Construct, if you are actually interested for some reason to know what is going on in Sweden you could just ask. I’m a Swede, I’ve lived here for 39 years and I am fairly up to date on what is going on here.
It would go something like this:
Construct: Hey Stoneburg, is your country being over-run by crazy jihadists that are raping your women and trying to instate Sharia law?
Stoneburg: No. We’ve been having an big influx of refugees from the Middle East and Africa for a while, with all the wars and stuff that is going on, and it is causing some problems but nothing major. It would be nice if some other countries could open up because we’re running out of housing and we’re having a bit of an unemployment problem here. If we don’t get some help, meaning other nations doing their part (nudge nudge… US maybe…?), our social security system is gonna be over loaded soon.
Construct: Ok. But no rape epidemics or… you know… streets running red with blood and all that?
Stoneburg: lol! Hehe, no. So how’s the weather on your side of the world?
Construct: No seriously, what about the rape situation?
Stoneburg: Well it’s a problem that some of these cultures aren’t as egalitarian as ours, and many immigrant groups ARE over represented in these statistics, so we should definitely do something about that, but all in all this is still one of the safest countries in the world. Speaking of that, you’re not planning on starting any new wars… are you? I mean we really can’t handle that much more refugees so it would be cool if you could tone it down for a while.
Construct: I’m gonna have to get back to you on that… You might wanna start stocking up on translators who speak persian.
Stoneburg: Oh for fucks sake…
You know. Like normal people.
Stoneburg, you need to realize that in today’s exchanges, you have been interacting with people who are getting their “information” from the members of the Far Right to whom I referred in my first post to the thread. Led by those sources, they are really not in a position to consider facts or reality.
Native swedes rape more women per person than immigrants.
Immigrants rape more women per person than native swedes.
Both groups rape exactly the same amount of women.
To me the least likely would be #3. Actually I would say that is pretty much impossible.
I’m pretty convinced that immigrants are over represented not just in the report and convictions, but also in the actual amounts of rapes. This makes sense because Sweden has a very feminized culture and a very, very low rate of violent crime by international standards. The influx of immigrants have been from much more patriarchal cultures with more machismo and a more aggressive attitude towards sexuality and women.
As an anecdotal example being naked together in the sauna is very natural thing for most Swedes. But once when me and two women decided to have a sauna with an immigrant friend, he started acting very weird. Like it was a prelude to an orgy, and started behaving in a way that was way out of line. I had to take him out and explain to him that two women being naked in the sauna with us did was NOT an invitation to have sex. Unfortunately for Construct the guy was an American.
I was kind of hoping and expecting that once they were given correct information, and be able to interact with actual Swedish people, they would realize they have been lied to. I’m not expecting them to change whatever political opinions they have, but assumed they would stop propagating this meme when they found out it was in direct conflict with truth and reality.
I myself don’t live in quite that degree of mixed-sex sauna culture (except after a lot of wine), but neither do I live in a culture where a TV network gets hit with huge fines because of the immoral and corrupting effect of having someone’s nipple pop out during a television broadcast!
I do, however, live in a country that has national single-payer health care, so I see the analogy because these same sages who have never been here inform me that people are dying in the streets lined up in front of the DMV waiting for their government health care. I’ve never seen it, but if they say it, it must be true. So I do take your first point – they could get all their information from Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh, or they could just ask me, since I freaking live here and have been all my life.
It just doesn’t make sense. It’s so easy to be anti-islam or whatever without clinging to some weird fantasy about Sweden. There are plenty of facts that actually support it. Here’s how I would do it:
#1 The Koran encourages genocide and is horribly misogynic. (true) #2 The WTC attack was carried out by muslims and celebrated by many muslims around the world. (true) #3 ISIS have created a caliphate, the muslim dream state, and they have re-instituted slavery and crucifixion. (true)
There you got the whole thing. You attack the fundamental scripture, then some individuals, then you show what would happen if “they” were in charge. Done. You don’t need to make shit up.
I mean if I hear something really strange about another country, first chance I get when I meet someone from there I ask them if it is true. I don’t insist that what I heard is the truth and then accuse them of being brain washed if they protest. I actually assume that someone living someplace knows more about that place than I do.
Immigrants are also more likely to be poor and I think there’s little doubt that poor people commit more violent crimes then the non-poor for a whole variety of reasons.
