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  1. #1
    Thailand Expat misskit's Avatar
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    Australia plans to halve migrant intake, tighten student visa rules

    SYDNEY, Dec 11 (Reuters) - Australia on Monday said it would tighten visa rules for international students and low-skilled workers that could halve its migrant intake over the next two years as the government looks to overhaul what it said was a "broken" migration system.


    The decision comes after net immigration was expected to have peaked at a record 510,000 in 2022-23. Official data showed it was forecast to fall to about a quarter of a million in 2024-25 and 2025-26, roughly in line with pre-COVID levels.


    "We've worked around the clock to strike the best balance in Australia's migration system," Home Affairs Minister Clare O'Neil said in a statement ahead of the formal release of the government's new migration strategy later on Monday.

    "The government's targeted reforms are already putting downward pressure on net overseas migration, and will further contribute to this expected decline," O'Neil said.


    O'Neil said the increase in net overseas migration in 2022-23 was mostly driven by international students.


    Australia boosted its annual migration numbers last year to help key businesses recruit staff to fill shortages after the COVID-19 pandemic brought tighter border controls, and kept foreign students and workers out of the country for nearly two years.


    Prime Minister Anthony Albanese over the weekend said Australia's migration numbers needed to be wound back to a "sustainable level," adding that "the system is broken."


    Long reliant on immigration to supply what is now one of the tightest labour markets in the world, Australia's Labor government has pushed to speed up the entry of highly skilled workers and smooth their path to permanent residency.


    Under the new policies, international students would need higher ratings on English tests. It will also end settings that allowed students to prolong their stay in Australia.


    A new specialist visa for highly skilled workers will be set up with the processing time cut to one week, helping businesses recruit top migrants amid tough competition with other developed economies.


    Australia plans to halve migrant intake, tighten student visa rules | Taiwan News | 2023-12-11 11:00:00

  2. #2
    Member Ennis's Avatar
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    I see the website you have referenced is a Taiwanese site: The people of Taiwan are FANTASTIC additions to our society. Mainland Chinese too, (Mostly) are a great addition and most desirable migrants. IMHO, What we need to do is filter out those that are incompatible with our way of life or at least dramatically reduce their numbers. (For those that think otherwise - I am Caucasian) We are getting an increasing number of Indian People - who IMO have proved to be worthy additions to our country

    Many Islamic migrants are incompatible, however, not all. There are some fantastic people that are Islamic - sadly they are few in number.

    Over 100 Australians have died at the hands of "true believers" who follow their "holy book" to the letter. Of course this discussion would be totally forbidden in Australia, hence, we need to elect a government with the ability to "clandestinely" achieve these aims.

    My "anecdotal" evidence comes from me - in my discussions with fellow (Non-Islamic) Aussies - I have GREAT difficulty finding someone who "likes" Islamic immigration into our country.

    Some Islamic peoples I have spoken with "genuinely believe" Australia will become "Islamic" in the not too distant future.

  3. #3
    Hangin' Around cyrille's Avatar
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    Racist nutbar has met a lot of other racist nutbars.

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    Member Ennis's Avatar
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    I see the website you have referenced is a Taiwanese site: The people of Taiwan are FANTASTIC additions to our society. Mainland Chinese too, (Mostly) are a great addition and most desirable migrants. IMHO, What we need to do is filter out those that are incompatible with our way of life or at least dramatically reduce their numbers. (For those that think otherwise - I am Caucasian) We are getting an increasing number of Indian People - who IMO have proved to be worthy additions to our country

    Many Islamic migrants are incompatible, however, not all. There are some fantastic people that are Islamic - sadly they are few in number.

    Over 100 Australians have died at the hands of "true believers" who follow their "holy book" to the letter. Of course this discussion would be totally forbidden in Australia, hence, we need to elect a government with the ability to "clandestinely" achieve these aims.

    My "anecdotal" evidence comes from me - in my discussions with fellow (Non-Islamic) Aussies - I have GREAT difficulty finding someone who "likes" Islamic immigration into our country.

