MUSLIM ENGAGEMENT IN SWEDEN

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 04 STOCKHOLM 000557 SENSITIVE SIPDIS STATE PASS TO FARAH PANDITH, EUR/FO E.O. 12958: N/A TAGS: ECON KISL KPAO OIIP PGOV PHUM PINR PREL SW SUBJECT: MUSLIM ENGAGEMENT IN SWEDEN REF: A. A) STOCKHOLM 0213 2008 ¶B. B) STOCKHOLM 0208 2008 ¶C. C) STOCKHOLM 0117 2008 ¶D. D) STOCKHOLM 1487 2007 ¶E. E) STOCKHOLM 1448 2007 ¶F. F) STOCKHOLM 0555 2007 ¶G. G) STOCKHOLM 1940 2006 -------------- SUMMARY -------------- ¶1. (U) Muslim immigrants have achieved substantial but uneven success in Sweden. They represent four to five percent of Sweden's population of nine million people, comprised of Iraqis (100,000),Iranians (56,000),Bosnian Muslims (40,000),Turks (38,000),Somalis (35,000),and smaller numbers from Lebanon, Syria and Afghanistan. They include leading academics, business figures, media personalities, and politicians. But Muslims still face high informal barriers to employment, housing discrimination, and integration challenges in Sweden. ¶2. (SBU) In the nearly two years since we launched an outreach program to Sweden's diverse Muslim minority, Post has developed an extensive network of contacts and implemented a wide range of activities, from roundtables and meetings with key leaders to exchange programs, conferences, and seminars on minority entrepreneurship. Government and immigrant leaders increasingly recognize that Sweden's welfare-based model is failing immigrants. In their search for new approaches, these leaders are turning to the U.S.'s experience with integration as a model for Sweden's own transformation. In the coming year, Post sees an opportunity to deepen engagement, focused on practical concerns, such as breaking down job barriers and fostering entrepreneurship. -------------- CONTEXT: WHO ARE THE &NEW SWEDES8? -------------- ¶3. (U) Sweden has a long history of immigration from Finland and other northern European countries, but its experience with immigrants from Muslim countries is relatively recent, beginning in the 1960s and 70s with Turkish labor migration. In the 1980s, Sweden started to welcome refugees from Iran and Iraq in large numbers, as well as smaller numbers of Palestinians, Moroccans, Lebanese, and Syrians. The early 1990s saw a large influx of Bosnian Muslims and the first of two groups of Somali refugees. Today Muslims constitute the largest religious minority in Sweden, with an estimated 350,000 to 450,000 adherents, or approximately four to five percent of the population (ref G). ¶4. (SBU) Sweden does not collect demographic information about religious affiliation, but official statistics by country of origin are available: --more than 100,000 immigrants come from Iraq; --Iranian-born immigrants number 56,000 (Post's Iranian interlocutors estimate the entire Iranian community at 70,000); --an estimated 40,000 of Sweden's more than 130,000 Balkan immigrants are Bosnian Muslims; --immigrants from Turkey number about 38,000; --the Somali community is the fifth largest, with approximately 35,000 members; and --smaller numbers of immigrants come from Lebanon (23,000), Syria (18,000) and Afghanistan (10,000). Assyrian and Chaldaean Christians as well as Muslims comprise a significant proportion of immigrant populations from Iraq, Syria and Iran. ¶5. (SBU) According to Sweden's Central Statistics Bureau, family reunification plays a growing role and now contributes about half of new immigrants. A large minority of new arrivals are asylum seekers, many of whom are in fact economic migrants smuggled to Sweden on forged documents. Until early 2008, over 80 percent were granted asylum in Sweden and were able to take advantage of generous social benefits. As Sweden rejects a growing proportion of asylum claims, more asylum-seekers are going underground. Officials estimate approximately 15,000 immigrants are undocumented. STOCKHOLM 00000557 002 OF 004 -------------- SWEDEN'S INTEGRATION CHALLENGES -------------- ¶6. (SBU) Sweden has to some extent to date avoided the divisive public debate that characterizes immigration in many other European countries. The far-right Sweden Democrats (Sweden's anti-immigration party) has elected representatives at the local level in the south of Sweden, but has so far not succeeded in crossing the four percent threshold to be represented in national parliament. In contrast, Norway and Denmark both have anti-immigrant parties in their parliaments. Sweden has strong legal protections for minorities, welcoming asylum and immigration policies, and generous settlement benefits. Muslims are represented