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

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SUMMARY
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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.

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CONTEXT: WHO ARE THE &NEW SWEDES8?
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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.


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SWEDEN'S INTEGRATION CHALLENGES
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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).

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LABOR MARKET LIBERALIZATION AS ONE SOLUTION
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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

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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.

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SUMMARY OF POST MUSLIM ENGAGEMENT PLAN
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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

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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.

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NEXT STEPS
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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