From Common Dreams: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/06/02
by Ritt Goldstein
Published on Sunday, June 2, 2013 by Common Dreams
The Swedish riots appear to have ended, but while most of the media fumbles about to understand what happened, the answers arguably seem to have been provided 12 March, over two months before the unrest began. At that time I interviewed Paul Lappalainen, a senior Swedish civil servant who had run the Government’s 2005 inquiry into ‘structural discrimination’. It was a most prescient moment when he said “I prefer not seeing riots”, but warned it “seems that policymakers are not trying to avoid the conditions within which riots occur.”
Contrary to what many believe Sweden to be, while the country’s borders may indeed be open, certain ‘cultural borders’ within it are another matter, assorted reports documenting the prejudice minorities and immigrants daily live with.
What Lappalainen emphasized was a ‘structure’ of pervasive and disenfranchising discrimination, discrimination discussed in the report his 2005 inquiry provided, ‘Det blågula glashuset – strukturell diskriminering i Sverige’ (The blue/yellow glass house – structural discrimination in Sweden); by a 2007 report by the UN’s International Labour Organization, ‘Discrimination against Native Swedes of Immigrant Origin in Access to Employment’; by a 2008 report by the government’s Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention (Brå), ‘Discrimination in the criminal justice process in Sweden…The direct and indirect discrimination of individuals from a non-Swedish or other minority background’; and, in a November 2012 government report, ‘Främlingsfienden inom oss’ (The enemy of strangers within us – my own translation). Significantly, while much media is blaming disenfranchised immigrants, the poor, and their allies for the recent violence, the government’s November 2012 report noted its title was justified by the significant threat posed to vulnerable groups by the ‘many different forms of everyday racism’ which ordinary Swedes can embrace, the xenophobia many harbor. Tellingly, the report’s summary ends by observing that Swedes “must begin with ourselves” (måste börja med oss själva) in addressing this.
The fuse gets lit
Unfortunately, while there’s long been much discussion about discrimination and prejudice, there’s a Swedish expression – ‘mycket snack och lite verkstad’. It means ‘a lot of talk and little action’. However, if a powder keg sits around long enough, sooner or later the fuse gets lit.
The start of the 2011 riots in Paris’ suburbs, the Brixton riots in the UK, and virtually all of the US’s major strife dating from the 1960s, do have one factor in common – perceived police wrongdoing triggered the unrest. In Sweden, the riots began following the police killing of a man in his late sixties, reports initially suggesting he had a machete, a woman hostage, and had threatened police. Swedish papers screamed “Machetemannen” (The Machete Man), the implications being obvious, printing that the fellow had died in hospital, attempts to save him failing…but, it appears this isn’t quite right.
Continue reading at: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2013/06/02