in prominent positions in academia, business, politics, and the media. In contrast to parliaments in other European countries with large Muslim minorities, such as France and Germany, Sweden's parliament is relatively inclusive. Five out of 349 members have Muslim immigrant backgrounds, including one from Turkey, three from Iran (of whom two are Kurds),and one Iraqi Kurdish immigrant. ¶7. (SBU) Nevertheless, unemployment among Muslim immigrants is several times higher - about 75 percent in several communities - than the national average, which is about six percent, violent crime is several times more likely than among native Swedes, and immigrants tend to live in segregated neighborhoods. Honor violence is widespread, according to a survey by Swedish Radio that found 60 percent of social service providers in Sweden have assisted victims of such crimes. Official statistics show that immigrants from Iraq, Somalia and Afghanistan are least successful at integrating, with employment rates around 20 percent for women and 35 percent for men (in contrast, Iranians have been successful at integrating, with levels of educational achievement comparable to Sweden's national average). Iraq and Somalia currently contribute the largest number of new refugees to Sweden. Most of these new arrivals settle into segregated communities of disaffected first- and second-generation immigrants. Raised in isolation from the rest of Swedish society, second-generation youth describe a feeling of alienation and a conflict between their Muslim and Swedish identities that make them vulnerable to radicalization (ref C). ¶8. (SBU) Swedish government officials and immigrant community leaders largely agree on the causes of this integration failure: although officially welcome, Muslim immigrants face widespread informal barriers to employment, housing discrimination, and a society that is traditionally closed to outsiders (ref B). Combined with generous social welfare benefits, these factors have led to what Integration Minister Nyamko Sabuni, who came to Sweden from Burundi as a child, described as a new immigrant social landscape of unemployment, dependence on welfare and entrenched housing segregation (ref D). -------------- LABOR MARKET LIBERALIZATION AS ONE SOLUTION -------------- ¶9. (SBU) The relative absence of hostility in Sweden's immigration debate allows for a constructive dialogue unconstrained by flashpoint issues. Mounting budgetary pressure on the welfare approach to integration and growing support for the still marginal far-right Sweden Democrats in Parliament could endanger this calm, particularly in the event of an economic downturn. ¶10. (SBU) The influx of tens of thousands of refugees and asylum seekers from Iraq since 2006 has strained Sweden's welfare-based approach to integration, nearly tripling the demand for placements in introduction programs for refugees and asylum seekers from 8,700 in 2005 to about 30,000 per year since then. The government has responded by seeking, thus far unsuccessfully, greater burden-sharing with other EU countries and the U.S., and by sharply reducing the number of Iraqi asylum-seekers who are granted residency. ¶11. (SBU) The recognition that Sweden's welfare-based model is failing immigrants and that the cost of absorbing record numbers of new refugees is unsustainable has prompted the current center-right government to look for new approaches, including partnerships with the private sector, lowering barriers to employment for immigrants, expanding job training, and shortening the introduction process for newly arrived refugees (ref D). Concerned that foreign imams unfamiliar with Swedish society and values are radicalizing Muslim youth, the government has appointed a commission to STOCKHOLM 00000557 003 OF 004 study the possibility of a special training program for imams (ref A). Some of the changes are inspired by the U.S. model and complemented by a dialogue with the U.S. Embassy, initiated as part of Post's Muslim engagement program. ¶12. (SBU) Post's Muslim interlocutors often express concern about the welfare dependency that the Swedish system has fostered, and some immigrant leaders are calling for reforms modeled on U.S. welfare reform in the 1990s, which emphasized job training and introduced a time limit for welfare recipients. Post contacts are universally aware that immigrants to the U.S. benefit from lower barriers to employment and entrepreneurship and a more flexible labor market, and they welcome Post's efforts to engage with government leaders on these issues. ¶13. (U) According