As reported here last spring, culture-enrichers in Sweden reacted with mob violence on Easter weekend when Rasmus Paludan, the founder and leader of the Stram Kurs (Hard Line) party in Denmark and Sweden, offended their sensibilities by burning a Koran. The worst riot was in the city of Norrköping.
Some of the ringleaders of the riots have now been sentenced to up to six years in prison for their roles in the unrest, which is a pretty stiff sentence by Swedish standards.
Many thanks to Gary Fouse for translating this article from Fria Tider:
Koran rioters get six years in prison
October 11, 2022
Three more Muslims have now been sentenced to prison for their involvement in Koran riots in the neighborhood of Navestad in Norrköping last spring.
The three men were sentenced for aggravated sabotage to emergency services, and one of them was also sentenced for aggravated violence against service personnel and attempted aggravated assault. One man in his twenties was sentenced for aggravated assault.
Two of the Muslims have been sentenced to six years in prison and the third to five years and six months in prison.
They will also pay a combined fine totaling 280,000 kronor.
For previous posts about Rasmus Paludan and the burning of Korans, see the Rasmus Paludan Archives.
It doesn’t matter!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Swedes will soon be a minority in their own country
Document.no og Snaphanen.dk
By: Helena Edlund
A population exchange is underway. 34 percent of the population has a “foreign background”.
Home feels more and more like it’s gone. Her om dagen besøkte jag for første gang på noen år Vällingby sentrum, just utenfor Stockholm. Just over ten years ago I lived in a residential area nearby, and Vällingby was “my” centre, where I went to buy food or clothes, go to the cinema or to a café. Vällingby was then a place for the Swedish middle class, built in the 1950s, and at that time the area was internationally known for its modern architecture. Between 1968 and 1983, Lisbeth and Olof Palme lived in one of the townhouses in Vällingbyhöjden.
Ten years ago I was at home there – now I’m not. Vällingby, like so many other Swedish middle-class towns, has been transformed. But it took me a while to understand what the feeling of alienation was all about. The houses were the same, the streets too. Yet everything was different, and the reason was simple: the people had been replaced. Today, I don’t see Kalle, Pelle and Lena, but Muhammed, Ali-Reza and Fadime. I used to be one of the many, but now, with my blond hair and pale face, I was a strange bird among all the exotic hijab wearers – and it felt so sad.
It’s not the first time I’ve felt like a stranger in my own country, but it’s happening more and more, and it makes me feel sadder and more oppressed. I am most disappointed that the change has been made possible by the people who have been gagged – even if we had “freedom of speech” we have been fully aware that any critical opinion and any unwelcome facts would be labelled as racism, xenophobia and right-wing extremism and lead to social punishment. So most of us have been silent bystanders to the fact that society around us has changed for the worse.
Now we are where we are, at a point where ethnic Swedes in many areas are as invisible on the streets as they are in advertising campaigns. For many, being blonde and blue-haired in Sweden means becoming an increasingly visible minority, and the change has been so palpable that a new word has crept into the Swedes’ vocabulary: population exchange. Uttrykket ble selvsagt bant och påstått å løgn og en høyreekstrem konspirasjonsteori. However, it reflects how many Swedes have experienced the development: that their own group is becoming increasingly invisible and that other groups are becoming increasingly visible. The own group is replaced by another. In other words, a replacement of the population.
But feelings and impressions are one thing, facts and statistics quite another. What do the figures say?
At the turn of the year, 3 557 912 of Sweden’s almost ten million inhabitants had a “foreign background”, according to Statistics Sweden (SCB), which corresponds to 34% of the population. Of these, 2 090 503 people, or 20% of the population, were born in another country. The proportion of people born abroad has doubled since 2002 and in several Swedish municipalities, such as violence-prone Södertälje and Botkyrka, ethnic Swedes are now in the minority.
The trend is expected to continue, but in order not to be accused of being too negative, I choose to use the figures currently presented by the most immigration-positive and anti-nationalist left.
Tobias Hübinette is a first assistant professor at Karlstad University with a focus on critical whiteness and race studies. Hübinette, who describes himself as “an anti-racist researcher and activist” who through his research considers himself to be pursuing “an anti-racist struggle within a particular field of research”, recently published an article on Twitter that received widespread attention. The anti-racist researcher reported figures that in themselves confirm the demographic shift that he and the country’s politicians have so vehemently denounced for decades. But it’s not enough that population replacement suddenly exists – it’s also seen as something positive and self-evident.
https://www.snaphanen.dk/upload/2022/10/Screenshot-2022-10-14-02.27.41.png
“Time and demographics are on our side”
According to Hübinette, around 55% of all residents aged 25-64 will have a foreign background by 2030. The proportion of foreign-born is expected to be at its highest in 2045, when almost one in four Swedes will have been born in another country. Most are said to be “visible minorities”, which is probably the same group of Swedish citizens that artist Jason “Timbuktu” Diakité targeted on social media after the Swedish elections. He then explained to “all black and brown people in Sweden” that even if the election favours “extreme forces”, this group need not fear anything because “time and demographics are on our side”.
The figures show a dramatic and ongoing demographic change in Swedish society. But is it justified? It’s all about definitions. The statistics talk about “foreign background”, which used to mean that someone was born in Sweden but one or both parents were born abroad. But in the SBC’s publication Meddelanden i koordningsfrågor för Sveriges officiella statistik: Personen med utländsk bakgrund – Riktlinjer för redovisning i statistiken from 2002, the definition was changed:
“Persons with foreign background: persons born abroad and persons born in Sweden with two parents born abroad. Persons with Swedish background: persons born in Sweden with one parent born in Sweden and one parent born abroad or two parents born in Sweden.”
Today, therefore, it is required that both parents are born abroad for someone to have a foreign background, provided that the person was born within Sweden’s borders. This means, for example, that anyone who is a third- or fourth-generation immigrant is considered to have Swedish background, even if all their best parents come from Somalia, Eritrea or Iraq. In other words, it is quite difficult to meet the requirements to be defined as a person with a “foreign background”. Nevertheless, the statistics look the way they do, and the projections have to be interpreted according to the prevailing definitions.
There’s also something nice about the Hübinettes’ tweet: according to them, the numbers will be the same 15 years later, in 2045. Even then, more than half of Sweden’s population between the ages of 25 and 64 will either have been born abroad or have two parents who were born abroad. But that figure does not reflect what it will look like on Sweden’s streets, because according to the same statistical definitions, the Swedish-born children of those considered to have a foreign background today will have a Swedish background then. Or to put it more simply: if a child born today to parents who came to Sweden the week before becomes a parent even in 2045, the newborn child will be counted among the Swedish minority, even if no one in the family has set foot outside Rosengård, Tensta or Botkyrka and does not speak a word of Swedish. Thanks to this definition, the percentage will not change, even if the number of inhabitants with roots in countries other than Sweden increases.
However, the child is not included in Tobias Hübinette’s figures, as they do not say anything about the percentage of the population under 25 years of age with a foreign background. However, the high birth rates of many immigrant groups suggest that this proportion will be much higher, and perhaps that is why Hübinette does not mention it in his tweet.
Of course, definitions have to be made and somewhere the lines have to be drawn as to who is considered ‘Swedish’, but the fact is that the projections presented do not speak clearly about what the actual shape of society will look like. What will Sweden look like then? How will we live our daily lives, what will we believe in? What values will our children and grandchildren grow up with? The statistics say nothing about this.
But the change we are seeing today is only the beginning. What the numbers and definitions say is that my children will feel more unusual in the Sweden of the future than I do in the Sweden of today.
Document.no og Snaphanen.dk