Thursday, April 10, 2008

Covering up the Truth

The following article appeared on Tuesday in the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter. It caused quite a stir in Sweden and Denmark; Steen posted about it the day it came out.

It’s an important and ground-breaking essay, especially since it appeared in the Swedish MSM, which up until now has been categorically unwilling to discuss the issue of immigration in realistic terms.

Our Swedish correspondent HL has kindly translated the entire article for us.


“The Journalists cover up the truth about the Immigrants”

Demands for transparency in Swedish immigration politics: Political correctness is like a poison gas in the climate of debate regarding asylum and refugee issues. During a quarter of a century, approximately one million foreign nationals have been granted residency in Sweden. Nine out of ten of these are neither classified as refugees nor are they in need of protection. It is therefore a lie that Sweden’s welcoming of foreigners primarily is aimed at giving protection to the most vulnerable refugees. But this is kept quiet about by both politicians and the mass media. Especially the journalists have failed to live up to their responsibility. Instead we have engaged in a national cover-up for ideological reasons of everything that touches upon immigration, asylum, and refugee issues. The government should now immediately investigate how much those people who have come here cost in public expenses and contribute through taxes. A society that falls apart because of too much immigration serves the interests of no one. Thus writes Gunnar Sandelin, journalist, social worker and former media spokesperson for Bris [Translator’s note: A Children’s Rights Group].

From the mid-70’s and for ten years I worked at a social security office and a rehab center in Stockholm. As a rookie social worker I found myself in a tradition which I instinctively opposed, even from the start, but which I nonetheless soon fell into compliance with. I was granting residence permits to asylum seekers, vacation trips to the countries they supposedly had fled from. I paid social security money to foreign nationals who I was almost certain had undocumented jobs on the side — all done in order to avoid uncomfortable confrontations. Concerning a certain ethnic group, my boss told me that “we’ll just have to support and regard them as a folklorist’s daub of color.” In hindsight it is obvious that I for one lacked adequate experience and the courage it would have taken to change the yielding and permissive system. Many times the social workers engendered an unhealthy dependency on benefits, regardless whether the clients were Swedish or had a foreign background.

During eight years after this I was a reporter for “The Swedish Television Network” There I was given, among other things, instructions by an editor in charge of one of our largest news shows that it should be such a “crying shame for the immigrants that people should cry in front of their TV sets.” In order for a news broadcast to be considered a “good show” it was preferable that there were victims, but between the lines it was understood that the claims of the victims were never to be scrutinized. Since then I have wondered about the reasons why those who are molding public opinion are so poorly in tune with reality in this matter. How many influential journalists have had a longer and consecutively running job in the very reality which they are trying to describe in their reports? Our molders of the public opinion hardly ever live where the problems exist. The elite of writers and professional thinkers belong to the upper middle class, who inside their safe havens can protect their ideological constructions undisturbed, and frown at the intolerance of the more simple creatures. At SVT [the Swedish equivalence of the BBC] we called the average viewers “Nisse i Hökarängen”. [roughly “Joe in Suburbia”].
- - - - - - - - -
On the website of the Office of Migration there is a table with the title “Approved Residence Permits 1980-2006”. It specifies on what grounds any foreigner has been given a residence permit here during the past 26 years. The information has been available for many years, with annual updates. Nonetheless, it sadly seems that the journalists of Sweden have avoided reviewing it. The result has been that the most profound change which has happened in Swedish society in our time has not been officially discussed in any comprehensive way. The statistics from the Office of Migration clearly highlight this dishonesty, by both the media’s reporting as well as the responsible politicians who fear speaking truthfully to the public.

From 1980 to 2006 approximately one million residence permits have been approved in Sweden, of which almost half are permanent, which makes Sweden different from most other countries. An addition of nearly one million foreign citizens during such a short period of history is a great proportion of such a small population as Sweden’s, and when it comes to accepting asylum seekers Sweden tops the statistics per capita for any country in Europe. Besides this, almost half of those who are allowed to stay, about half a million, are included in family-tied immigration. Together with the second largest portion, “Humanitarian Reasons” (Now labeled “Especially Sensitive”), this immigration makes up two thirds of all approved residence permits. But these are not connected to reasons of protection and fall outside the criteria for asylum.