to Nima Samandaji, a Kurdish-Iranian immigrant who heads the free-market think tank Captus, welfare dependency among first-generation immigrants from non-Western countries is nine times higher than among native-born Swedes. In an article in the online English-language news site "The Local", Samandaji urged Swedish policymakers to &learn from the constructive way in which welfare dependency was reduced on the other side of the Atlantic.8 The growing interest at all levels of Swedish society in learning from the U.S. experience with integration and welfare reform represents an opportunity for Post to deepen engagement on these issues. -------------- SUMMARY OF POST MUSLIM ENGAGEMENT PLAN -------------- ¶14. (SBU) Nearly two years after Post launched a new strategy for engagement with Sweden's Muslim communities, most of the activities then envisioned have been carried out. The program has been most successful with initiatives focused on practical issues, such as breaking down job barriers and fostering entrepreneurship, rather than ideological debates. Highlights include the following: --In summer 2007, Post sponsored a week-long series of entrepreneurship seminars by Somali-American business leaders that directly reached more than one percent of the Somali community across Sweden and resulted in extensive positive media coverage and the opening of three new immigrant-owned businesses (ref E). --Regular meetings with Muslim leaders helped Emboffs gain a better understanding of the issues facing Sweden's Muslim community and built a platform for ongoing engagement. --Roundtable discussions in immigrant communities across Sweden enabled Emboffs to learn about integration challenges in Sweden from a more diverse audience and to showcase the positive U.S. experience with immigration. --Visits to Islamic associations, schools and places of worship were nearly always warmly received and have produced a substantive dialogue with a growing number and range of contacts about the role these institutions play in fostering integration and concrete avenues for future cooperation with the Embassy. --Two visits by EUR Senior Advisor for Muslim Engagement Farah Pandith enabled a higher-level dialogue with government and Muslim leaders and provided guidance and intellectual foment for Post's efforts (ref B, H). --A conference on education as a gateway to integration attracted a diverse audience of more than 100 current and former Fulbright grantees, academics and community leaders, including key Muslim contacts (ref F). --During 2007 and the first half of 2008, Post sent six Muslim community leaders on International Visitor Programs. Several of these contacts are collaborating with the Embassy on future outreach activities in their communities. ¶15. (SBU) Swedish Muslim leaders consistently focus on one central issue in meetings and roundtables with Emboffs: employment is indispensable to integration, and overcoming informal barriers, which in Sweden include job discrimination and welfare dependency, is a top priority (ref B, D). Post sought to address these issues through a minority internship program, launched in summer 2007 with the American Chamber of Commerce in Sweden (AmCham). Although the business community was receptive to the idea, the project proved controversial with some partners because of Swedish cultural sensitivities about recruiting minority candidates. After a successful STOCKHOLM 00000557 004 OF 004 pilot with four interns placed with U.S. companies in 2007, the program was put on hold this year because a branch of Sweden's government employment agency that agreed to recruit and vet minority candidates for the program was closed for funding reasons. -------------- NEXT STEPS -------------- ¶16. (SBU) Post plans to expand a range of ongoing engagement activities, including a series of &Building Bridges8 roundtables, further meetings with key leaders, and visits to Muslim places of worship to deepen the dialogue on practical issues affecting integration. In collaboration with the Fulbright Commission and the Swedish think tank Zufi, Post plans a follow-up to the 2007 Somali-American entrepreneurship visit next year aimed at social entrepreneurship and a younger audience. The Citizen Dialogue program planned for the coming year will enable Post to build on the success of recent initiatives that involved visits by U.S. Muslims. Post also plans to seek buy-in from AmCham members for a new minority internship program aimed at a larger, younger audience. ¶17. (SBU) Post will continue to report on progress periodically. SILVERMAN