    Some Islamic peoples I have spoken with "genuinely believe" Australia will become "Islamic" in the not too distant future.

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    Member Ennis's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by cyrille View Post
    Racist nutbar has met a lot of other racist nutbars.
    Another uneducated, indoctrinated moron - how many times do the educated members of our society NEED, to impart the FACT that Islam is NOT a race???

    ISLAM is a sick cult, that has sucked in the "nutbars" (a Nutbar is a person that is of VERY low intelligence - as is evidenced by the person in the quoted text)...

  6. #6
    Thailand Expat DrWilly's Avatar
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    Islamophobia impacts mainly Arabs and POC and thus is a form of systemic racism.

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    If only the aborigines had required the redcoats and convicts to have visas and pass a language test.

  8. #8
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    Quote Originally Posted by misskit View Post
    tighten visa rules for international students and low-skilled workers that could halve its migrant intake over the next two years
    Thanks to the good work of former PM Ardern and PM Albanese, Aotearoa New Zealand citizens now have a pathway to citizenship in Straya. Sorry Australia. No takesy backsies. We show up, you gotta take us, lol. Of course, if you want to come over here, same same.

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    It will be interesting to see if they can successfully do this. Cutting back on immigration is a big challenge. Ask the Poms.

  10. #10
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    The student visa route in the UK has been a backdoor way in for years with colleges and unis - the students bring over parents, the grandparents et al and then a few sob stories later and they get on the social security merry-go-round

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    ^ Pretty sure that is no longer possible and parents need to show sifficient funds to be granted a visit visa. Students that finish their course must also seek a work permit to continue their stay in the UK.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Troy View Post
    Students that finish their course must also seek a work permit to continue their stay in the UK
    Correct if they wish to reman legal, I know a Malay who did a few months college worked in local take away has overstayed since 2004 at least

    HMG admits they have lost track of 16000 and that is only the ones they counted in.

    I think there will be calls for ID cards

    Of course if they do even honest jobs off the books and rent or live from relatives so no records

    Then there is the whole Black conomy of Drugs Prstitution cannabis farms all well documented.

    It is up to the English who they wish to let in /remove/ prosecute but I get the feeling many a the bottom of the queue for housing jobs health are unahppy.

    UK Border Agency officials 'have lost track of 124k asylum ...

    Nov 3, 2554 BE — Border officials have lost track of a population of asylum seekers and migrants as big as that of Cambridge.

    Of course they aren't looking very hard
    I know Lunar House HQ Croydon very well and they couldn't even find illegals working as cleaners in their office and people are afraid to appear racist asking such status, and that is why London is unregonisable to someone who grew up there.

    London has the largest number of migrants among all regions of the UK, 3,346,000 – or 37% of the UK's total foreign-born population.Aug 2, 2565 BE

    That is almost entire population of the republic of Ireland if you include suburbs adjacent on the commuter lines into Surrey, Kent Essex, Herts, Bucks etc probably closer to 5 million size of Denamrk!!




    I reckon the Thai TcheowChao moneygrubbers will want some of that 290 million for 100 migrants almost a million per head and not a single one sent yet.

    Immigration Population of the UK, Year Ending June 2022As of the year ending June 2022, there were an estimated 10,388,000 people in England and Wales who were not born in the UK. This accounts for approximately 14.8% of the total UK population.Mar 30, 2566 BE, plus many in the other 3 nations I was amazed last visit to Scotland.

    Like France the younger migrants often have more live births per woman so replacement is happening.I am not over concerned having lived all over the world with jews muslims buddhist hindus even Okkers. I guess these folks are going to live somewhere.

    Like most here I am an immigrant but never expected to get land ownership, a vote, automatic labor rights nor access t social support health care paid for by my Thai host.

    I think if we really look hard some of the resentment is plain old racism by a white working class that does not have the skills, energy or work ethic to compete with second generation Asians who are doing well.There is alos plenty of religeous intolerance not just Glasgow and Belfast bit wdespread dislike of muslims and or jews as highlighted by Gaza demos.

