During recent travel to Scandinavia after a six year absence, the take-away now is even more pronounced: Christianity is a diminishing reality and the new faith that has arisen is multiculturalism. It may be more evident in Sweden than in Norway or Finland, but nevertheless, it is found everywhere. As you watch the morning commuter trains unload, four -- if not five -- out of every ten non-tourist passengers appear to be non-native. A significant number of the city’s bus drivers in Oslo are Africans. Many of the uniformed personnel in Sweden and Norway appear to be of Middle Eastern origin.
The North Sea oil, which brought enormous wealth to Norway, changed the habits of the once hard-working Norwegians. The young people in this geographically gorgeous country have been spoiled by instantaneous wealth. Immigrants from South Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and Latin America are employed in the service industries in Oslo, Bergen, Stockholm, Copenhagen, and Helsinki.
Not everyone is happy with the current situation in which Third World immigrants are flooding in. Take Norway, for example: a small country whose population barely exceeds five million (5,084,000 in 2013). Roger, 55, (declined to give his last name) a native Norwegian from Oslo, explained: “Norwegians are basically non-verbal and not very expressive. The only time you will find out what a Norwegian really thinks is when he is drunk.” He himself was inebriated, by his own admission. “I have had a few drinks,” said Roger, and he pointed out that the immigrants are changing the traditional way of life in Norway, and are overwhelming the state demographically.
In Sweden, concern about uncontrolled immigration was expressed by Magnus and Jerry (both in their late 20’s) and living in different parts of Stockholm. Magnus, was concerned about the future character of Sweden and was particularly worried about the influx of Middle Eastern Arab-Muslims. Jerry revealed that he has voted for the conservative Sweden Democrats (SD) party. He confided, however, that in Sweden today, political correctness (PC) makes it a taboo to disclose his having voted for the SD party, particularly in his place of employment. He would be shamed if he told his colleagues about his choice. Yet, over a million Swedes voted for the SD party.
Jerry and Magnus both maintained that the Swedish government gives preferential treatment to immigrants in terms of housing and education. Although college tuition in Sweden is free, most students are living in dorms or in rentals, and Stockholm’s rentals are very high, leaving students with huge debts, when compared to the rest of Europe. Whereas the immigrants receive subsidized housing and free tuition, native Swedes are stuck with overwhelming debt. According to Jerry, this is one of the key reasons why the SD party rose to become the third largest party in Sweden.
It is ironic that the Swedish government, which boasts about the helping hand it gives to refugees and its support for a Palestinian state (without having to negotiate peace terms with Israel), is doing little to protect its citizenry. In a February 14, 2015 article written by Ingrid Carlqvist and Lars Hedegaard (editors-in-chief of the Swedish based Dispatch International) for the Gatestone Institute International Policy Council titled “Sweden: Rape Capital of the West,” they assert that "[f]orty years after the Swedish parliament unanimously decided to change the formerly homogeneous Sweden into a multicultural country, violent crime has increased by 300% and rapes by 1,472%. Sweden is now number two on the list of rape countries, surpassed only by Lesotho in Southern Africa. Significantly, the report (by the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention) does not touch on the background of the rapists. One should, however, keep in mind that in statistics, second generation immigrants are counted as Swedes.”
Both the dominant liberal-left media and the multicultural elites in government and academia seek to hide the fact that ethnic Swedish women are being raped by Middle Eastern and African immigrants. Carlqvist and Hedegaard go on to report that "[t]he internet radio station Granskning Sverige called the mainstream newspapers Aftonposten and Expressen to ask why they described the perpetrators as ‘Swedish men’ when they actually were Somalis without Swedish citizenship. They were hugely offended when asked if they felt any responsibility to warn Swedish women to stay away from certain men. One journalist asked why that should be their responsibility.” These politically correct so-called journalists forgot that reporting the true facts of a story is a journalistic duty.
When this reporter asked a Swedish female university student what she thought of her government recognizing a Palestinian State, and thus jeopardizing the peace process, she responded that “her government tries to help everyone.” When pointed out to her that the Palestinians have had more opportunities for self-determination than any other people, including the 40 million strong Kurds, who have been denied this right by the international community, she responded with the standard mantra -- no doubt pushed by her professors -- “It’s the occupation.” The ignorance of facts was appalling, even among the so-called educated.
In Stockholm, like in Paris, “no go-zones” are skirting the city. This reporter was taken by Swedish Kurdish-Muslim friends to a neighborhood where Swedish police dare not enter. Women covered up with hijabs and men wearing the traditional Middle Eastern pajamas-like garb called jalabiya straddle the streets. Store signs are in Arabic and these unemployed immigrants live off generous Swedish government welfare outlays.
While many Arab and African immigrants prefer welfare payment to work, many young Swedes have moved to Norway because jobs in Sweden are more scarce and the wages in Norway are much higher. According to Carlqvist and Hedegaard, over the past 10-15 years, immigrants have come primarily from Muslim countries such as Iraq, Syria, and Somalia. Many of those arrivals cannot be acculturated, and most reject Scandinavia’s open and liberal way of life. They prefer to live by the anti-liberal Sharia-Islamic law that views women for example in a much different way than in western culture. This can be directly attributed to the explosion of rape in Sweden.
A generation ago, homogeneous Scandinavia had one of the lowest crime rates in the world. But, the quest to be “worldly” and multicultural has had a steep price to be paid in crime and the disappearance of values. True liberalism came to an end in the 1960s. Since then Europe and Scandinavia have had a “knee-jerk” liberalism, laden with guilt, disregard for its Judeo-Christian heritage, and diminishing pride in their history and traditional way of life. The importation of people – particularly Arab Muslims, most of whom reject acculturation -- will not only change Scandinavia’s demography but its very nature as a peaceful region. Moreover, numerous Swedes and Norwegians have joined the Islamic State (variously called ISIL or ISIS), and pose a serious security threat to these countries. The Europeans in general and the Scandinavians in particular have taken their Christian heritage out of their constitutions and replaced them with multiculturalism. The end result of this change has become apparent.