Only 22,000 or 5 percent of the asylum seekers have been granted the right to stay because they are considered refugees according to the UN convention, which group comprises people who are at risk of being persecuted in their native country because of race, nationality, religious or political views, sex, or sexual preference. Another 35,000 have come here as quota refugees, chosen by the Migration Office and the UN’s refugee body UNCHR, after all other possibilities have been exhausted. Quota and Convention refugees are the only groups which are connected to UN decisions when it concerns protection and asylum. But approximately eight out of ten asylum seekers are granted permanent residence permits without being classified as refugees. Instead they are allowed to stay for humanitarian reasons or given asylum on national special addendums which constantly change names: “refugee-like reasons”, “De facto refugee”, “In need of protection”.

When comparing all those who have been granted residence permits during these 26 years, nine out of ten are neither classified as refugees nor in need of protection. This entire picture shows that it isn’t true that Sweden’s acceptance of foreign nationals primarily is to protect the most vulnerable refugees’ right to stay safe.

The big picture may be difficult to explain, but it is the publicists’ obligation toward the general public, whom hardly have the energy to follow every twist and turn regarding immigration, asylum, and refugee admittance. Journalists have a responsibility, and sometimes a clear duty, to highlight societal issues from a comprehensive perspective. This responsibility is one that the people in my line of work have thoroughly failed. During all years there has been an almost complete one-sidedness in refugee matters. We have not presented inconvenient facts nor debated where Sweden’s topsy-turvy asylum policy may lead. Instead we have had a national cover-up which is maintained for ideological reasons, in which the reality must step aside for an idealized self-image and a disingenuous tolerance.

It is rarely beneficial for one’s career to speak in favor of a more restrictive asylum policy or to question the multicultural society. The political correctness is like a poison gas over the debating climate. The feared stigma “Hostile to foreigners/racist” still works as a choke leash and deters many from going into polemics against the representatives of the good cause, who from pure reflex use belittling generalizations to blunt the edge of all criticism. The actual issue will seldom be discussed, which scarcely improves the chances for the most vulnerable refugees to stay.

The very extensive immigration to Sweden, the world’s leading benefits-giving nation, costs enormous amounts — we know that. Speculations in the editorial sections of the daily newspapers and investigations and calculations which have been made since the mid-nineties vary drastically, and point to annual costs between 40 to closer to 300 billion a year. Not too long ago the two chairmen of the Swedish Counties and States wrote in DN Debatt [Dagens Nyheter’s editorial section) that “only half of the men who came as refugees during the latter part of the 1990s had jobs five years later. Regarding the women, this number was even lower, between 30 and 40 percent.” But we are never given a straight answer regarding the costs by the politicians who have opened our borders. In all other cases expenses are carefully considered in detail, but in this case there is amnesty from such basic common sense. Instead we are forced to guess how great the expenses are.

In Europe it is becoming more legitimate to dare to demand a public discussion concerning the societal costs regarding immigration/asylum acceptance. For example, in our neighboring Nordic countries there is a much more open climate. Great Britain’s head rabbi Jonathan Sacks recently put forth in his book The Home We Build Together his misgivings about the disintegration of the multicultural society. It caused lively debate in the British media, but in Sweden not a word. During the Spanish election campaign, immigration was for the first time brought up as a big issue. With us the Moderate Party has at least given notice that asylum politics and integration for the first time will become an election question. The Migration Minister has labeled the Swedish politicians’ fear to speak of the immigration problem as “issue angst” and that they instead should dare talk about “socio-economical problems which are linked to a certain category.”

Of course we should accept people who can prove that they are escaping in order to save their lives. It is equally obvious that one cannot talk about immigrants as one group. But one must still be given the right to discuss the issue broadly and openly, without facing accusations of racism and hostility against foreigners. The transition from Sweden as a homogenous society to a multicultural one is the greatest change in our lifetime. That our tax billions are routinely given out to large groups that have not been classified as either refugees or in need of protection is detrimental to our social morale, and in the long term results only in genuine hostility to foreigners. The bottom line: it is humanitarian hubris to think that Sweden can accommodate any greater portion of all those who are in trouble on our earth. This established thought pattern was in the beginning an expression of solidarity, but has during this golden age of human smuggling turned into pure irresponsibility.

It is time that our profession dare lift the lid and hold a public discussion which is anchored outside the ivory tower of the elite. It is a reasonable demand that the government should undertake an official investigation into how much the people that have come here during the last ten to fifteen years cost in public expenses and how much they contribute through taxes. By doing this we could finally get to have an open discussion about the multicultural society’s benefits and disadvantages from a socio-economical perspective. A society which falls apart because of too much immigration serves no one. We must limit ourselves to helping those who are the most vulnerable if we in the future will have any resources left over for a dignified welcome of refugees.

