Its an interesting situation. I'm also wary of news sources though. I have a Swedish friend here in London (who didn't even know about the riots until I told her on Wednesday) and the Swedish news sources list very different reasons for the riots than ours do. I can't remember exactly what they were, but I know they mentioned nothing about unemployment (which the U.S. articles have highlighted)

I havn't heard bout them either, but if you check out recent danish, norwegian and swedish tv series (like The Killing, The Bridge, Arne Dahl) you can get a flavour of the inter-cultural tensions they face

It is very worrying, especially as it has spread beyond Stockholm: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22656657

I remember when there were riots in London and other UK cities in 2011. It was really scary for a few days, almost surreal. Thankfully there were none anywhere near me, but the prospect that there might be, especially in the days when the rioting was spreading beyond London, made things feel very odd.

@ Jas

Really? I've never watched any of them as I find crime dramas painfully dull (with the possible exceptions of Randall and Hopkirk, and Diagnosis Murder ;) ). I might have to force myself.

@ Oct

They're really nothing like UK or US crime dramas - the writing is excellent and I don't mind subtitles :)

@ Jamie

The riots by me in Birmingham and Wolverhampton were terrible, but I don't think they were culturally motivated here?

These riots are happening because the immigrants to Sweden aren't becoming Swedish. They are just staying in their own enclaves cuts off from the wider society and economy. This is happening all over Europe. Part of it is the fault of the state in not having effective integration policies or not having any integration at all and allowing these depressed multi-culti bantustans to form. Part of it is a result of the differences between the two cultures being too great to overcome no matter what.

Europe seems to have decided to abandon the idea of the nation-state. Maybe that's a good thing, maybe that's a bad thing. Not coming from a nation state (since America isn't one), I really can't be sure. I do know it's going to be a rough transition for a country like Sweden to go from being just the homeland of the Swedes to a mini-America nation of immigrants from all over the world who aren't even vaguely like the Swedes culturally. Maybe it will work out, but I'm inclined to think it won't.

Im from Sweden, used to live in Stockholm.
Sweden do have à high lowest level economic social and so on. Problem is the gap between high and low.

We are used to riots but then between right and left wings, (youtube gothenburg riots as exampel) they are commom this time reasons are new

"Sweden do have à high lowest level economic social and so on. Problem is the gap between high and low."

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/6/69/GINI_retouched_legend.gif

Sweden actually has the lowest Gini coefficient on the planet... Although there are limitations to that statistic, I find your explanation hard to believe. Do these rioters not have enough to eat and drink?

There are limitations to that statistic, redhouse. If you seriously believe income inequality is worse in the US than it is in India (as that graph says it is) then i don't know what to say.

Sweden has taken in more asylum seekers per capita than any other country in the world (maybe its number 2, but the point still stands). Among these immigrants, unemployment is around 16%, whereas for ethnic Swedish its around 6%. And as immigrants I'm not sure if they receive the full benefits of the Swedish social safety net.

Unemployment of young males (any students now that it's Spring up North?) may be indicated by reported age of alleged perpetrators; BBC-America tv news indicates youths. * Swedish language - the lingua franca of most of Scandinavia. Job mobility - language, education, u.s.w. * Observe other immigrant populations historically: Finns & Norwegians fiercely nationalistic, e.g.: the Gulf of Bothnia archipelago; separately, the Danes - Malmo as a port of entry, and now the bridge to Scania (a Swedish "province" that Stockholmers &c. may look on as like, provincial; finally, Greeks and Turks.- the young, unemployed youths of the Mediterranean coastline were seen as likely to rise up against the established order decades ago. * If the genie is not forever out of the bag, what say Brussels, the EU bring back border restrictions in some form and customs control, instead of diddling the currency?

I have not been to sweden in some time (over 20 years) but I remember it being a nice place, but remember one swedish friend told me "we cant go here because we are Europeans". I found THAT to be disturbing over 20 years ago, and I imagine these 'no-go' zones are probably bigger now.

I have read a lot on these riots, for very, very personal reasons I will not discuss as of right now, from what I am reading, even Fire Fighters are attacked by these immigrants when they go into these areas trying to put out a fire.

