How Norway Was Invaded by Beggars

Zylark is a Norwegian who has recently volunteered to do translations for Gates of Vienna. Below is his account of the current multicultural state of affairs in his country, brought about by open borders and a politically correct mentality.


How Norway Was Invaded by Beggars
by Zylark

Within the last four years the character of the streets in Norwegian cities has changed. On just about every street corner in the centers of our five largest cities you’ll find Gypsy Romanians (GR) torturing some accordion with the same awful tune, or just sitting there looking as miserable as possible begging. Then of course we have the roaming street-merchants, selling everything from flowers to fake gold jewelry. With rather pushy methods, I might add.

They come by the busload from Romania, thinking Norway is a land of milk and honey where they can get a small fortune for doing nothing but annoy us.

So it was for a while, but this is changing.

Back in 2005 and earlier we had a vagrancy law that amongst other things forbade begging. Our politicians in all their wisdom decided the time was ripe to repeal this law. Apparently our leaders looked around, did not see much begging anyway, and those who were begging were basically down-on-their-luck junkies and alcoholics. These, it was supposed, did not need the extra burden of being criminals just for begging for the means to sustain their addiction. Better that they beg than, say, steal or commit other crimes.

Our wise politicians repealed the vagrancy law on the 1st of January 2006. They forgot just one little thing: Norway is part of the Schengen Agreement, which means any and all EU residents may enter Norway without the hassle of applying for visas or even bringing along a passport.

That very summer of 2006, GR came in the thousands, most of them in well-organized gangs, or families if you wish. Suddenly our cities were full of beggars. Proper street-musicians virtually disappeared, pushed aside by gangs of accordion playing gypsies. Crime, especially pick-pocketing and shoplifting, followed suit. However, such crime was not a big problem initially.

Today the situation is different. Norwegians have quite simply stopped giving money to these professional beggars.

From an article in Norway’s largest newspaper, VG, one can read:
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Anasie has been in Norway several summers in a row. “Never before have Norwegians been as impolite and cynical as now. Earlier I could make 40-50 euros a day, now I get barely 10.”

Vasilian (19), Tiberiu (19) and Simona (17) also decided to try their luck in Norway. They are street-musicians [if you can call one off-key accordion and two tambourines off the beat “music”] and drove the long way to Norway from Romania.

Norwegians have become less generous, they say. They don’t give as much as before. Several hours of playing have only yielded 30 cents.

No big surprises there. Norwegians are if anything an empathic people. But we don’t like being fooled. We’ve seen with our very eyes how these beggars are organized in gangs. They may look miserable on the street doing their “work”, but when they retire for the day they are often picked up by flashy cars or slink off to huge caravans. Also, the disabled among them suddenly become mysteriously healthy come day’s end.

So, since their “income” from begging and torturing our ears has waned, they’ve sought new avenues of revenue. Now shoplifting and pick-pocketing is at an all time high. Not to mention violent assault and robberies. Car-jackings have even occurred. Pushy street-merchants are ganging up on unsuspecting Norwegians and tourists alike, trying to sell junk whilst fiddling through pockets and purses.

This, of course, put a strain on our law-enforcement officers, who have enough on their plate already, and they have to fight this problem with one hand tied behind their back.

Before it was simple enough. If they saw foreign nationals doing any commercial street pandering, be that selling junk or playing music without an easily obtained permit (that require a temporary address for the duration, for example, a hotel), or simply begging, they could arrest them and send them on their jolly way out of the country by enforcing the vagrancy laws.

Better yet, our customs officers could stop them at the border, demand to know what resources they had with them to support their stay in Norway. Anyone without resources to buy food or other necessities would be denied access.

What we’ve seen in the past years, however, are entire busloads of GR stopping at homeless shelters, with the bus driver advising that these are the places where you can get free food…

This has now stopped, as homeless shelters and other centers for low-threshold food aid (aimed mainly at local junkies and alcoholics), are denied to so-called tourists. One needs legal proof of residency or a Norwegian-issued ID card.

The irony is, of course, that our Minister of Justice is just now waking up to this massive problem. That minister, Mr. Storberget (Social Democrat), is the very same who repealed the vagrancy laws just three and a half years ago.

What does he want to do? Admit his mistake and reinstate the vagrancy laws? That would be too simple, wouldn’t it?

Hell, no! He wants to frame some international bureaucracy with a common set of laws and regulations that ensures cooperation between the countries involved, so as to isolate and identify the criminal elements, and target those specifically. A price tag has not yet been set.

For some reason most our politicians seem to forget that just four years ago, we did not have this problem. Not with foreign beggars and visiting criminals. They ignore the fact that back then our law-enforcement officers had the legal tools to prevent this from happening in the first place, and that they, the politicians in power, removed those tools.

In just over a month Norway will be holding national elections. It is already in the cards that the makeup of our parliament will change rather dramatically. One can hope this will also result in a new government with a bit more common sense.