    Most white Commonwealth Sots, Welsh ,Irish and Americans are almost invisble with similar outlook, churches attitudes to gays women etc.The next election will se the Tory and Reform parties split on this and no dount Labour whatever it says unlikley to stamp out crossings or cheap labour.

    Such transformations have already happened in places like Blackburn, Berlin, S of France, Antwerp Denmark Malmo with whole areas in a parallel way of life on sink housing projects.

    So glad I live amongst tolerant locals who dont expect me to adapt my religion, politics, dress, food, language as some regimes insist, jusy avoid LM and 1900 naht a year no worries.
    Quote Originally Posted by taxexile View Post
    your brain is as empty as a eunuchs underpants.
    from brief encounters unexpurgated version

  13. #13
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    the numbers will drop dramatically once Labour are in, they will legalise them and put in place safe routes for all the economic migrants, Keir has spoken.

  14. #14
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    My wife hasn't been back to the UK since brexit was enforced and she requires a free visa they won't provide. However, whenever she left the country the UK never stamped her passport. She has never had an exit stamp.

    So, without checking people going out of the country how does the UK ever manage to keep figures? Is it based solely on visa applications?

    ^ Yes ID cards should have been introduced back in the 80's. Still can't understand the logic behind people's refusal to have them. It would be a lot easier to control illegal immigration and benefit fraud if they were introduced.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Troy View Post
    ^ Yes ID cards should have been introduced back in the 80's. Still can't understand the logic behind people's refusal to have them.
    it was down to bleeding heart liberals and lefties who cited peoples rights to anonymity etc

  16. #16
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    Quote Originally Posted by malmomike77 View Post
    the numbers will drop dramatically once Labour are in, they will legalise them and put in place safe routes for all the economic migrants, Keir has spoken.
    Making an already bad situation worse. The UK is basically done for on multiple levels.


  17. #17
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    Quote Originally Posted by 39TG View Post
    It will be interesting to see if they can successfully do this. Cutting back on immigration is a big challenge. Ask the Poms.
    Or the scandinavians

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    Quote Originally Posted by happynz View Post
    Thanks to the good work of former PM Ardern and PM Albanese, Aotearoa New Zealand citizens now have a pathway to citizenship in Straya. Sorry Australia. No takesy backsies. We show up, you gotta take us, lol. Of course, if you want to come over here, same same.
    Thatsa fantastic result. The kiwis are our Anzac brothers. Love em, Yes there is a problem with the immigration intake as far as I can see but it's mostly the sub continentals ,abusing the system., Bangladesh's, Pakistan, Indians etc. I think the present govt have got the finger on the pulse, how many uber drivers do we need.

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    Quote Originally Posted by malmomike77 View Post
    The student visa route in the UK has been a backdoor way in for years with colleges and unis - the students bring over parents, the grandparents et al and then a few sob stories later and they get on the social security merry-go-round
    Same same, yesterday I was driving by a suburb and noticed that there were 3 Indian grocery stores all about 5 shop fronts away from each other .and thought, holy fuck these guys are ruthless , even fuck with each other. , I'm not a racist I spent 6 months in India . I also spent 6 months in the UK I think to many Indians is not a good idea
    .

  20. #20
    Thailand Expat misskit's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Troy View Post
    My wife hasn't been back to the UK since brexit was enforced and she requires a free visa they won't provide. However, whenever she left the country the UK never stamped her passport. She has never had an exit stamp.
    Maybe they have a new system like Japan. You get the entry stamp but when time to leave you just scan your passport. No immigration officer and no exit stamp but the date you left is in immigrations records.

  21. #21
    Thailand Expat
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    ^ No, there is no border control on the way out. No passport control whatsoever on exit.

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    Quote Originally Posted by Troy View Post
    ^ No, there is no border control on the way out. No passport control whatsoever on exit.
    Not my experience I exited at Cheriton in september, UK border control no sstamp, then French immigration stamped. When I can relocate my passport I can post the stamp if you do not belivwe me.