Yeah I think the socio economic factors WAY outweigh the cultural ones. The reason Swedes don’t commit much crimes anymore is that we have a very high living standard and (probably more importantly) very small gaps compared to other nations. But I really do think that the view of women in these cultures is a contributing factor when it comes to rape.
Having said that, it was not until 1962 that it became illegal for a man to rape his wife in Sweden. So it’s not like Sweden has always been a feminist heaven or sanctuary for women.
I love that quote and have employed it more than once on the SDMB. Although it comes from a fictional work, it’s just so damn perfect for countering racist nonsense.
Stoneburg, how do you explain the rise of Sweden Democrats? Here is a “real-time” graph of their poll results. http://status.st/
Pretty much only thing on their agenda is reducing immigration, right? Why so many people decides to support them?
In addition of Syriza of Greece, I have never heard something that compares to this. A party comes out of nowhere and in few years storms to become biggest party of the country. And this seems to be only beginning, as the graphs are pointing straight up. Also, so far polling results have been so far always lower than election results. I assume people don’t dare to admit they vote for SD.
I must agree that you still have a multi-party system, like you said. But for me it is not 8 party system but “SD against all the other parties” system. Moderates and Social Democrats decided recently to effectively stop their rivarly to keep SD out of power, am I right? It is comparable that Republicans and Democrats would agree to share power and start to support each others to fight against some third party.
Not really. Brazil’s the posterboy for transracial fucking and everybody being some shade of brown, but as I understand it (never been there myself) there’s still some sort of “whiteness” social gradation going on, where lighter shaded people are seen as prettier and/or look down on the darker ones. This is also true in India, South Korea and Japan (again, as I understand it).
White folks fucked the world’s head but good :smack:
I have heard something that compares to this. A while back there was a small splinterparty in Germany that stormed from an election result of 2,6% to 43,9% within just five years.
I am not saying that party was otherwise comparable to the SD (although these two letters were part of its name). But they showed that a program based on fear and rejection of minorities combined with a generous helping of nationalism can get you far at the polls.
It happened in chaotic, desperate, furious circumstances. I would presume most of people supported it because they saw it as a last hope. Same goes with Syriza, I think.
Actually there are three distinct blocks. The left lot - and that gets confusing as the Social Democrats managed to alienate the Left Party somehow, the right lot and then the Sweden Democrats. There was an agreement to not go along with the Social Democrats, that doesn’t mean they are going to have the same policies and act as a single block. The main issue was the budget, that had to be passed otherwise a new election would have been called.
As to the rise of the Sweden Democrats? To be honest, as a Brit living here I see it somewhat differently than a Swede may. In my opinion Sweden didn’t go through the large scale immigration that other European countries went through several decades ago. So Sweden now is more like the UK in the 60 and 70s, which as far as race went was a much less enlightened time. And I have found Sweden to have a strange undercurrent of racism in a way that I never came across in the UK, which I have always put down to just not being used to large amounts of immigrants. With that in mind it is quite easy to convince people that any of the issues going on are related to immigration, even if things like employment problems being more closely tied to a worldwide financial collapse.
In fact, many of the issues regarding modern Sweden have a much more obvious explanation than “immigration”. Schooling, for example. Changes in the way certain core subjects like Maths are taught have been unpopular and have not had the desired results, leading to Sweden dropping down the tables. Then add on to that the concept of the opinion-dividing free school, which (IIRC) unlike the UK can be for-profit, and you have another major change. But it is oh so easy to just say “immigration”.
No matter how you put it, two old nemesis are now collaborating so they are not going to disagree too much and collapse the fragile government - only because of hatred towards SD.
Sweden survived 2008 almost unscathed, so that is hardly an explanation.
Most other European countries took much worse hit and still there is nothing comparable.
The NSDAP came to power in a time of turmoil, that much is true. But I am afraid you probably are giving my countrymen too much credit, if you assume that they were elected out of sheer desperation. They became popular, because they told the people what they *wanted *to hear. It is a message that still is broadcast - quite successfully - by many a political party today:
*We *are the good people in this country. *We *are just, reasonable, smart and productive, and *we *would be in a very good place today if it were not for them.
*They *are responsible for every mess that we find ourselves in today, and *they *will make it all much worse, if we do not stop them.
In other news, Arnold Schwarzenegger is changing his name to Arnold Schwarzeblackperson. You know, not to offend anyone. It really means “someone from Schwarzenegg”, but that’s not what it sounds like.
