this post was submitted on 01 Apr 2024
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Interesting Global News

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[–] stoy@lemmy.zip 34 points 7 months ago (8 children)

Swede here, shit is BAD, but this is relative to how things used to be before this shit started, so in relative global terms Sweden is still a damn good place to live.

That being said, this behavior should be seen as a warning to not take culture clashes lightly.

I am sure I am going to catch a lot of heat for this, but damn it, it needs to be said.

The gangs we see are a direct result of a terribly run migration policy.

We have taken in far, far, far too many migrants in a way, way, way too short ammount of time.

This combined with a integration policy that keeps failing over and over as we continously refuse to enforce even the most basic attempt by migrants to integrate. There are many migrants who has lived in Sweden for many years without speaking either Swedish or English, they still have a right to free interpretors when dealing with doctors and government services, this is fucking mental.

We have punnishments and laws fitting Swedes from the 1960s or so, they don't do shit against the modern gangs.

So what needs to be done?

Start actually deporting criminals, log their DNA and give them a lifetime ban on returning, check all migrants against this database.

To those born in Sweden, start instituting extra long prison terms for criminals who keep reoffending.

Enforce learning the Swedish language and check compliance with in-person tests, and mandatory lessons. If you need an interpreter after 3 years, you have to pay for it yourself.

[–] Geth@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Wait, why would anyone have the right to free interpreters at any time? That sounds like such a waste of public resources and like you said, enables people to never even try to learn the language.

[–] stoy@lemmy.zip 7 points 7 months ago

As an initial concept, it is resonable to help people get the care they need even if they don't speak the language, but after 5 years of working to live here you should be expected to be able to communicate without an interpreter, even if it is not fluent.

[–] rottingleaf@lemmy.zip 2 points 7 months ago (1 children)

No, saying that Swedish integration policies suck while it has taken more immigrants than it should is fine.

So are solutions, only it's a bit cruel to do that now to people already living in Sweden for many years.

So maybe enforcing learning the language (with maybe some cultural basics course) is fine, but deportations should come like 5+ years later.

[–] stoy@lemmy.zip 13 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Deportations, as in after commiting a crime, should be on the table instantly for violent crimes commited by migrants.

Note that I am not talking about general deportations of normal, well adjusted migrants, but migrants commiting violent crimes.

As for language and culture classes, we allready offer them for free to all migrants, Svenska För Invandrare, it is however critisized for only offering low quallity classes, which is a big problem that needs to be adressed.

[–] ZC3rr0r@lemmy.ca 7 points 7 months ago (1 children)

My wife signed on for SFI after she moved, and found that the level and expectations were so low she had difficulty staying engaged with the classes and course material.

She looked into private tutoring and was fluent in Swedish in 4 months, and ended up teaching Swedish to highschool aged kids after just 2.5 years.

To this day she wonders if SFI wasn't secretly designed to push anyone with any kind of ambition out of the system.

I personally think it's a case of bigotry of low expectations, but it's clear it really doesn't work for the intended purpose.

[–] stoy@lemmy.zip 4 points 7 months ago

This tracks with what I have heard about it, and also tracks with my expectations of the Swedish government in cases like these, they dumb it down to the lowest possible standard to get good stats on the usage and success rate of it.

[–] rottingleaf@lemmy.zip 3 points 7 months ago

OK, no disagreement.

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[–] ExtremeDullard@lemmy.sdf.org 26 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (6 children)

I asked Finnish colleagues what they thought of the situation in Sweden - and not just the latest events, but how the country has turned evermore violent and dangerous for the past 20 years. They told me quite unapologetically: "Well, the Swedes opened their borders wide to all kinds of people from wildly different cultural backgrounds coming from really troubled countries and the Finns haven't. Now they have the problems those people brought with them and we don't."

I'm starting to think there's some truth to this. But as a foreigner, whenever I go to Finland, the reverse - the lack of cultural diversity, the sea of whiteness and the absolute lack of non-Finnish-sounding names - is equally unsettling, rather stifling and feels genuinely bizarre sometimes.

I guess you can't have the best of both worlds...

[–] GregorGizeh@lemmy.zip 23 points 7 months ago (1 children)

While I personally believe that immigration is both humane and necessary for the aging western economies, I think it's safe to say that the purely optimistic, citizenship first and questions later mentality has proven a failure.

Without rules and a culture that demands assimilation instead of parallel existence in a separate microcosm, the new citizens have difficulties identifying with the new social order they are moving into, and naturally little respect for it either. Not to mention that by corralling immigrants into ghettos the formation of parallel structures is encouraged and the native population alienated.

[–] rottingleaf@lemmy.zip 3 points 7 months ago (1 children)

While I personally believe that immigration is both humane and necessary for the aging western economies,

Oh, wow. Instead of solving the problem where people don't consider it plausible to have at least 2 children, let's bring in more people from poorer countries.

