Roger Kimball on the unacknowledged charms of Swedish multiculturalism:
In 1975, the Swedish parliament unanimously decided to change the formerly homogeneous Sweden into a multicultural country. Forty years later the dramatic consequences of this experiment emerge: violent crime has increased by 300%. If one looks at the number of rapes, however, the increase is even worse. In 1975, 421 rapes were reported to the police; in 2014, it was 6,620. That is an increase of 1,472%.
Christopher Snowdon on why BBC documentaries aren’t always to be trusted:
To be clear, nobody is snaffling anybody’s cake. The cake has been getting bigger for all, including those in the rest of the top [income] decile. But whilst inequality has not risen in the nation as a whole, it has risen sharply within the upper echelons. It is not the richest ten per cent who have “pulled away from the pack.” It is the very rich who have pulled away from the rest of the top 10 per cent. It is, then, the upper-middle classes who may feel that they are having their cake scoffed. If so, it may explain why there is currently such a sense of resentment and antipathy from the wealthy (a group that includes politicians, professors, television presenters and BBC editors) towards the very rich.
And Mark Steyn on the blatherings of the Most Clever President Ever:
“Islam has been woven into the fabric of our country since its founding,” says the President. You might think that Islam has been entirely irrelevant to “the fabric of our country” for its first two centuries, and you might further think that Islam, being self-segregating, tends not to weave itself into anybody’s fabric, but instead tends to unravel it – as it’s doing in, say, Copenhagen, where 500 mourners turned up for the funeral of an ISIS-supporting Jew-hating anti-free-speech murderer.
Feel free to share your own links and snippets in the comments. It’s what these posts are for.
” … it may explain why there is currently such a sense of resentment and antipathy from the wealthy (a group that includes politicians, professors, television presenters and BBC editors) towards the very rich.”
If we add “and Guardian columnists” to Snowdon’s list of privileged whiners, it explains a lot about the attitudes and self-centred resentments that this blog so often, and perceptively, comments on. Perhaps it could be called the Monbiot Effect.
the unacknowledged charms of Swedish multiculturalism
“85% of those sentenced to at least two years in prison for rape in Svea Hovrätt, a court of appeals, were foreign born or second-generation immigrants. A 1996 report by the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention reached the conclusion that immigrants from North Africa (Algeria, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia) were 23 times as likely to commit rape as Swedish men. The figures for men from Iraq, Bulgaria and Romania were, respectively, 20, 18 and 18.”
Well that was depressing.
Well that was depressing.
It’s not cheery reading, no.
I can understand the wish to avoid inadvertently encouraging racial bigotry, which is presumably a prominent motive in the obfuscation, at least initially. But when that sentiment entails deliberately eliding such dramatic and pertinent information in crime statistics and news reporting – i.e., lying – and thereby making deterrence of such crimes more difficult, then something has gone seriously wrong.
In 1975, the Swedish parliament unanimously decided to change the formerly homogeneous Sweden into a multicultural country.
I’m inclined to wonder how such a decision could be unanimous. Was there no opposition, no-one who doubted the wisdom or prophesied benefits (which were?) of such a change?
I’m also willing to bet that no-one went off and asked the actual people in a referendum whether they thought it was a good idea. (The very idea of this reminds me of Enoch Powell’s River of Blood speech – I always got the impression that what really enraged people was that he listened to what the hoi polloi were saying and actually gave them a voice.)
Related and worth a read is Andrew Bolt’s comment on the We are Charlie posturing.
“Islam has been woven into the fabric of our country since its founding,” says the President.
Actually Barry is correct, but not in the way he deludes himself it was. From the reliably red PBS a brief video (that I am quite surprised they aired) about the folly of trying to appease jihadists in the olden days and Jefferson’s response to islamic fundamentalism.
Obama’s circumlocutions and outright dishonesty are entirely typical of the SJWs and the progressives- when the facts don’t fit the narrative, ignore them and keep up with the posturing and blethering. Hence the assertion that Islam is part of the weave when it patently isn’t. My guess is that the majority of immigrants to the U.S. from Islamic states went there to escape the restrictions placed upon them by that religion.
Another guess is that the Hon. Robert Peston, Balliol graduate, former stockbroker and journalist at the Investors’ Chronicle was being disingenuous at best when he tried to represent economics as a zero-sum game. Again, if the facts don’t fit the narrative…
It’s why, as a small protest, I don’t pay my TV licence fee any more. I’m heartily sick of this kind of simplistic shit which emanates from both the BBC and Channel Four.
Re the blatherings of the Most Clever President Ever:
It is almost impossible to get one’s head round the stunning level of stupid that came out of Obama’s summit last week. Every time you thought that must be the most ludicrous and bizarre utterance they can come up with, they managed to surprise you and top it.
Darn you, Muldoon. You stole my comment!
Imagine if Islam didn’t exist. Then imagine the reaction of the left wing blob if, today, one of us decided to start a cult advocating the subjugation of women, the murder of jews and gays, child abuse and brutal capital punishment of unbelievers.
My guess is that the majority of immigrants to the U.S. from Islamic states went there to escape the restrictions placed upon them by that religion.
I am not too sure that is a good guess. One of the great bits of disinformation put out is that islam is the third largest religion in the US, which is technically true (we are short of Zoroastrians and Odinists), but means normal people outnumber them by over 298 million. However, they tend to show very little attempt truly to integrate, but, with the help of sharia pimping organizations such as CAIR, make ludicrous demands that they be accommodated to include major things like incorporating sharia law, more minor like mandating halal meals in all government facilities serving meals, and even silly stuff like allowing taxi drivers to refuse fares because they have alcohol or service dogs. There are places in Dearbonistan, Al-Hamtramck, Minneapolisabad that approach being no-go zones for kafir.