    When I took train from Copenhagen to Sweden 3 months ago there was passport check both ways but no stamps for me, and I don't think anything more than a visual look, I did hold passport open, local Danes and Swedish commuters had some form of ID cards.
    An elderly American couple also had passports checked but a summary glance , I dont think any digtal scan so no record bar a head count, I did by my tickets from SJ online and may have entered a passport number I cannot recall.

    Pne thing I noticed in Marvik on the Baltic every single person was white and even in larger port Karlshamn and nearby islands only non whites I saw 2 fine Kurds were in a kebab shop and the very nice guy stacking shelves at the Mall who was trying to grasp English and Swedish as he was a surgeon from Syria. Malmo of course is totally wel err Miked?

    Mick O'Shea's long read
    Jun 27, 2565 BE — My Journey to Sweden's Most Notorious 'No-Go' Zone in Malmö ... Malmö, located near Sweden's southern extremity,

    Playgrounds & Parallel Societies:
    My Journey to Sweden’s Most Notorious ‘No-Go’ Zone in Malmö


















    [COLOR=var( --e-global-color-96a918f )]Swedes and well-to-do people of all nationalities living closer to the center need not ever visit this district. So much the better to sustain the ‘playground narrative.’ On the other hand, the distance grants Rosengård residents space to avoid Swedish cultural norms, such as women’s equality and western attire, as well as at least some of the prying eyes of the Swedish government. This place is, by any definition, a parallel society. Along with most of modern-day Skåne, the southernmost region of Sweden, it was part of the Danish kingdom for centuries.

    Long an industrial and shipping city, it underwent a major transformation after the 2000 opening of the Öresund Bridge, which physically connected Sweden and Denmark, and—more importantly—Upper Scandinavia with the rest of the continent. It also features one of the mildest climates in often-frigid Sweden. Due to these economic and geographic features, Malmö has been a hub of mass immigration to Sweden for decades. A full half of the city’s population is now ethnically non-Swedish.

    As a result of these same factors, Sweden—and particularly Malmö—has received a share of media attention that belies its relatively modest size. Former U.S. President Donald Trump even commented on the country’s current demographic difficulties at a rally. Irrespective of the former president’s knowledge of events in the country, he tapped into a topic that is widely known but only sometimes acknowledged—something is rotten in the state of Sweden.
    Once one of the safest countries in Europe, Sweden reported a gun homicide rate of four per million in 2020, far higher than the European average of 1.6 per million. Gun-related deaths nearly tripled from 2012 to 2020.

    The country’s total homicide rate jumped to 12 per million, compared to a European average of under eight per million. No other European country has experienced comparable increases in these metrics during the 21st century. In 2019, almost 260 crimes in Sweden included explosives, a 60% increase from the previous year. “It’s not normal to see these kinds of explosions in a country without war,” said Linda Staaf, of the intelligence unit of the Swedish National Police. Official sources report that these crimes are heavily concentrated in “socially disadvantaged areas,” the preferred government term for immigrant neighborhoods.

    Long associated with women’s advancement, Sweden has also witnessed a dramatic increase in reported rapes, from 421 in 1975 to 6,620 in 2014 (an increase of over 1400%). By 2015, Sweden had the second-highest number of rapes per capita in the world, behind only Lesotho. At a 2014 music festival in Stockholm, dozens of girls, some as young as 14, suffered molestation and rape at the hands of mostly-Afghan immigrants. Similar rapes with migrant culprits occurred at music festivals in Stockholm, Malmö, and other cities throughout 2015. In that same year, a group of Somali men gang-raped a Swedish girl on a ferry leaving Stockholm; the press misrepresented the story by referring to the culprits as “Swedish men.” From 2013-2018, 58% of men convicted of rape or attempted rape in Sweden were foreign-born (a statistic that doesn’t include children or grandchildren of recent immigrants). According to an Expressen study in 2018, 40 of the 43 men convicted of gang rape in Sweden over the prior two years were foreign-born or had two parents born outside of Sweden. Clearly the country’s reputation as a place where women can thrive is sadly outdated.

    Wanting to see for myself what is happening in once-peaceful Sweden, I met up with a Hungarian colleague who is studying in the country, with the hope of separating the truths from the falsehoods in Malmö, that increasingly notorious southern corner of Scandinavia’s largest country.

