Human Rights Day

It is amazing to see the double standards Swedish Government have with respect to human rights. They would not even dream of restricting freedom of speech or assembly but the right to seek and enjoy asylum does not seem to deserve the the same honor. I presume that it all boils down to the question: for whom? In reality, Article 2 is just pretty words:

Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status. Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.

I know it is cynical, but sadly I think that is what matters for most people in the end. The severity of violating human rights depends on who's rights that are violated.

Everyone has the right to seek asylum

Many swedes are appalled by the numbers presented by the Swedish Migration Agency of the estimated cost for handling the vast increase of people applying for asylum in Sweden. The estimate for 2016 is 60 billion SEK and 73 billion SEK for 2017. Many say that these numbers are outrageous and the government need to take action to prevent this. My question is, what options do we have and which one do you suggest? Although most people does not spell it out, the bottomline is often that we need to reduce these numbers. If not possible otherwise, then by force.

However, according to Article 14 of the declaration of human rights:

Everyone has the right to seek and to enjoy in other countries asylum from persecution.

So, the right to seek asylum is a human right, and furthermore, according to Article 30, we would explicitly violate the human rights if we prevent people from doing that. So, the people that come to Sweden and seek asylum are OUR responsibility. We cannot neglect them their rights. If we do not honour the human rights our society would be on a very dark path (think of the horror of violations of Article 19 for instance).

Analogy:

Sweden suffers from a population that grows older and older. Soon we will have too many old people that needs to be taken care of by too few young. The cost of taking care of the old will be outrageously high. Government need to take action. Suggestion is to reduce the number of people growing old. How? We could deport them somewhere or if not possible we might also reintroduce the kin/clan precipice. Anyone with a sane, humane mindset would think this is a horrendous idea.

The challenges with a ageing population is something we need to deal with in an appropriate and humane manner. It is exactly the same with the refugee crisis we are facing right now.

Don't forget to celebrate the Human Rights Day on December 10. It is a perfect opportunity to remind ourselves of our responsibilities. It is particularly important in these times.

Refugee crisis - for whom?

Patrik Kronqvist, from Expressen, criticises Anders Danielsson, the Director-General of the Swedish Migration Board, for being too political and an activist. One of the reasons behind this criticism is the harsh answer he gave journalists on the question if we are facing a crisis situation due to the increasing number refugees that come to Sweden seeking asylum:

Of course there is a crisis, but not for us. It is a crisis for the refugees.

Kronqvist then claims that we indeed are facing a crisis, particularly when it comes to housing all these people. We might even have to use the Globe Arena for this purpose.

This is yet another example of the screwed up perspective some people have on the whole situation. How can we even compare our so called crisis to the crisis the refugees are facing. The statement by Danielsson is as true today as it was when he said it. By our measures, the challenges we are facing is definitely extraordinary but to use the same vocabulary to describe it as we use to describe the situation of the people we open our country for is just distasteful.

The heart of surreptitious xenophobia

I get annoyed when the debate about immigration falls into a reasoning of pros and cons. Let's start with the pros. In Sweden, we have a population that grows older and older and we need young immigrants to compensate for our square shaped age pyramid (and eventually an upside-down pyramid). Don't misunderstand me, I agree that immigration is crucial for our society to live long and prosper. The thing that bugs me is that the argument is out of context. It may be appropriate in a debate on our social domestic challenges but not when it comes to immigration itself. The main reason for a generous immigration policy is to allow people, that are desperate enough to leave their homes seeking their fortune elsewhere, to come here. It is an opportunity every human shall have. We shall not let our petty differences stand in the way.

Now, about the cons: like one of the representatives of Sverigedemokraterna once said in a debate about the increasing number of Roma people begging on our streets: If we wouldn't had joined the european union, we wouldn't have had this problem. So, these people wouldn't have existed if we hadn't joined the union? Again, the perspective is so screwed up. Why not be honest instead and say: I don't care if people live in extreme poverty, as long as they don't do it here.

Ok, I am not naive, I know we won't see multilateral and global free immigration happening in our time. But please, don't argue against it as you would have a humane reason to. Reveal yourself! You are just deceiving good people to believe that there is a good and not-so-inhumane argument behind it. I am just afraid that the rightwing movement will leave us awaking too late and asking ourselves:

What have we done?

