Immigrants Tell the Truth to Swedes

Our Swedish correspondent CB has translated an article about the surprising attitude of some Malmö immigrants regarding the troublemakers in their midst.

First, the translator’s prefatory note:

I just read this article in Sydsvenska Dagbladet and couldn’t resist translating it.

Here is one example of immigrants telling truth to Swedes. I’ve heard it more than once from immigrants myself, where I work — that Sweden is too lax in our treatment of immigrants who misbehave. This time their words are in a major MSM paper: “Expel families whose kids throw stones. One family would be enough, and then you shall see that the others stop right away”.

How right he is!

One has to remember what happened to other immigrants in Rosengård this winter, when they didn’t want to take part in the riots: A man’s dog was shot and his life was threatened at gunpoint for refusing to participate. And in this article the men claimed that stones were thrown at them when they tried to take their civic duties seriously.

I can understand that people are afraid and need the help of the police and Swedish society. So if those thugs saw that consequences are coming down hard on their entire family for their misbehavior, things would most likely cool down. And fast. Because in their home country there will be no one from Swedish social services to take care of them when relatives make up for their lack of upbringing.

On a final note, see the difference between the two sisters. The older one who is almost totally inert with Swedish Multi-PC, and the younger who still has some sense: “I have a life. What would I do with them?” [Not wanting to hang around with the troublemaking boys]. While the elder sister is ever-so-understanding of those boys, the younger one apparently has the right attitude — utter contempt for their behavior!

And now for the translation from Sydsvenskan:

“Expel those families whose kids throw stones”

By Kenan Habul and Hanna Younes

Throw them out. Give them severe punishments. Withdraw their social welfare. These words come from some families at Herrgården.

Ali sighs and points towards the parking lot at Ramels väg, where emergency services had to put out two car fires the night before Friday. But as of this afternoon there are just a couple of guys visible who tinker about with a car, while others are “hanging” in the sun. It’s an indolent and hot first of May.

Ali is tired of the constant fires and the fact that his asthmatic children have to inhale the smoke. He is eager to tell about how he and his neighbors view the problems in the area.

He leads us in among the high houses, to the home of a friend. Fruit drinks, coffee, and cigarettes are put on the table. Five fulltime working fathers arrange themselves around the room.

Soon the conversation is lively. About Herrgården, the police, the stone-throwing youth, school, responsibility, culture, upbringing… They gesticulate through the cigarette smoke and interrupt each other. All of them have lived at or close to Herrgården for several years and have seen how it’s getting worse and worse.

They are self-critical and think they can and should do more.

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“I work twelve hours a day, but I would like to help the police and fire department. Not as a spy, but I can be outdoors if need be,” says Ismael.

At the same time they are scared that the stone-throwers might take revenge against their children and cars. Therefore none of them want their real names or photos in the news paper.

“I hate this area,” says the mother of a large family, Reem, while she serves a newly baked chocolate cake with a colourful topping.

We meet her and some other women in her friend Nesrin’s kitchen in another apartment. Some of them are daughters and wives to the men.

Nesrin has just removed the eggplants from the oven to make moutabal. She shows the finely-chopped parsley which will soon be the salad tabouleh.

Reem likes Sweden, but would rather see the children grow up in the Arab city of a million people that she left seven years ago.

“Maybe they meet friends that aren’t good, maybe the start doing drugs or burn stuff.”

The family lives about hundred meters from the part of Ramels väg that is often the principal place for arson.

Her eldest daughter, eleven-year-old Rana, goes to bed between nine and ten, but is often disturbed by the unrest.

“Then I think I want to move away from here,” says the daughter.

Two of the men tell about how they have tried to stop the youths from starting fires. But they got attacked and got hit with stones themselves.

How did it become like this? How can some ten guys take over an entire housing area?

Overcrowding, bad apartments, poverty, unemployment, traumatic experiences…

They shake their heads. Someone laughs, as if those are all too simple explanations.

“Most of us live cramped and have come from countries in unrest,” says Ismael and pull up his trousers to show his war scars.

Finally they agree that bad upbringing might be behind this. They also blame the “lax Swedish system”, which they think teaches kids to run to the social services as soon as mum and dad raise their voices.

Everybody knows who throws the stones, say the men. The police also know that the men are convinced about it. Probably the kids’ parents know as well. But some simply choose to act as if they don’t know.

It’s easier to sit and watch TV than to take care of their kids, says one of the men bitterly.

“I know a man, a father to a stone thrower, who is afraid that the son will kill him. Think about it, afraid of your own child,” says Ahmed.

What would you do if your son caused a racket at night?

“I would go to the police. If that didn’t work I’d send him back to our homeland,” answers Ahmed immediately.

Most people we talk to demand more stringent laws and proper punishments.

“Expel families whose kids throw stones. One family would be enough, and then you shall see that the others stop right away,” says Ali with the forefinger in the air.

You sound harder then the Sweden Democrats.

“I’m no racist, but it’s not possible to close your eyes to reality,” says Hussein.

Nesrin’s twenty-year-old daughter Sara, who just kept us company in the kitchen after watching an American drama-comedy on the computer, doesn’t believe in the tougher stance. She wants to break the segregated housing situation.

“One should not allow more immigrants to live here. They should move to another area so they can integrate.”

She doesn’t believe in the Moderates’ and Sweden Democrats’ suggestion about a curfew in Herrgården for youth under 18 after nine in the evenings, either. The teenage guys would just be more pissed off, interpret it as a racist move, and defy the curfew.

“Then it just gets worse,” says Sara.

In a school project she investigates the inhabitants and the media’s picture of the district. She’s worried that Rosengård’s reputation will be harmed. And that it will be even harder for the inhabitants of the district to be a part of the rest of society.

Her little sister attends the ninth grade at Rosengård’s School and knows some of the guys who take part in the unrest.

The guys say to her that they want to take revenge on the police for calling them “f***ing monkeys”.

They also want to have some fun and have nothing better to do. She isn’t allowed by her mother to be out late at night.

When asked whether she wants to team up with the guys, she answers, astonished:

“I have a life. What would I do with them?”