    Central Malmö is beautiful. Tourists should include it in their Scandinavia itineraries, at the very least as a day trip from Copenhagen. The mix of colorful coastal buildings and modern-looking red brick ones produces an elegant effect. This part of the city reflects the country’s neutral status during the world wars and economic success over the last century. One would be hard-pressed to find something that looks questionable, even near the city’s main railway station.
    Yet, Central Malmö isn’t the place to see the societal changes that have occurred in Sweden. Naturally, we wanted to go to the infamous Rosengård district, a place that figures prominently in most discussions on mass-immigration in Sweden.

    Before the migrant crisis of 2015 began in earnest, the district school reported not a single student had used Swedish as a first language in 14 years. For at least a decade, fire and ambulatory services have refused to go there without police escorts, as attacks against emergency workers are common.

    On our first evening in town, we questioned locals—mostly hotel employees, waiters, and pub owners—on whether parts of the city, especially Rosengård, were dangerous. The answer was a unanimous “No,” usually with a touch of scorn or pity that we would ask such a question. Follow-up questions followed a similar pattern: Of course women can safely walk there alone at night.
    Sure, there might be some gun violence among gangs, but you will never see those people. Maybe there are some limited problems, but it’s nothing you won’t find in London or Paris. Oh, and the playgrounds! A shocking number of Malmö residents mentioned how Rosengård has such wonderful playgrounds.

    It was almost as if the ethnic Swedish population of the city had learned a set of talking points from the same teacher who quizzed them every day. We couldn’t avoid the feeling that we were visiting one big, elaborate Potemkin village.

    The next morning, we made our first of three trips to Rosengård. The Sweden Democrats we planned to meet had canceled. A national election is approaching in September, which likely offered at least a partial explanation. Though, as my colleague explained, their party engages in a constant quest for legitimacy in a political system that marginalizes it by default. Any interaction with a Hungarian delegation could represent too much risk and too little reward. We didn’t meet a Sweden Democrat during our entire visit.

    Left to our own devices for our first visit, we set out to Rosengård via taxi. Our driver was a friendly Tunisian man. We enjoyed our conversation with him—and the feeling seemed to be mutual. He explained that he had been irreligious in Tunisia but learned about Islam and became devout after his arrival in Sweden. Upon our arrival, he removed an intricate Swedish-language Koran from the trunk and displayed it to us. He read us his favorite passage. Perhaps mistaking our curiosity for a desire to convert, he advised us to go to Egypt to learn the correct form of Islam. We parted and began our Rosengård journey on foot.

    Our first impressions matched our expectations. Everyone we encountered on the street was of Middle Eastern or African origin. Most were young, and many were school-aged children, despite it being a Tuesday. Virtually all signs (excluding street signs) were in Arabic and Swedish, or just Arabic. One Arabic-only sign depicting cartoon figures from various parts of the Muslim world advertised the Young Left party’s promise of welfare for all (I thought such a thing existed already, but both the language and the host country were foreign to me). Another sign proclaiming love for Jesus was ripped to shreds. Yet, we could have found all of this with a simple internet search. Needing to see more, we made our way to Rosengård Centrum, name of both a section of the district and its eponymous mall.

    It was Eid during our visit. The Islamic Union of Malmö had posted signs commemorating the holiday, as well as Islamic cultural symbols, at the mall entrance. Signs throughout the mall celebrated Ramadan and Eid. The Arabic and Swedish languages jockeyed for prevalence, and most shops sold Islamic food, clothing, or goods. Interestingly, a bookstore exhibited a ceiling lined with rainbow flags and a window-facing display case featuring LGBT-themed children’s books. The whole ensemble seemed a delightful depiction of the contradictions of modern Sweden. We stopped for a much-needed lunch at a food court that turned out to be a gathering point for the local Somali population. Neither English nor my colleague’s excellent Swedish proved sufficient to get a meal. After a long while, we decided to find food elsewhere. We seemingly were the only non-Somali people in the food court.