If the American Jews, who outnumber the moslems by 3 or 4 to 1, made the same demands, the “progressives” would have lynch parties out.
I don’t doubt that there are places such as you describe, since similar ghettos exist throughout Europe. They are a consequence of the Left failing to acknowledge that, with Islam, they have backed the wrong horse.
However, I wouldn’t be surprised to find that there were a good number of Muslims who entered the US and by so doing escaped the strictures of Islam. I doubt that the overall numbers are very high, but given the upheavals in the 19th and 20th centuries (those caused by the rise of the Ottoman empire, the various European and Asian conflicts, followed by the First and Second World Wars, the rise of Communism) a few thousand made their way to the States and thought “Sod it- I’m going to change my name to Smith and learn how to fix Model T gearboxes, and there’s no mosque so the imam won’t be on my back either”.
At the moment I can’t find any academic work to back up my hunch. It could well be that recent Islamic immigrants historically outnumber those I have postulated, hence the appearance of Islamic ghettoes. It would be good to find out.
Lancastrian – there is no doubt some came to get out of the 7th century, in the recent unpleasantness, for example, I met an outstanding interpreter who I thought was from southern California till I got her back story about her life in the old country from another who was into heavy metal (music, not weapons). There are others I have met who, like the Catholics who only go to mass at Christmas and Easter, are Muslims only at Eid al Adha or Eid al Fitr.
However, from my experiences in some of the moslem heavy areas and readings, I fear they are the minority, or if the majority, their voices are either silenced, or drowned out, by the CAIR types who see “islamophobia” in every hot dog or bikini ad.
BTW – had to look up Oik, I shall add it to my list of English English that no one here will understand.
“Are horror games ableist?”
https://twitter.com/NS_Culture/status/569887763740401664
“Are horror games ableist?”
Thank goodness the New Statesman is ever vigilant, saving the world with its pretentious fretting.
had to look up Oik, I shall add it to my list of English English that no one here will understand.
Next week on English English we’ll be covering “fanny,” “bugger” and “tosspot.”
“Chips” and “cherry” in later episodes, I hope.
And Mark Steyn on the blatherings of the Most Clever President Ever:
Ah, yes, it’s absolutely horrible when the U.S. president makes statements that go against the unquestionable and certain knowledge of the educated elite . . !
Well, it was BS when GWB said it and it’s worse now, because he at least recognized that some strains of Islam were dangerous. It’s not as bad as saying that Islam has been an important part of our country since the founding, but it’s pretty foolish. He definitely said some dumb stuff. You wouldn’t find many people on the right who ever felt the absurd love and deference that the left has for Obama. There was plenty of contemporaneous criticism of some foolish platitudes he was inclined to throw out at times.
First, our ‘betters’ tell us to feel the cultural enrichment and to celebrate the diversity that immigration allegedly provides, and then, when the immigrants turn to special pleading for group ‘rights’ or to crime or terrorism, they try to suppress comment in the name of ‘cultural cohesion’ or by designating it ‘hate crime’.
Next week on English English we’ll be covering “fanny,” “bugger” and “tosspot.”
Nah, those are more commonly known (in large part thanks to BBC America) here, and many of us have picked things up from Brits (and/or Aussies and Kiwis) with whom we have served, but “oik” here in the hinterlands is beyond obscure. Regardless, is useful to be able throw out the occasional insult without the insultee knowing they have been insulted, for example, when being cut off in traffic rather than flipping the bird to the offending party, if one uses the “V” with the back of the hand towards the offending party, said party usually waves thinking you just flashed a peace sign, silly wankers.
“Oik” promises to be useful because is someone gives you the stink-eye after using it, you can just give them the RCA dog look and claim you said “oy” (the Yiddish oy), or OK.
Perhaps we could set an exchange program(me) for English English and ‘Murkan English
I can understand the wish to avoid inadvertently encouraging racial bigotry, which is presumably a prominent motive in the obfuscation, at least initially. But when that sentiment entails deliberately eliding such dramatic and pertinent information in crime statistics and news reporting – i.e., lying – and thereby making deterrence of such crimes more difficult, then something has gone seriously wrong.
ESR observed this phenomenon and had a brilliant take on it.
…suppressio veri, when performed systematically enough, itself becomes a code that can be read. What the press is teaching Americans to assume, story after story, is that if “youths” commit public violence and they are not specified to be white, or hispanic, or asian — then it’s yet another black street gang on a wilding.
suppressio veri, when performed systematically enough, itself becomes a code that can be read.
Men of No Appearance.
ESR observed this phenomenon and had a brilliant take on it.
As I said at the time, it strikes me as a case of overreach corroding actual probity. By assuming some grand sociological function – saving “us” from ourselves – the news media’s basic functions – reporting the facts – are compromised, quite severely. And once you start noticing this phenomenon, there’s lots of it about.
And yes, Mr Raymond is good at walking the tightrope. I’ve seen plenty of Laurie Warriors™ tweeting their mutual disgust at his enquiries, dismissing them out of hand, calling him a racist and all the rest. Yet few of these righteous warriors seem to venture into his comment section to point out why he’s wrong, if indeed he is. Such is their confidence.
Mr Lendas had taken a few steps back to take pictures of his new bride when he flew off the unprotected cliff…
It’s true; Islam has been a factor in American politics since the 3rd Presidential administration. Ever since Thomas Jefferson sent a naval squadron to the Mediterranean Sea to strike at the Barbary Pirates, the United States has been trying to clean up Islamic messes.
More frantic obfuscating about freedom of speech and Islamists here:
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/08/tories-hate-preachers-david-mitchell
I used to think better of Mitchell……
Agh! Last line is mine and not a quote.
Fixed.