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INTEGRATION

‘It’s as if we immigrants stink of rotten fish’

When deciding where in the world to study and work, Nabeel Shehzad, an engineer from Pakistan, thought Sweden seemed like the perfect place. But that was before he began to encounter discrimination on a regular basis.

Published: 30 April 2008 16:42 CEST

After completing my engineering degree at one of the best institutes in Pakistan, I, like many other Pakistanis, chose Sweden over the UK and other countries for mainly two reasons:

1. You can get good quality further education in Sweden for free.

2. Swedish people are not racist and do not discriminate against immigrants.

After coming here as a Masters student, most of us feel the first reason to be very true but when it comes to the second part the story is quite different.

As long as you are student, you normally mix with international or Swedish students, which itself is a wonderful experience. You normally don’t find discrimination of any kind, probably because your spectrum is not that broad, and you normally don’t meet too many working class Swedish people. But once you complete your studies you look for a job and it is from this point on that you start to see a different side of the picture.

I was lucky enough to get a good job after my Masters. When I started the job, I thought everything would be same as it used to be when I was a student. But it was not. I will mention here a few observations and experiences. (A full list would be too long)

I had to move to another city because of the job. I soon found that looking for accommodation became a never ending quest. People were really willing to rent out their apartments to me as I was earning good money. Everything was fine unless they actually met me and got to know that I was an immigrant. Then I got the big “no”.

In Gothenburg I dealt with one of the major housing companies and found that they are not inclined to make any offers to non-Swede. Even if they do make an offer, it is always for areas where only immigrants live. Immigrants are never offered any places where Swedish people live. Why this division?

Then there is discrimination in everyday life. Whenever an immigrant sits on a bus or a tram and leaves one empty seat next to him, I have found out that the probability of a Swedish person sitting next to him/her is almost zero. When the bus gets absolutely full, most people would prefer to stand than sit next to an immigrant. It’s almost like they think we stink of rotten fish.

These are just a few examples, and if you look around you will find so many incidents. I am not saying there is nothing good in Sweden. In fact, most things are absolutely wonderful. The system itself works superbly, but the behavior of Swedish people is really strange.

An immigrant who comes to Sweden to work here is a real blessing in disguise. He pays huge taxes and gets very little from the Swedish government. In fact, a well educated immigrant working here is a bonus for the government, which spends very little on him before he comes but reaps the benefits for the rest of his life.

It goes without saying that the immigrant himself gets a lot from Sweden by working here, but discriminating against him in different ways is probably not the best thing. Honestly, it really hurts.

Nabeel Shehzad currently works for Jeppesen Systems AB, a Gothenburg-based BOEING Company. Before joining Jeppesen, he received a Masters degree from the Royal Institute of Technology, KTH, in Stockholm. He also has an engineering degree from GIK Institute of Engineering, Pakistan.

DISCRIMINATION

‘Sweden should apologise to Tornedalian minority’: Truth commission releases report

The Swedish state should issue a public apology to the country's Tornedalian minority, urges a truth commission set up to investigate historic wrongdoings.

Published: 15 November 2023 14:14 CET
'Sweden should apologise to Tornedalian minority': Truth commission releases report

Stockholm’s policy of assimilation in the 19th and 20th centuries “harmed the minority and continues to hinder the defence of its language, culture and traditional livelihoods,” the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for Tornedalians, Kvens and Lantalaiset said in an article published in Sweden’s main daily Dagens Nyheter.

“Amends must be made in order to move forward,” it said, adding that “acknowledging the historic wrongdoings” should be a first step.

The commission, which began work in June 2020, was to submit a final report to the government on Wednesday.

Tornedalen is a geographical area in northeastern Sweden and northwestern Finland. The Tornedalian, Kven and Lantalaiset minority groups are often grouped under the name Tornedalians, who number around 50,000 in Sweden.

The commission noted that from the late 1800s, Tornedalian children were prohibited from using their mother tongue, meänkieli, in school and forced to use Swedish, a ban that remained in place until the 1960s.

From the early 1900s, some 5,500 Tornedalian children were sent away to Lutheran Church boarding schools “in a nationalistic spirit”, where their language and traditional dress were prohibited.

Punishments, violence and fagging were frequent at the schools, and the Tornedalian children were stigmatised in the villages, the commission said.

“Their language and culture was made out to be something shameful … (and) their self-esteem and desire to pass on the language to the next generation was negatively affected.”

The minority has historically made a living from farming, hunting, fishing and reindeer herding, though their reindeer herding rights have been limited over the years due to complexities with the indigenous Sami people’s herding rights.

“The minority feels that they have been made invisible, that their rights over their traditional livelihoods have been taken away and they now have no power of influence,” the commission wrote.

It recommended that the meänkieli language be promoted in schools and public service broadcasting, and the state “should immediately begin the process of a public apology”.

The Scandinavian country also has a separate Truth Commission probing discriminatory policies toward the Sami people.

That report is due to be published in 2025.

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