    After enjoying some kebab pizza, we prioritized various cultural centers in the area. We had a lively conversation with some union strikers—who reiterated the playground narrative—before entering a beautiful Macedonian Orthodox church. Small but extremely ornate, it would not have been out of place in Belgrade, Kiev, or (I imagine) Skopje. My colleague asked about relations with the local Muslim community, particularly since an enormous mosque stood in its backyard. The front-desk employee was visibly afraid to answer such a question. He said there had been problems in the past but that nothing serious had happened recently. Our visit to the exterior of the mosque didn’t yield any human interaction, and we feared our lack of Islamic religious knowledge would cause offense if we tried to enter. We noted the enormous parking lot, which far more closely resembled that of an American mall than the usual European sort.

    Next, we made our way through an industrial wasteland characterized by dilapidated, graffiti-covered walls, barbed-wire fences, tall, menacing, rusted street lights, and distribution centers for various Middle Eastern food products. The area reminded me of places I had seen in American Rust Belt locales like Toledo, Dearborn, and Erie. It was bright and open on a sunny May Tuesday, but a night visit clearly would have been reckless.
    We emerged in an area that was livelier but perhaps more detached from Europe than any place we had previously seen. Arabic was not just the predominant language, but the only language. A Middle Eastern food market, Iraqi café, auto repair shop (named, interestingly, Osama), and mosque characterized the area.

    After a short walk, we arrived at a small shopping center that appeared to be some sort of focal point of the neighborhood. It included a mix of shops selling Middle Eastern goods and—surprisingly—German electronic and kitchen products (clearly the reputation for German quality knows no cultural boundaries). Cold stares greeted us everywhere we went. Virtually everyone we encountered was a man. While we were spending time in one store, a young Arab man asked with a scowl what we wanted. He wasn’t an employee—just, apparently, a concerned citizen. We were grateful when our taxi arrived. Later we learned we had been in a neighborhood called Bennets Väg, a sort of no-go zone within the no-go zone. Later, a Swedish colleague who joined us informed us that he would not be willing to take us there. An internet image search of this neighborhood generally reveals crime scenes, police, and fires.

    In the afternoon, we met Andreas, leader of the youth wing of the local Christian Democrats. He didn’t mind participating in our visit, and he offered a wealth of knowledge about both Malmö and Rosengård. We headed back to the latter, this time with our well-informed guide.
    Andreas developed a particular interest in both politics and immigration policy after an unfortunate event earlier in his life. As young students with meager funds, he and his brother lived in low-cost apartments in Rosengård. One evening they were robbed at gunpoint. The experience affected them differently. Andreas became acutely aware of the irreversible demographic changes that have occurred in Sweden and the disastrous effects they have had; his brother retreated to the far more common (and safer) stance among Swedes—these newcomers deserve sympathy, and the Swedes need to do more to help.

    We traveled by bus this time. The distance from the center isn’t realistically navigable on foot, and this helps maintain the troubling status quo. Swedes and well-to-do people of all nationalities living closer to the center need not ever visit this district. It might as well be across the Öresund in Denmark. So much the better to sustain the ‘playground narrative.’ On the other hand, the distance grants Rosengård residents space to avoid Swedish cultural norms, such as women’s equality and western attire, as well as at least some of the prying eyes of the Swedish government. This place is, by any definition, a parallel society.

    Early in this visit we saw charred debris from some sort of local disturbance strewn along the sidewalk and side of the road. The road was stained. Andreas wasn’t surprised. Such debris is a common sight in Rosengård.Finally, we saw a playground. This playground, however, wasn’t the sort of playground most westerners would imagine. Instead, it was a series of mostly triangular-shaped metal bars that somehow reminded me of the gymnastics equipment one might see in footage of the Olympics from the 1920s and ’30s. We didn’t actively search for playgrounds during our visit, but if this one was any indication, the Swedes might have a particular talent for marketing or real estate sales.

    Back in the center, we regrouped over some darts and discussed what we had seen so far. Andreas explained that some Swedes were slowly changing their opinions on mass immigration, but most still had no interest in challenging the longtime status quo. Aspects of daily life in the country would have to become far more startling for the majority of Swedes to pay any attention.