Its hard to stack alien cultures on top of each other, and expect great results, as someone earlier said. They are now at that point it appears. It was the 'trigger' I guess.

Maybe in another twenty years assimilation will have triumphed. That's really the only option, after all. European democracies will never deport millions of people no matter how bad things get, and at the same time the non-assimilating crazy-types will never be able to really turn Sweden into Syria or Sudan. They'll have to live together, and both dilute their cultures into a new, mushy one.

Or maybe something darker will happen. After all, this new European-wide era of liberal triumph is just a few decades old. World War II seems like a long time ago since the last veterans are steadily dying, but it only ended 68 years ago. Eastern Europe only shook off communism a little over 20 years ago. We take the stability and freedom of the West for granted, but there's nothing to say that it lasts forever, especially when put under tremendous pressure like is steadily building with this non-integrated immigrant problem.

But it's unbelievable things have gotten to this point to begin with. Europeans have too big of hearts and too low of birthrates to keep waves of immigrants out, and now, quite unintentionally I presume, the nation-state itself is rotting away. Again, that's not an inherently bad thing. The United States thrives on its not being a nation-state and basing citizenship on birthright and loose civic loyalty rather than ethnicity. But the transition from the homeland of a specific people to a homeland for all will be a rough one for much of Europe, if it can happen at all. Hopefully it does, but good God did they get themselves in a mess.

I think it is because unwillingness of immigrants to blend with local people and their new country culture. So what happened is not immigration but colonization.
When European people awake and understand what is happened?

Immigrants eh, they are getting everywhere, they come here with their funny ways, different colour skin, different religions, their food stinks, they talk in foreign, their kids have got a funny look in their eyes.
when are us poor old Europeans gonna work out what is going on before we are overrun with them ...... I believe in freedom for all, but not the immigrants.
And I'll tell you why and it's no word of a lie......
"they come here with their funny ways, different colour skin, different religions, their food stinks, they talk in foreign, their kids have got a funny look in their eyes."
Why are they not human beings just like us?

@Nigee, you are charicaturizing the right-wing's position in a very deceptive way. I don't want droves of people from different cultures to come to Holland because they look funny, talk foreign, have a different skin color and stinking foods. In fact, I find many of these things good. It's good to mix your gene pool with foreign gene pools as it will create healthier offspring. I encourage foreigners making foreign food, diversifying my diet and making it healthier and also inspiring me to cook different meals, which I enjoy.
What I do mind is the large costs that are apparently involved in integrating these people into the country where they arrive. The statistics point out that they perform worse at school, commit more crimes etc.. To include into the question how many people from different cultures we assimilate into our own such issues as how well can these people be helped in the region from which they depart? How high are the expected costs to our society in assimilating these people? Does the humanitarian argument for helping these people outweigh the first task of the government of the receiving state to protect its own inhabitants against economic and social problems?
These are questions that are not in the slightest racist and anyone who holds people like me to be simply brown-skin-haters will simply cause the people who are on the fence on the issues to move to the right rather than the left. So I thank you for that.

How expensive is it to keep the Mexicans out of the US? I mean, sure, large costs if you let them in, but how large are the costs if you keep them out?

Besides, where do the Americans go if their country falls under tyranny, natural disasters, terrorism or just an old-fashioned war?

Not Mexico I'm guessing?

Where are the innocent immigrants supposed to go if no one lets them in? Maybe they'll come with arms then? Defence becomes much more expensive then...

So how expensive is not letting immigrants in? I know I'm extreme here, just giving some random thoughts, or, as some of you will probably call it, rambling.

@redhouse: Thought you'd understand Nigee's irony by now.

Stephie, Most conservatives do NOT have a problem with Immigrants, as my parents are immigrants, my problem is that my parents did ti the right (hard) way, and my wife did it the right way, and we paid lots of money for that, and the illegals not only break the law, but are about to be rewarded for it by jumping over everyone who did it the right way.

