Let’s take a random country – say, Sweden:
Origins of Immigrants to Sweden
Crime:
A Swedish study (pdf), finds that immigrants commit crime at 2.5x the rate of native Swedes, while those with two foreign parents commit crime at 2x the average, and those with one foreign parent commit crime at 1.5x. When corrected for age/sex/education/income, the relative risk for the foreign born shrinks to 2.1x, while that with two foreign-born parents shrinks to 1.5x.
This is somewhat misleading, though, as the foreign born are a heterogeneous group – for example, those from the Anglo-American countries and East Asia commit crime at essentially the same rate as native Swedes (under average) – whereas the highest rates come from ‘Other’ Africa (5.3x average), North Africa (4.7x), Western Asia (3.8x), and East Africa (3.5x). Central and South American regions also have high rates – 3.25x. Intermediate regions are places like South East Asia (2.1x), and ‘New EU Countries’ (2.3x).
Further, some crimes are disproportionately common among immigrants – for example when it comes to lethal violence or robbery, the rate at which foreign-born commit them is 4.2x the average rate (2.6x for children with one-foreign born parent). As for rape/attempted rape, the rate of being suspected of the crime for the foreign-born in 5x the rate that of Swedes, while for those with least one foreign-born parent it is 1.8x. It’s too bad that the rates for these specific crimes are not also broken up into regions – but the authors suggest they follow a similar pattern. (For example, if foreign-born immigrants from ‘Other Africa’ have general criminal over-risk of 2.12x that of other foreign-born immigrants, and we assume that holds at least generally in specific crimes, and multiply that by the foreign born rape/attempted rape over-risk of 5x, then the over-risk of ‘Other African’- borns being suspected of rape/attempted rape is 10.6x that of native Swedes. In other words, some regions are committing certain serious crimes at totally disproportionate rates.)
In any case, the point is that the data is disturbing enough when simply described as immigrant-vs-native – but much more disturbing when you look at the specific regional variations among immigrants.
From the authors: “The factor that distinguishes the areas whose immigrants are suspected of offences in Sweden to a particularly large extent is that the living conditions in these areas are unlike those in the western world.”
The authors also note that the trends have not changed significantly since a previous study in the late 80′s. The only difference is that there are an increased numbers of those immigrants, including from from those areas that were already determined to have greater criminal dispositions.
In the prison population, immigrants from the Middle East are 6.6x more likely than Swedes to be in prison, while for Africans, that is 10.9x.
On the other hand, the populations are not necessarily very large to begin with, so the absolute number of criminals is small. And the numbers of criminals/prisoners in relation to the actual population of immigrants is still tiny fraction, .
But on the other other hand, these numbers are in no way unique, in crime levels or prison stats, and are similar to those found elsewhere in Europe.
Welfare
“Two thirds of the people in Sweden relying long term on social benefits have a foreign background, while child poverty in the same group is becoming more and more serious, according to new reports.”
“Using statistics from 2010, of the 117, 000 people on long term benefits, (defined in this case as over 10 months), 78,000 were from foreign countries.”
“It is a great failure of our society that it takes so long for so many people to get a job and an income. It must be frustrating for our new Swedes that it takes so long. It is a poor utilization of human resources,” she said.
“It is difficult when the foreign-born people lack basic education,” she added. (source)
Or, from a 2011 study: “Disparities in Social Assistance Receipt between Immigrants and Natives in Sweden“ (pdf):
It has been shown that in present Sweden most of the out-payments for social assistance refer to foreign born persons a category make up 14 percent of the total population. This means that immigrants have considerably higher rates of receipt than natives. Immigrants also have longer periods of receipt than natives. To some extent can the high costs for social assistance received by immigrants be attributed to the need for maintaining refugees when they are newly arrived and during a few years thereafter. However, this is far from the entire story. Not only refuge immigrants have elevated rates of receipt at entry to Sweden. Although there seems to be a general pattern of immigrants to assimilate out of social assistance receipt, receipt continues to be higher than among in several characteristics identical natives many years after immigration among immigrants from not rich countries who have arrived during later decades.
All evidence point towards that the elevated probabilities of social assistance receipt among immigrants from not rich countries are mainly due to failures of integrating into the labor market at the destination.
New ideas:
Well, anyways, I’m sure the regions that are exporting high rates of crime and unskilled labour are also exporting valuable cultural contributions.
