A quote from Swedish crime writer Henning Mankell’s book “The Fifth Woman”:
Society had grown cruel. People who felt they were unwanted or unwelcome in their own country reacted with aggression. There was no such thing as meaningless violence. Every act had meaning for the person who committed it. Only when you dared to accept this truth could you hope to turn society in another direction.
Mankell, one of the most brilliant contemporary crime writer, is trying to tell us something, but what? This seems to be a comment on the massive immigration that has changed the look, feel and maybe the culture of Swedish society. If so, what is the answer? Is it fair to say that, prior to globalization and easy migration Sweden was a happier, homogeneous place? Is it wise to allow resident populations to feel the country is leaving them? Or is it right and just to accept the attitude of many that poor immigrants have as much right to live in developed countries as you and I, and to oppose it is racist?
Where would Epicurus, indeed any ancient Greek philosopher, stand on this issue?
I’m not sure about Epicurus but if “Pleasure is our first and kindred good” then I’m in the anti-immigration camp. Just like this Swedish journalist:
Toto, we’re not in Sweden anymore
http://ideologee.blogspot.com/2012/07/toto-were-not-in-sweden-anymore.html
“Ladies and gentlemen. My name is Ingrid Carlqvist and I was born in Sweden in 1960, when the Social Democrats were gonna rule forever and ever and our country was the nicest and safest and most progressed in the world. Now I live in Absurdistan – a country that has the highest figure of reported rapes in the world, hundreds of so called “exclusion areas” where people live outside the Swedish society and with newspapers that hide all these horrible facts to the people.
I feel just like Dorothy Gale in The Wizard of Oz – a tornado came and blew me miles and miles away from home and dumped me in a country I don’t know.
“Toto, I have a feeling we’re not in Sweden anymore.” ….”
The same can be said for most Western countries.
Thank you for this. I really feel for you, because I too feel my country has left me.
I was born in London at a time when, if you heard a foreign language on the street, one turned to look and hopefully to smile with a welcoming if inquisitive smile. Now, when in London, I feel that I must be one of the few born Londoners around.
I don’t think immigration as such has led necessarily to worse crime, but the change in the general culture is huge, and ( maybe it’s my age) I don’t feel it is for the better.
There are too many people and they do not seem to be remotely interested in one another. They talk past each other, chattering about themselves without asking a single question or showing any care or real interest. It’s me, me, me. And where there is no social cohesion or genuine sense of community crime flourishes.
The passion in the first comment is understandable. The destruction of communities, by whatever means and for whatever reason, is a lethal blow to any society.
Without communities, the isolated individual is totally vulnerable to physical, political, and psychological degradation. The prison populations, the mass murderers, the rampaging gun slingers as in Aurora, Colorado, the narcissists who run the large institutions the bought-and-paid-for political system — all plagues following in the wake of reducing community life.
From that point of view, the 18th C. Industrial Revolution was flawed from the beginning — pulverizing the communities into isolated individuals without a sustaining social network, driving them into the cities to be met by ever more powerful governments and corporate power. The world described by Dickens (and Disraeli, for that matter.) It’s all more complex than that, I know, but what could be more dangerous than destroying the fundamental basis of any healthy society– its community structures?
Comment from Jane Forsyth, posted on her behalf
I have always thought we “should” give a safe haven to those who are persecuted and oppressed, but when I thought again I have to admit that the comment from the Swedish woman is what I have been sub consciously thinking too, particularly in relation to different cultures which are at odds with ours ( forced marriages, honour kills, different ethical values and insistence on have no own laws etc.). As my husband says, “There will be a backlash sooner or later “. Hadn’t realised that countries such as Sweden feel the same.
I think it’s good that your blog can accommodate all our angst…