Let me explain. It seems to most people I know that the Government is paying out vast sums of money…not to the refugees seeking asylum…but to orgs who offer support services (accomodation,etc) to these desperate people. You see, it was decided that a certain standard of care be provided as a prelude to integration and that standard is quite high and expensive.
This is the most common complaint I hear from Swedes about this situation. It is not a complaint about skin colour. It is not a complaint about religion (although there is a media reinforced misunderstanding of the amount of say, muslims, in the land…it is actually less than 5%)..it is about the ‘lavish treatment’ the refugees ‘appear’ to be receiving. A treatment that is not, so I repeatedly hear, handed out to indigenous Swedes. In my local small town, population now a little over 3000 (2016) there are 42 different languages. Can you imagine. the problems in the schools that that can create – but even in this small town there has been an incredible effort to deal with those problems. Caring and compassion are reflected in many different ways, just like the beauty of a diamond.
That having all been ‘necessarily said’, I have the utmost respect for what the Swedish nation has managed to do in the past 2 years. For a nation that only last week reached the 10 million population milestone, the Swedish heart has been overwhelmingly open to the desperate needs of others. Here is just one more – of many,many – stories about that heart.
published in the guardian.com you can read the full story here (please note: the trial is for helping ONE refugee)
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