Anti-Semitism
Somehow, Sweden has become a place that the Simon Wiesenthal Centre found it worthwhile, in 2010, to issue a travel advisory warning Jews to show extreme caution when visiting southern Sweden, especially around the city of Malmo, where Muslims now make up about 1/5 of the population (although, to be honest, it seems a bit like propaganda – things aren’t that bad – as far as I know there haven’t been any actual physical assaults). From a 2010 Telegraph article:
In 2009, a chapel serving the city’s 700-strong Jewish community was set ablaze. Jewish cemeteries were repeatedly desecrated, worshippers were abused on their way home from prayer, and “Hitler” was mockingly chanted in the streets by masked men.
“I never thought I would see this hatred again in my lifetime, not in Sweden anyway,” Mrs Popinski told The Sunday Telegraph.
“This new hatred comes from Muslim immigrants. The Jewish people are afraid now.”
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The future looks so bleak that by one estimate, around 30 Jewish families have already left for Stockholm, England or Israel, and more are preparing to go.
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Hate crimes, mainly directed against Jews, doubled last year with Malmo’s police recording 79 incidents and admitting that far more probably went unreported. As of yet, no direct attacks on people have been recorded but many Jews believe it is only a matter of time in the current climate.
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For many of Malmo’s white Swedish population, meanwhile, the racial problems are bewildering after years of liberal immigration policies.
In a 2011 report, there were as many anti-semitic crimes in the first 6-months of 2011 as there were in the whole of 2010.
On Women
From the Swedish newspaper “Dagens Nyheter” October 2, 2000:
“It is not as wrong raping a Swedish girl as raping an Arab girl,” says Hamid. “The Swedish girl gets a lot of help afterwards, and she had probably ****** before, anyway. But the Arab girl will get problems with her family. For her, being raped is a source of shame. It is important that she retains her virginity until she marries.” It was no coincidence that it was a Swedish girl that was gang raped in Rissne – this becomes obvious from the discussion with Ali, Hamid, Abdallah and Richard. All four have disparaging views on Swedish girls, and think this attitude is common among young men with immigrant background. “It is far too easy to get a Swedish whore – girl, I mean;” says Hamid, and laughs over his own choice of words. “Many immigrant boys have Swedish girlfriends when they are teenagers. But when they get married, they get a proper woman from their own culture who has never been with a boy. That?s what I am going to do. I don?t have too much respect for Swedish girls. I guess you can say they get ****** to pieces.”
From the Klassekampen Newspaper, May 8, 2010 (translated by Islam in Europe):
“Ah, girl, blond whore!”‘
Josephine’ was met with these words on the first school day at a high-school in an immigrant-dominated suburb south of Stockholm. Josephine was quite baffled, since aside from her hair color there was nothing about her appearance that would indicate she was promiscuous. She didn’t use makeup and had completely neutral clothing. It was exclusively her hair-color that branded her a ‘whore’.’
Josephine’ is one of the informants for researcher Maria Bäckman, who did an ethnographic field study in a suburb south of Stockholm, where ethnic Swedes make up about 20% of the population.
[…] In her study she focused on ethnic Swedish girls. They experience being linked to the notion of free, Swedish sexuality, which in the densely immigrant suburbs is not necessarily linked with something positive. The strategy for the suburb girls was therefore to play down their Swedish identity.
“Several dyed their hair. Not necessarily because they wanted to look like immigrants, but because they didn’t want to look so Swedish,” says Bäckman.
“Yes, it’s typical, Exactly like that.” Mari Morken nodded vigorously to us from the other side of the cafe table when we repeated some of what Maria Bäckman has found out. “I was called a whore so many times, I became immune.”
Maria Bäckman, author of the study “Whiteness and gender,” used various young Swedish woman informants who lived in a multi-ethnic suburb, who told of the prejudice they faced from immigrants, leading some of them to even dye their blonde hair, so as to avoid sexual harassment.
We’ll have to expand outside of Sweden now, in order to understand the cultures out of which these people are coming. Not much needs to be said about Africa, so we’ll focus on the Middle East.
Middle East stats:
You can see from the following PEW Global graphs, why it is important where people are coming from, even between Muslim countries:
And it’s not hard to see that their attitudes towards women are coming with them, and not simply the result of being poor (which, really, they are also bringing with them):
“A survey in 2008 by the Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights claimed that 98% of foreign women and 83% of Egyptian women in the country had been sexually harassed.” (source)
See more on Egypt and sexual harrasment from the BBC. And everyone has become more aware of this particular issue since events of 2011.
