Anti-Semitism in Malmö reveals flaws in Swedish immigration system
By Karin Wells, CBC News
Siavosh Derakhti, a Muslim and the child of refugees of the Iran-Iraq war, has become a champion in the fight against anti-Semitism in Malmö, Sweden. He gets hate mail from the far-right and death threats from fellow Muslims.
“A Jew, I cannot believe that you cannot be a Jew in Sweden!” says Siavosh Derakhti.
The 23-year-old Muslim is the child of Iranian parents, refugees of the Iran-Iraq war. He has become a champion in the fight against anti-Semitism in Malmö, a town a little smaller than Halifax perched on the southern tip of Sweden.
Muslim immigrants, most with roots in the Middle East, make up nearly a third of Malmö’s population.
Cultural tension in the town has been building for years, much of it directed against the new immigrants, but anti-Semitism has also been rising. The Simon Weisenthal Center in Los Angeles issued a travel advisory to Jews in 2010 – don’t go to Malmö. It reissued the warning last year.
Derakhti gets hate mail from the far-right and death threats from fellow Muslims.
“When we have let the world into our town, we have the political controversy you have in the Middle East,” says Anders Ekelm, vicar of the Church of Sweden in Malmö. “Among those people you will find anti-Semitism. We have to be honest about it.”
Sweden has a generous immigration policy – last year, this country of nine million took in 85,000 refugees. According to an OECD study citing 2013 figures, Sweden took in more than twice as many asylum seekers per capita as any other member country, and roughly 20 times as many per capita as Canada.
Masked protesters engage in a confrontation with police in Malmö, Sweden. In recent years, protests for and against Muslim immigrants have been frequent and sometimes violent. (Drago Prvulovic/Associated Press)
In Malmö the immigrants are concentrated in one pocket of the city, Rosengaard. Unemployment in the area runs at 70 per cent, stones are thrown regularly at mail carriers and police, and 150 cars were torched during summer riots in 2013. Protests for and against Muslim immigrants are frequent and tough.
Engineer Peter Fribourg and his wife Marie, a lawyer, are what are now called ‘ethnic Swedes.’ “It’s a tough matter, you have different cultures colliding. We are not succeeding in the way we would like.”
Marie agrees, adding that Malmö meant well but was not properly prepared to help the huge influx of immigrants settle. “I was much more liberal and welcoming before … (but) there have been so many in the last few years we do not know how to deal with them. They will not assimilate.”
Threatened minority
There have been 137 anti-Semitic incidents reported to authorities in Malmö the past two years…
Read more: Anti-Semitism in Malmö…
twoje uwagi, linki, wlasne artykuly, lub wiadomosci przeslij do: webmaster@reunion68.com