— Gunnar Sandelin


Hat tip: LN.

19 comments:

Homophobic Horse said...

No doubt EXPO and AFA will try to assassinate Sandelin for this.

Afonso Henriques said...

It is stupid.

Kids will continue to die from starving in Darfur... women will continue to be raped...

Why the hell should we let some in and not others.

When I have something that is not eneough for all, I don't give it to anyone. Or maybe, only to some especial people.

What we should do is strenghten ourselves, strenghten our Europe.

The North East Asians are doing that.

Even the muslims are doing that! Why do we have to be losing time with this inferior/doomed beings (I mean, in a Darwinist view)?

Conservative Swede said...

"It’s an important and ground-breaking essay..."

This sort of ground-breaking happens about once every decade as a singular event, and then it all falls back into hypnotic slumber and superstitious tyranny again.

Here is a documentary by Swedish MSM from 1999 speaking clearly about how mass immigration had transformed Malmö into a city of crime, speaking clearly about how it's immigrants that rob and harass Swedes, etc.:
Malmö - a multicultural paradise

This "ground-breaking" event created a lot of hope among many people about an emerging change. What happened next? Well, next was this article in DN in 2008. I think we can expect the next move forward in Swedish MSM to happen around the year 2017.

Steen said...

Firstly, thank to the translater. It IS a truly remarkable article.
There has been articles like this before ( ex: Vad kostar invandringen?
http://www.svd.se/opinion/brannpunkt/artikel_61728.svd)

but there are years between them. I wonder what fate this one will get. Till this moment there has only been three poorly written responses, climing that "SD has finally succeeded in getting an intellektual in the party". Noone has dealt with the content of the article. Again GoV is the spearhead of things, miles before MSM.

John Sobieski said...

There is such strong resistance to admit reality, denial is much more comfortable. Sweden is in a bind. The EU superstate will bind them and assure that noone escapes the death embrace of Islam.

turn said...

I am very sorry for the troubles of the Swedish. I am an American descended from both English and Danske and my concerns are primarily but not exclusively with my American experience.

It became understood between the '50s and the 70's that governments that expected native population growths to continue upwards were mistaken. Part of this was intentionally driven via the early 'Green' movement of Paul Ehrlich's book The Population Bomb which has been totally refuted by Bjorn Lomberg's The skeptical Environmentalist

Forward thinking pols postulated that the solution would be to offer immigration options to former colonials and others without much thought to how this might transform societies. By the time they did realize this they couldn't very well deny it--so multiculti was born.

One cannot understand the various governments' promulgation of immigration without first understanding government mandated SS and the need to prop it up by whatever means necessary.

Emerson Twain said...

"But one must still be given the right to discuss the issue broadly and openly..."

Given the right? This is certainly a key piece of the puzzle, that one would defer comment until one felt that they had been given the right to. Given by whom? And why would a right to discuss issues openly be granted by those who seek to supress debate?

We have met the enemy and he is us.

James Higham said...

Not all is well in the northern paradise then. Will have to come back and re-read.

Zenster said...

In keeping with my well-established online reputation, I shall ask a pointedly uncomfortable and politically incorrect question:

Given that Swedish and Danish culture are not—by any means—identical, neither are they so different where there should be such a glaring disparity in how each of them is handling their respective and markedly similar “immigrant” problem.

The precise question being:

Could it be that Sweden—whose World War II role was far less respectable than Denmark's—is feeling some twinges of guilt over having played both sides of the Nazi-Allied street much as Switzerland did as well?

This would go a long way towards explaining why Sweden is so abjectly surrendering itself, even as their less remote and more diminutive neighbor, Denmark—once again—sets an example for all countries large or small.

Much like other European nations—France in particular—perhaps disreputable participation in the Holocaust has made all racial issues so taboo as to be a Politically Incorrect “third rail”. However much appeasement of Muslims contradicts any debt of honor regarding the prevalent European anti-Semitism that existed during World War II, the veneer of racialism that both issues command—in spades—may well make them play a similar tune.

So, is Sweden attempting to relieve itself of a post-war anti-Semitic burden by lavishing obeisance upon all minority comers? All this, even though such indiscriminant acquiescence breeds up a far worse problem with respect to racial hostility and social cohesion?

From all indications, the answer may well be a silent but deafening “YES!”

I invite any Swedish participants here at GoV to please critique this concept.

Anders said...

