MUSLIM IMMIGRANT CHALLENGES IN SWEDEN: INFORMAL

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 STOCKHOLM 000117

SIPDIS

SENSITIVE
SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: N/A
TAGS: PGOV PHUM PINR PREL KISL KPAO ECON OIIP SW
SUBJECT: MUSLIM IMMIGRANT CHALLENGES IN SWEDEN: INFORMAL
BARRIERS TO EMPLOYMENT IS THE KEY

REF: A. A) STOCKHOLM 1487 ("INTEGRATION MINISTER: SWEDEN
LAGS BEHIND U.S.")

B. B) STOCKHOLM 1448 ("COMPARING THE SWEDISH AND
AMERICAN IMMIGRANT RECORDS: THE SOMALI
EXPERIENCE")

SUMMARY
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1. (U) In Gothenburg on January 24-25, the DCM met with city
officials and Muslim community leaders to discuss
integration. Immigrants comprise nearly one quarter of
Gothenburg's population of half a million. Most live in
segregated neighborhoods on the city's northern outskirts,
and crime and radicalization are significant and growing
problems. Muslim immigrant leaders and city officials told
the DCM that informal barriers to employment represent the
greatest integration challenge, with unemployment rates
approaching 80 percent for some population groups. END
SUMMARY.

THE ISLAMIC SCHOOL: CATALYST FOR INTEGRATION OR ISOLATION?
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2. (U) In Gothenburg, the DCM presented the IIP-Scholastic
book collection "My Arabic Library" to Romosseskolan, a
private Islamic K-9 school that was established in 1998 in a
predominantly immigrant suburb of the city. The school is at
the center of a debate about whether separate Islamic schools
help young Muslims integrate or further isolate them from
Swedish society at large. Most of the school's more than 300
students are Sunni, children of immigrants from Somalia and
Iraq. It is one of a half dozen Islamic schools in Sweden,
and like most other private schools in the country, receives
significant government funding.


3. (U) During a roundtable discussion on integration at
Romosseskolan, Abdirisak Waberi, the school's Somali
immigrant headmaster and the spokesman of Sweden's Islamic
Association, said Muslim families send their children to the
school to avoid the harassment they often face in public
schools for wearing a veil and other expressions of religious
identity. He said the school offers a Swedish curriculum
"with a foundation in Islamic values" and helps Muslim youth
to integrate by providing a "safe space" for them to develop
their identities as both Muslim and Swedish. A
representative of the student body was less hopeful. She
said being both Muslim and Swedish is "a big problem" for her
because of how Muslims are perceived by non-Muslims. She
said she feels comfortable at the Islamic school because her
peers respect her religious expression, she can speak Somali
and Arabic with her classmates, and she does not feel
compelled to "fit in" to Swedish society.


4. (U) Critics of separate schools for Muslims, including
Sweden's National Teacher Association and Integration
Minister Nyamko Sabuni, argue that Islamic schools compound
the problem of youth alienation by completing a circle of
exclusion in which children from segregated Muslim
neighborhoods attend segregated schools, reducing
opportunities for them to interact with non-Muslims and
increasing the risk of radicalization.

"NEW SWEDES" FACE INFORMAL BARRIERS TO INTEGRATION
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5. (U) Sweden has welcoming asylum and immigration policies,
strong legal protections against discrimination, and offers
generous welfare benefits. These policies have been credited
with keeping tensions in check, helping Sweden to avoid the
social unrest experienced by some other European countries.
A recent study by the British Council and the Migration
Policy Group ranked Sweden best at integrating foreigners.
However, immigrants face high barriers to employment and
often live in segregated neighborhoods. Generous benefits
have led to welfare dependency, raising questions about how
sustainable the "Swedish model" is, particularly in the event
of an economic downturn (reftel a).


6. (U) On January 24, the DCM lead a roundtable discussion on
integration with Muslim community leaders hosted by Bill
Werngren, the city's Head of Public Relations and Director of
the Election Committee. Participants pointed to employment
as the most important gateway to integration. Ashar Khan, a
young Swedish-born Muslim who recently started a diversity
consultancy in Gothenburg, said informal barriers, including
hiring discrimination against applicants with Muslim names or
foreign accents, represent the greatest concern.


7. (U) Other Muslim participants said Sweden has been less
successful at integration than the U.S. in part because

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Swedish identity is less inclusive. Abdirisak Waberi said
"the American dream is universal" and immigrants to the U.S.
are quickly accepted as Americans, but immigrants to Sweden
"will never feel Swedish," creating a sense of alienation.
Solutions proposed by participants included lowering
employment barriers for immigrants and challenging the public
silence in Sweden on the topic of integration with increased
dialogue.

"SWEDEN, WE HAVE A PROBLEM"
--------------


8. (SBU) The discontent immigrant community leaders expressed
at the discrimination faced by Muslim job seekers was matched
by the frustration of city officials who, in the words of one
official, feel that 30 years of programs aimed at integrating
Muslim immigrants "have not worked." When first approached
about plans to include meetings on integration in the program
for the DCM's visit to Gothenburg, Bill Werngren sent EmbOff
a series of articles in Goteborg's-Posten, the local
newspaper of record, profiling integration challenges among
the city's Somali immigrant community (reftel b). In a cover
note, Werngren wrote that the situation in Gothenburg
reminded him of the phrase "Houston, we have a problem" and
described the articles as "interesting and quite horrible
reading."


10. (U) Werngren welcomed the visit as a vehicle for engaging
community leaders in dialogue. In a follow-up conversation,
Werngren told EmbOff that the visit created an opportunity
for city officials to discuss integration with Muslim
community leaders "in a more serious way" and had already
resulted in a new partnership between the municipality and
several young Muslims who participated in the program.
WOOD