Without rules and a culture that demands assimilation instead of parallel existence in a separate microcosm,

Yeah, see, it's fine to have separate microcosms for any sane society. Just some are toxic.

It's simply about education and, yes, not letting in people you don't want.

[–] GregorGizeh@lemmy.zip 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Where did I say bring in the poors to clean our toilets? Obviously I would prefer a not capitalist system where people can afford to have kids, and immigration can mean a lot of things. I also said the current approach to immigration is failing. As for parallel societies, no, those shouldn't exist and the fact that they do is the result of failed assimilation.

[–] rottingleaf@lemmy.zip 1 points 7 months ago (1 children)

Every town ideally is a parallel society.

Also either you have one social space for everyone accepting of all ideas and views, or you have cultural wars marginalizing and suppressing people unpleasant for you (like racists or religious nuts or whoever), in which case they will have their own space because they don't really have to accept your domination.

[–] GregorGizeh@lemmy.zip 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

I think we are arguing semantics here, subcultures are fine and normal. Parallel societies, like those that form around ghettos full of immigrants, with their own unofficial set of laws and rules certainly are not.

That's more a failure of the integration policies of the host country though.

[–] rottingleaf@lemmy.zip 1 points 7 months ago

Well, I think there's Christiania in Copenhagen?.. A different kind of that.

[–] Wolo@lemmy.wtf 11 points 7 months ago (2 children)

Which is kind of hilarious since Finland has a much higher murder rate than Sweden.

[–] ExtremeDullard@lemmy.sdf.org 12 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

"Much" higher is stretching it. According to Wikipedia, Sweden has a homicide rate of 1.1 per 100,000 in vs 1.2 for Finland.

Meaning it would just take a couple of drunken Swedes with a fruit knife to put Sweden ahead.

[–] Slayer@infosec.pub 6 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

Sweden has a homicide rate of 1.2 per 100,000 in vs 1.1 for Finland.

Sweden has 1.1 and Finland 1.2

[–] ExtremeDullard@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 7 months ago

Yeah, the other way round 🙂 Fixed. Thanks!

[–] Kbin_space_program@kbin.social 1 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

"Much higher"
Notably, the murder rate in Sweeden and Finland is a full third below the lowest state in the US. And the US average is about 5 per 100k.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territories_by_intentional_homicide_rate

[–] AllNewTypeFace@leminal.space 9 points 7 months ago

Sweden also is a sea of whiteness, beyond a small number of BAME immigrants often concentrated in banlieue-like outer suburbs and the adoption of kebab-meat pizza as a comfort food. Even in Stockholm, it’s a lot less diverse than, say, Paris or Berlin.

[–] DessertStorms@kbin.social 8 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

I guess you can’t have the best of both worlds

Of course you can, you just have to not maintain an exclusive society, because an exclusive society depends on excluding others, and when the "others" can't be excluded anymore, that's when the full blown racism kicks in. Knowing that people see racism as some inevitability rather than a deliberate system of oppression created and imposed by individuals who benefit from its existence (if to varying degrees) is pretty fucking terrifying.

The idea that there was no crime before immigration, or that the Finns (or Nordic people in general, who all maintain a similar society and are facing similar issues with racism now that they can't maintain their white supremacist exclusivity anymore) are innocent little lambs who have never committed a crime before the brown people arrived is not only absurd, it's pretty racist and disgusting in its own right.

They love to laud themselves as the best most developed most progressive countries, but the reality is they're just a couple of decades, if not a century behind the rest of Europe when it comes to integration (this does not equal equity or equality, just integration), and are following exactly the same route as the other countries have - capitalist government and the media that supports it need a scapegoat (who they've rigged the system against so they'd have to struggle by default, living in poverty, feeling excluded, attacked for their race) to shift blame and attention to, while they continue to exploit the people of their country (the fact that there are Nordic billionaires easily contradicts any claim to socialism they might raise, and you don't need to look far to thoroughly debunk it altogether).

The fact that you're an immigrant and are seriously considering there's some truth in this racism is pretty fucking sad and scary, but mostly goes to show just how powerful the propaganda is (and how similar it is in all countries, which is probably why it hits a nerve with you even though you don't live there).

[–] rottingleaf@lemmy.zip 4 points 7 months ago

the reverse - the lack of cultural diversity, the sea of whiteness and the absolute lack of non-Finnish-sounding names - is equally unsettling

LOL. It's unsettling for you that people's names and faces don't entertain your weird fetish?

Go to Kenia and compare, I think it'll be even less diverse.

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 1 points 7 months ago

Maybe a compromise

[–] Drinvictus@discuss.tchncs.de 11 points 7 months ago

It all comes down to Erdogan. He's the one harboring the heads of these criminal organizations because they pay him well. The Turkish government essentially became a part of a drug empire.

[–] possiblylinux127@lemmy.zip 1 points 7 months ago

I though that part of Europe was suppose to be Utopian? I guess everyone focuses on the positive from an international perspective. Regardless, I still know nothing about Sweden other than it is the headquarters of Ikea