If the Swedes are still in the phase of 'breaking through taboos' they can just as well kill themselves. It will AT LEAST take 5 years to complete this phase, and in the end it is only the numbers that count. In Holland we now have 3,2 million immigrants (on a population of 16 mln), amongst whom are 2 million non-Westerners and 1 million Muslims. Most of them arrived in the 80s and 90s, but the debate on this issue was started as late as in 2001 (by the socialist Paul Scheffer, who wrote a similar essay as the one by Sandelin), when it was already too late. Now, the only thing left that to discuss are the consequences, which, of course, are enormous. It has been predicted that by 2040 the share of native Dutch kids will plummet through the 50% line, which means that Dutch ethnicity, identity and - consequently - Dutch culture will have been destroyed forever. Within a single generation, that is. All the luck to the Swedes, though!

Afonso Henriques said...

Anders Wellebeeke,

Here in Portugal, while France was burning during the "youths" revolts, the statal television made a report about the far right.

They showed neo nazis saying things like "we don't want inferior beings here; some people are good at singing, all I am good is fighting people around"...

But one neo nazi said one thing I totally identified. Something that made me believe that even I could join such mentally ill people, he showed a war gun (ilegal here) and said:

"All Nationalists have guns here, all the niggers have guns here, the niggers are using their guns as we speak over our children and eldery ladies. The Nationalists are not going around to shoot and steal people as the niggers are doing despite the fact that some (leftist) people in our government disearved a "bullet in their horns"."

The journalis than asked: So, if you do not use the guns, why do you have them?

And the neo nazi answered:

"WE HAVE THIS ARMS TO PREVENT WHAT IS HAPPENING IN FRANCE, we are arming ourselves so that we can fight for our people, so that when the time comes, we are able to protect our little girls and boys and our eldery that are already being arressed today.
WE ALSO, DO NOT WANT TO BECOME A MINORITY IN OUR COUNTRY, THE NIGGERS AND THE BRAZILIANS AND ALL THE SCUM ARE ALREADY SOMETHING LIKE MORE THAN 25% IN LISBON, THEY AND THE GIPSIES ARE HAVING KIDS LIKE RATS.
WE WILL NOT TOLERATE THAT AND WE WILL NOT LET THINGS LIKE WHAT IS HAPPENING IN FRANCE HAPPEN IN OUR CITIES"

The neo-nazi then said something like: the "ethnics" are too many, and so it is the leftist elite of ours. Now you can see how many decent people are here to work for them all...

One thing is certain, the neo Nazi words still echoe in my mind and, defeniteley, here, we will not become a minority without a fight. I can not imanige the Spaniards and the Italians to not do the same...

This neo Nazi, that was stupid enough to show an ilegal war weapon in his home without hiding his face, in prime time Television, was capable of seeing that we are going down into the darkness... why can't our elite?
He was jailed in that week because he had a ilegal weapon and because he made "racist" statements in T.V.

Anders said...

Neo-nazis playing with guns? Nice... I think we have lost that tradition, but I am not sure.

Get me well, I am not against immigration in se. I have no objections to some healthy admixture of genes and ideas. But what I am opposed is the complete ethnic transformation of my culture. I never asked for it, and I don't think anyone ever did.

It is far to dangerous to play with these things, and our politicians should have known that. But hey, until a few years ago it was a common-place to say: 'we don't have a culture, do we?' Perhaps a tribe that ignorant just deserves to die.

Anonymous said...

It's most unfortunate for Sweden's children that Mr. Sandelin writes this so long after the cultural suicide plan was implemented. The world today's children are to inherit will not be a better one.

thll said...

Anders Wellebeeke said
"...I am not against immigration...I have no objection to some healthy admixture of genes and ideas...I am opposed (to) the complete ethnic transformation of my culture."

With respect sir, I think you need to reconsider the juxtaposition of your thoughts. You are for immigration and for miscegenation yet wish to preserve your culture. Are not the former incompatible with the latter?

Conservative Swede said...

Thll,

More than once in discussions with Westerners, when I explain how the West is soon lost, how Western Europe is already essentially lost, they have answered cheerfully that Europe was lost in WWII to Hitler and then everything went back to normal (suggesting that I'm exaggerating).

There is of course the difference between 'lost' as in stolen for a while, and 'lost' as in eradicated and irreversibly destroyed. A huge difference. And most people simply do not grasp what is going on.

Same with 'preserving your culture'. There is a difference between having your culture somewhat changed or completely eliminated.