You are just telling people "dont bother trying to do it the right way"

My point, except now people might get it :)

About 30 years ago I went round europe for a month with my mate, north to south. In halmstad, sweden, this really old woman walking her cats and dogs took us in from under a portacabin fed us and gave us a place to stay for a bit. Later, after sleeping on a beach she recommended to us and going to a local nightclub, two very nice swedish girls took us in and drove us to a lake for skinny dipping - luck o the irish or great swedish hospitality/liberalism?
We later got employment in the BMW factory in Munich. At the arbeitsampt, they asked me in english did I speak german and I said "Ja!" and got the job... on the production line the workers were predominantly turks (some irish), I really needed to know turkish, but my point is that they seemed well integrated while maintaining their own values, and were really nice to us staying in their community - luck o the irish or great turkish hospitality?
Attempting to understand others values and what they've struggled with goes a long way.
I currently see several asylum seekers for therapy, using an interpreter. The things these people and their families have been through, and continue to go through in their adopted countries - I wonder how we would cope, it's not like emigrating to australia!

Plus, a lot of these "outsiders" will do jobs our benefit scroungers in northfield and west heath (where the BNP and english defence league is prominent) have not intention of getting out of bed for...

Jasbrum -1

I hate that argument. Firstly it's not true. When I was unemployed for a few months a couple of years back I would have happily done one of these jobs that natives apparently never want to do. Guess what? I couldn't find any because they are offered in bulk to employment agencies recruiting in Poland etc and locals never get a look in.

Also, the reason these jobs remain unpopular (and I readily admit they are unpopular) is because they pay so little and get have very harsh conditions. How do the bosses get away with this? Because they have a dirt cheap supply of foreign labour who don't know any better. What should happen is either these jobs should end in the UK or the conditions should improve. How you can argue that a wave of immigrants being forced to work in crap conditions and suffer the resulting membership of the underclass is a good thing I have no idea. This is one of the things that leads to rioting.

"To include into the question how many people from different cultures we assimilate into our own such issues as how well can these people be helped in the region from which they depart? How high are the expected costs to our society in assimilating these people? Does the humanitarian argument for helping these people outweigh the first task of the government of the receiving state to protect its own inhabitants against economic and social problems?"
Stop buying Chinese Food, Italian Food, Indian Food, Thai Food, FOREIGN FOOD
Stop buying foreign cars
Stop buying cheap foreign imported goods
Stop advertising your foreign women in windows in Amsterdam
Stop importing foreign grown drugs and foodstuffs
Stop going on foreign holidays ... they hate you
Stop telling us about foreigners spending all your taxes
Kick them all out, buy local, buy Dutch, live with your own kind, don't mix with other types in case they cost you money......
...... I'm not racist no, not me, if foreigners weren't such a drain on our society I'd probably love 'em, but because they won't behave like I do they are all scum.
Vive la difference mein freund, vive la difference.....

@Redhouse,
"What I do mind is the large costs that are apparently involved in integrating these people into the country where they arrive. The statistics point out that they perform worse at school, commit more crimes etc.. To include into the question how many people from different cultures we assimilate into our own such issues as how well can these people be helped in the region from which they depart?"

There was a US study I read recently that showed, counter-intuitively, that immigrants consume significantly fewer public resources than native-born Americans, and that their violent crime rates were also significantly lower. Granted, it's easy to attribute the low consumption of public services to recent efforts to legally disqualify illegal immigrants from all sorts of public subsidies, but still, it's interesting. I should see if I can dig that study up someplace. If I can find it, I'll link it here.

Also, if I recall, it showed that college graduation rates were much higher among second-generation immigrants than among non-immigrant families of the same income levels.

American and European immigration politics can hardly be compared though...

@ hecks

Not wishing to be rude to our American cousins, but comparing the violent crime rates of immigrant populations to native born Yanks is a bit like comparing their body hair to a troop of monkeys. They would have to be pretty damned unusual to come up worse.

Unemployment is lower amongst immigrants than locals in the UK, that is because they are economic migrants as opposed to asylum seekers who are people running away from torture/war/famine ..... there is a difference.
More money is spent on asylum seekers because they have higher social needs and social costs. Economic migrants have come to work...... they cost less, they pay taxes, they do low-paid jobs, etc, etc, etc

"I've been in the place where every white face is an invitation to robbery, and now that I'm back in my safe european home I don't wanna go back there again" The Clash - Safe European Home