On the prevalence of honour killings, which has certainly been introduced into western nations, including Sweden:
“The most recent report from the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan noted that in 2009 roughly 46 percent of all female murders in Pakistan that year were in the name of “honor.” The report noted that a total of 647 incidences of “honor killings” were reported by the Pakistani press. However, experts say that actual incidences of “honor killings” in Pakistan are much higher and never get reported to the police because they are passed off by the families as suicides.” (source)
Egypt:
In a study of female deaths in Egypt, 47 percent of female rape victims were then killed because of the dishonor the rape was thought to bring to the family. (source)
Free Speech
The arrival of large numbers of Muslim immigrants into Sweden and Europe has meant the arrival of a lot of people that do not not have the same beliefs in freedom of speech or separation of church and state. In Sweden, that has meant the international condemnation by Muslim states of Lars Vilks, who drew cartoons of Muhammad, and the papers that published them, and the demand by the Organization of the Islamic Confererence that he and the papers that published the work be punished. As well as recurrent threats and actual violence against Lars Vilks in Sweden itself. (source, also here.)
But the assualt on free speech has been occurring in a much more systematic way in other western nations, and on the international stage. The same Organization of the Islamic Conference mentioned above (association of 56 Muslim states), has been constantly pushing for the creation of anti-blasphemy laws with world-wide force at the UN (source). Within many Western countries, there has been a trend towards prosecution of those who make anti-Islamic statements (as well as their assassination, in a few cases).
For possibly getting some idea of Muslim opinion in Europe, we can look at some surveys from Britain (But Muslims immigrating to Britain and Sweden have diffferent demographic characteristics).
– 36% of 16 to 24-year-olds believe if a Muslim converts to another religion they should be punished by death, compared with 19% of over-55s (BBC)
– 37% of 16 to 24-year-olds would prefer Sharia law to British law compared with 17% of over-55s (BBC)
– In another poll, 40% of Muslims wanted Sharia law in the UK (Telegraph)
– Another survey found that 33% of Muslims wanted Sharia Law as implemented in Saudi Arabia and 78% wanted the Danish (Muhammad) cartoonists prosecuted (UKPollingReport)
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Note: how well integrated immigrants are depends a lot on where they come from, what country they immigrate to, whether they are an elite sample, refugees, how large the population is, etc., meaning that the situation changes a lot from country to country. For example, as far as I know Canada and the U.S. have very law-abiding and successful Muslim immigrants (though there are still issues with bad cultural views), whereas not so much in Europe. Likewise, look at the differences between black Caribbeans and black Africans in Britain.
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What is amazing though, is that one can hardly even imagine anyone daring to suggest that it would be better to restrict immigration from some places, and encourage it from others. Depending on who is migrating where, a number of social issues are created pointlessly.
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Addendum
I’ll add some random items here that aren’t a problem without sullen and backwards immigrant populations.
Immigrant firefighters hired ‘to stop attacks’
“According to the broadcaster it has become more frequent that fire personnel are attacked with stones and other objects and it is hoped that the new initiative may bridge the gap between the fire fighters and the gangs of unruly kids.’
Court backs Muslim in benefits dispute
“A Swedish court ruled Monday in favor of a Muslim man who lost unemployment benefits after refusing a female executive’s handshake, court documents indicate.”
2005 sociological study “We’re waging war against the Swedes” (pdf)
“The interviewees are youngsters with non-Swedish backgrounds and are between 15-17 years old… the interviewees explain that they mainly rob Swedish teenagers (young men) as these are stingy, mean and cowardly… can thus be seen as a symbolic response, and if successful, victory, towards and over society…”
Quotes from the youth: ‘“Power for me means that Swedes shall look at me, lie down on the ground and kiss my feet.” The boys explain, laughingly, that “there is a thrilling sensation in your body when you’re robbing, you feel satisfied and happy, it feels as if you’ve succeeded, it simply feels good.” “It’s so easy to rob Swedes, so easy.”’
Gang Rape in Mariannelund
‘This story concerns the case of a brutal assault on a mother of two in December 2011, for which eight Afghans are now facing charges. The assault took place in the Mariannelund Asylum Centre and was extended over a seven-hour ordeal. According to the men, the victim was “a bad woman, and a whore.”’
[My note: gang rapes are not uncommonly associated with tribal cultures – immigrants from Africa and the Middle East are especially associated with them]