    My Hungarian colleague and I knew we had one more task before we could consider our journey complete—we had to go back to Rosengård at night. Andreas was unwilling to join us. We set out to put the Swedes’ narrative of safety and vibrancy to the ultimate test.
    We brought no phones for this expedition. I shoved a credit card deep into my shoe and carried a few kroner bills in my pocket. Dressed in an Adidas tracksuit and equipped with the phrase, “I am from Bosnia” in Swedish, I naïvely hoped I could pass for someone uninteresting, if not potentially local. My colleague wore a nondescript hoodie and, of course, didn’t need to fake his Swedish.

    Two things are immediately striking about Rosengård at night. One is the eerie silence, and the other is the only sound that punctuates that silence—the cawing of seagulls. Most areas where we walked were dimly lit, which magnified the silence. Eventually we walked down a road with a car parked at the end. Upon closer inspection, we realized it was a police car. In front of the car was a line of police tape. We asked the officer what lay beyond the tape, and he responded with an angry, profanity-laced warning rather uncharacteristic of a Swede. He told us the police would not be able to protect us beyond that point and said we should get the hell out of the area.

    Soon afterwards, while crossing a relatively wooded residential area of government-subsidized, high-rise 1960s monstrosities,toward a major thoroughfare, the Inre Ringvägen, we had our first nighttime encounter with the locals and the most worrying moment of our trip. Two young men (perhaps even teenagers) of Arab appearance approached us and asked for a cigarette light. Nothing about their tone suggested they were actually interested in the light. We noticed a third hiding in the bushes nearby. We politely said we didn’t have the light and continued on our way. Thankfully, that was our only interaction. My colleague is tall, and my stockier American build contrasted with theirs—maybe they didn’t like their odds; maybe they didn’t think we were worth the trouble; or maybe they were scouts preceding more dangerous colleagues.

    Whatever the case, we were spooked and decided we had seen enough of Rosengård. We hastened to a nearby McDonald’s. As we made our way toward relative safety, we noticed cars maneuvering nearby, some with doors opening and slamming shut. We noticed a number of men using their phones as makeshift lights in our periphery. By this point we were determined to get out of there, as the officer had demanded, as quickly as possible.

    We finally reached the edge of the wooded residential area and climbed a set of stairs up an embankment toThomsons väg and its promised land that was a McDonald’s in the no-go zone. We entered the building to catch our breath and wait for the next bus back to the city center. All of the employees were women, and they were wearing all-black gowns (perhaps khimars or chadors—I don’t claim to be knowledgeable), in contrast to the more casual hijabs we had frequently encountered to that point. Without context, one might easily see photographs from inside the restaurant and believe they were from Cairo or Baghdad. The women were far friendlier than any of the men we had encountered that night, and they didn’t seem to acknowledge outwardly our status as outsiders. Soon we boarded our bus for the safety of Central Malmö.

    In short, during our visit to Malmö, my colleague and I confirmed much of what we had previously envisioned. Rosengård is a parallel society, seemingly cut off from the rest of Sweden. It is most certainly an uncomfortable place by day and an unsafe one by night. I would not want any of my female family members or friends to go there, for any reason. I still feel anxiety over the thought that I might have caused my wife to rush to a hospital in Sweden—or worse. If my colleague and I can feel any certain sense of accomplishment from our expeditions, it is that we might have performed a small, humble service for the elevation of truth. It is that very truth that so many Swedes persistently deny, and it is that denial that has created a Sweden so regretfully damaged and unrecognizable to its preceding generations. May Europe notice and respond accordingly, when and where it is not too late.

















    [COLOR=var( --e-global-color-96a918f )]Michael O’Shea is a fellow at the Danube Institute and is part of the Budapest Fellowship Program, sponsored by the Hungary Foundation and Mathias Corvinus Collegium.
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    [COLOR=var( --e-global-color-96a918f )]
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    Last edited by david44; 12-12-2023 at 06:35 PM.

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    Is this thread about Australia or the UK?

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