Israel Matzav

Malmo: The clouds behind the tennis storm

At Power Line, Scott Johnson has a great post that looks at socialism gone awry in Malmo, Sweden, the backdrop to last week's Davis Cup tennis match in which those sneaky Jooooos from Israel defeated Sweden 3-2.

The heart of Muslim and Arab life in Malmö lies in the Rosengård district, located within walking distance from the city center. When the neighborhood, whose name means "rose garden," was built in the late 1960's it was a symbol of the ruling Social Democrats new egalitarian society.

Today Rosengård's population consists to nearly 90 percent of immigrants, originating mainly from Palestine, former Yugoslavia, Lebanon, Iraq, and Poland. Unemployment hovers around 38 percent, and 20 percent of the population subsists on welfare. It is a neighborhood where fire fighters dare not go without police escort. The fire brigade has responded to assaults against its trucks by developing a new "methods of dialogue" with Rosengård's youths.

...

But Rosengård lies in the world's most generous welfare state. Those who cannot provide for themselves and their families have a right to social welfare, which according to Swedish law must cover the cost for food, clothes, shoes, leisure activities, health and hygiene, health care and medicines, a daily newspaper, a phone, living expenses, electricity, commuting to work, home insurance, membership in a workers' union and unemployment insurance. The frustrated and angry youngsters in Rosengård get health care at a minimal cost, free dental care, free school, and free college and university education, with the right to student benefits and loans. Social inequality is, therefore, a poor model for explaining not only a rise in crime the neighborhood has seen in the last few years, but also in political radicalization.

This way Rosengård not only stands as a monument over the once so egalitarian ambitions of the Swedish Social Democracy. The neighborhood has also become a symbol for the fact that too many of the country's Arab immigrants have brought anti-democratic values from their home countries; values that neither "dialogue police" nor the world's most generous welfare system has been able cure. And it is also becoming a symbol of a Western country that is prepared to compromise with those values.

That ought to make most countries think twice about the welfare state and taking in large numbers of immigrants.

Read the whole thing.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 3:15 PM