A dark fall….

It’s been a dark fall in Sweden, illuminated in the most gruesome way. Many nights during recent weeks there have been attempted or completed arson attacks on houses intended to be used as refugee shelters. These houses were meant to be a first place to stay for people fleeing to Sweden from civil war in Syria or other countries torn apart by conflict and climate change. Instead, they were turned into cinder and ashes. Luckily, so far no-one has been seriously hurt, but if this continues we may soon see migrants, who thought they had escaped war and terror, dying in their perceived safe haven.  

Recently, people with racist and intolerant attitudes have been advancing their agenda, especially in social media. To a large extent these emotions have been fuelled by inflammatory rhetoric from the nationalist and strongly anti-immigrant party. This is a party that has wowed to all but abandon its work in parlament. Instead they have started a campaign against accepting refugees, posting lists of new shelters on the net and selling lighters with their logo on. On the internet, comments are getting more and more vitriolic, with people cheering on the arsonist and asking for more fires to be started. 

As bad as these arson attacks are, they pale in comparison to what happened in Trollhättan, a small city located in western Sweden. On October 22nd a masked man carrying a sword entered a school and started to attack teachers and students. Two people were killed and two seriously wounded before the attacker was fatally shot by a rapidly responding police patrol. The sad fact that may have saved several lives was that the police force has learned from the many school shootings in the US and now moved quickly to prevent an even bigger catastrophe. 

So who was the masked intruder? Within hours it became clear that the attacker was not some random lunatic. Instead, it was a racially motivated attack by a young native Swedish man who apparently had become radicalised by the siren calls from the nationalist party and its brown tail of “friends of Sweden”. Alone in front of his computer, he had started to see himself as someone who would “save” Sweden. He had scouted for a school with a large number of first or second generation immigrants as the target of his attack. It was a planned and deliberate action.

Anyone who dresses up in a Darth Vader mask and goes on a killing rampage with a sword in a school is not acting normally, to say the least. But if the motives and actions are based on a racist agenda, the perpetrator can not be dismissed as simply being mentally disturbed. The Norwegian terrorist that 3 years ago massacred politically active youngsters in Norway had a similar way reasoning and had taken his inspiration from the same political circles. The fact that the swordsman spared pupils in the school who looked “Swedish” and instead concentrated on attacking pupils with a “foreign” look clearly shows that there was a strategy behind the madness. 

It is natural to ask what factors that may have been contributed to turning a shy young man into a cold blooded murder. Of course there are personality issues, very few people do cross the line and start killing others. But this happened in a societal climate where some politicians and journalists have been talking in terms of migration causing catastrophe and collapse. This rhetoric is then repeated endlessly and ever more aggressively in some social media, or “new" media as they sometimes describe themselves in contrast to the “old” media of regular newspaper and broadcast. But the only novelty in this kind of media is their lack of connection with reality and their single minded view of the world. In these circles, the attacker in Trollhättan was hardly a criminal more someone to be excused.

So with haters abundant on the internet and maybe another killer looming in the dark, where is the reason for hope? Of course the ongoing and escalating refugee situation is a real problem that must be addressed with a lot of new ideas. The fact that many people continue to volunteer to help and welcome refugees is a good sign. My own little contribution so far was together with a friend arranging a day of dancing where all the proceeds went to organisation working with refugees. We did not only dance, but also listened to stories from people who themselves have hade to flee to Sweden from far away. The fact that more than 500 persons have signed up to an event where they will learn how to become mentors for juveniles who come to Sweden without parents is also a hopeful sign. 

In Sweden, we can and are capable of continuing to welcome refugees. We live in a sparsly populated country so there is room for more people here. Those who come will contribute to building a future for both themselves and our country - if we allow them. Sadly Sweden does not have a straight A record when it comes to integration, we can and must do much better here. That is something I will try to contribute to, more on that later hopefully.

But two things must be added: First, we can not shoulder this burden alone! There are many countries that need to share the responsibility in this situation. First and foremost the other countries in the EU. It is not acceptable that we in Sweden can take care of 1000-fold more refugees than the UK, if we compare per capita figures. Shame on you, Mr Cameron! And the USA, which have to a large extent contributed to the chase in the Middle East, is also a laggard here. Again, Sweden has accepted more refugees from Iraq and Afghanistan than USA, a bizarre fact. 

Second, we mus start talking about root causes of what really is not a temporary refugee crisis but more likely a long term shift in migration patters. At this moment there are about 60 million refugees world wide. With a continuing climate crisis, that number may increase 10-fold in a few decades as heatwaves, droughts and floods take their toll on land and people. We need to start both discussions and long term preparations for that situation. But there are still no political leaders that are willing to accept or discuss this, a very sad situation. More about that in a coming blog post. 

If anything can contribute to turning the present situation into success and opportunities it will be the combination of radically new ideas, open minded thinking and entrepreneurial mindset combined with empathy and a sincere give and get attitude. We will need to test a lot of new ways to handle this situation, some will work, others will tried but be found to need to be refined. I have already met friends, colleagues, students and others who have both ideas, interest and the energy to contribute to this process. If we stand up to this challenge, it might also solve some of the old problems we have with lack of integration and to much in-the-box thinking. So borrowing from an old commercial, let’s just do it!