So it is very quite possible to be in favour of immigration but against the complete elimination of ones culture. And this has also been the position of European cultures all through times, except for now in the age of mass migrations, colonization and civilizational suicide.

I do not know if your comment comes from the left or from the right, but it doesn't matter since it's equally confused.

Anders said...

Genes are not memes: genes can spread through cultural communities and cultural ideas can infect individuals regardless of their genetic background.

Therefore, I don't think a culture will be destroyed by the admixture of a small genetic component, but it is also wrong to say that genetics and culture not interrelated at all.

Memes are often adopted through identification of one idividual with another. Consequently, if the genetic make-up of a population is radically altered, the identification of the individuals with their cultural predecessors will at least partly be discontinued.

In other words, should the Dutch genetic population become largely Asian during the coming 50 years, there will be a rupture with Dutch cultural tradition, because people will no longer primarily identify with the Dutchmen of the past, but rather with other mongoloid populations elsewhere in the world.

This mechanism has nothing to do with racism, as the progressives like to think, but simply with the powerful factor called identity.

When individuals of a culture are overwhelmed by outsiders, they feel that their own group identity is being replaced by another identity in which they and their children may no longer fit.

By the radical replacement of a dominant identity the carriers of this identity will experience a great sense of loss, because they are witnessing the end of the tradition which they and their ancestors have created.

As the march through the ages comes to an end, the marchers' lives will appear more and more meaningless, because if a culture loses its future, its former carriers will become orphaned.

This is what is happening in West Europe at the moment, and to deny this identity factor seems to be a recipe for instability.

Afonso Henriques said...

"Get me well, I am not against immigration in se. I have no objections to some healthy admixture of genes and ideas. But what I am opposed is the complete ethnic transformation of my culture. I never asked for it, and I don't think anyone ever did. "

Yes, I am against immigration per se once I can not see immigration as something desireble. But, after all, and if the immigrants are "good" (as in what has Historical happened with American Europeans and especially Jews and Nazis after WWII) to our country, I think our duty is to let them in.
Not to consider them part of the Nation a priori but to let them in and give them conditions so that they can live well enough.

Concearning that admixture of genes and ideas. I don't think that they are good per se, neither do I consider immigration as a difuser of ideas. We have the internet for God sake!
But I am also no "racial purity wackho" or something like that. But I beieve that the peoples of this earth do disearve the right to evolve by their own. I am not against one, two or ten individuals that are different, but when the "differents" are more than 10% it makes one wonder... with hell, even 1% would be too much! I am strongly against that kind of multiculutralism despite the fact that I have friends from many "ethnics".

"Perhaps a tribe that ignorant just deserves to die."
Not a tribe. A segment of a big tribe... the leftist and marxist blood that runs to our veins.

Afonso Henriques said...

Anders Wellebeeke,

"In other words, should the Dutch genetic population become largely Asian during the coming 50 years, there will be a rupture with Dutch cultural tradition..."

Now imagine that miscegenation takes place and that there are no "comunities" in an American sense but there are only "the comunity" as in the European sense.

Imagine that the Dutch remain largeley European but with an Asian admixture of some 20% or even less. They would be less blonder and all but would still look predominanteley European, or at least, something like the Turks of Turkey look like.
Now look at this:

cultural expression in Southern Hispania

and

cultural expression in Northern Hispania*

*I wanted to show you a photo of a local blonde girl playing local celtic bag pipes in front of this beautifull local monument. It would be stronger.

The thing is, the people is virtually the same from North to South. I saw somewhere that the Southern peoples have 5% more "muslim" genes than the Northern peoples.
Can you now see how only 5% of genes can change culture? If Holland was to be 20% Asian, that ethnic group would not be Dutch. It is the same as saying that the Mexicans are Spaniards.

I am still faithfull to my little dogma:
Only individual persons can integrate, never comunities or groups of people.

Unknown said...

"The precise question being:

Could it be that Sweden—whose World War II role was far less respectable than Denmark's—is feeling some twinges of guilt over having played both sides of the Nazi-Allied street much as Switzerland did as well?"

I dont think so. Remember Denmarks immigration was as insane as Swedens not that long ago. The main problem in Sweden is the media. I hold them responsible for the situation. If they had done their job professionally Sweden would look very different today. The "68-left" is still extremely strong in Swedish media.

But I do think the fact Sweden hasnt been at war in 200 years plays a crucial role when it comes to the lack of strong reaction against what is happening. The ability to imagine a future Sweden in chaos is very weak.

Our scandinavian neighbours on the contrary have that ability.