Let's revise "freedom of movement" in the declaration of Human Rights

Reading the Saturday morning paper (Dagens Nyheter) almost always leave me at unease. The common denominator of my woes is privileged people (in particular our elected politicians) expressing opinions about who should be welcome to Sweden (and Europe for that matter) and who should not. Today the following statement bugged me a lot:

"Being poor does not qualify as a reason for asylum."

I fully understand the problematic situation that arises in our privileged bubble when hundreds of thousands of people seek asylum in a short period of time (we might have to cut back on desserts for our old).  Among these people, there is a fair share of opportunists not qualifying for asylum. They come here because of other reasons, often economical, looking for a better life. What human principle gives us the right to stop these people at the border? There is a lot of arguments circulating why we do. Here are a few I hear more or less every day (and my immediate answers in italic):

• We (or our ancestors) have built this country and we have the sole right to reap rewards of our collective work.
  This is simply not true because you were just lucky you were born here. You are privileged to have had the opportunity to build this country.
• The right to protect our borders rely on the same human rights principle as stated in Article 17.
  This argument is extremely deceptive. Applying the principle rights of individuals (and the people close to him/her) on the collective may seem appropriate at the first glance but falls on so many points. In particular because of the sheer reason we have human rights; it is there to protect the individual against abuse from the collective (e.g., majority). In fact, democracy would not work very well if these principles were not in play. Applying the same protective principles on the abuser does not make any sense.
• We should try to help fix the problems local to the countries where these people come from.
  Yes, I agree we should strive to do more in this regard. Nonetheless, it is not really an argument for stopping people at our own borders. The two does not exclude each other. We can both let people in while helping out in their countries of origin.

In reality, the following arguments would be much more appropriate:

• We are selfish and do not want to share our fortune with anyone else.
• We don't want to see or hear people that are too different to ourselves. We want a homogenous society with regard to heritage, culture, religion (and preferably also skin color if possible).
• We have a system which more or less made extreme poverty extinct (for the small fraction of the world population our country represents) and does not want to see that on our streets again.

Don't try to hide your racism/xenophobia/selfishness in pretty arguments!

No, we should revise Article 13 and 14 to state freedom of movement across state borders. In particular in these days. That would be the humane thing to do. But what is the likelihood of that happening?

Why are we so xenophobic?

The public debate in Sweden regarding how the established parties should relate to Sverigedemokraterna has been rather unary. We have the most common opinion (so far) which firmly states they shouldn't even touch them with a ten-foot pole. What would the option be? Admit that they are (at least partly) right about the immigration situation in Sweden?

What we need to do is to talk more about xenophobia and in particular why we humans have a tendency to accept xenophobic behaviour to a rather large extent. One of the problems is that we often mix it up with, or even hide it within, acts of patriotism and/or national romanticism. Xenophobia means fear or hate against something strange or unfamiliar. Being proud of ones heritage, culture, religion, etc. does not need to imply xenophobia but sadly often does.

On the positive side, according to a recent poll carried out by DN/Ipsos, 44% of the swedes would like to see a more accepting refugee policy; as opposed to 30% that would like to see a more restrictive one. That is a huge shift in the public opinion since February this year where the numbers were 26% and 36%, respectively. Can such a big group of people stop being xenophobic in such a short period of time? I believe so. Xenophobia is subtle, and often unconscious, whereas for instance racism is very explicit.

So, a drop from 36% down to 26% of xenophobic swedes, not bad. Shouldn't we be happy? If we can keep this trend, xenophobia would shortly be extinct. Recent explicit and graphical media exposure of the tragedy of people dying in their desperate attempts to find a safe haven and a new life in Europe is a probable reason behind this vast shift in opinion. It puts our unconscious xenophobia on the edge and forces us to become conscious and explicit. It effectively exposes our surreptitious mindset.

Can the same effect be achieved without people having to die? Maybe. People don't like to be called xenophobic or racist, regardless if it is true or not. We are particularly sensitive if that mindset is unconscious and the epiphany puts us at shame.