It still is hard for me to imagine that in certain cities in Sweden 🇸🇪, civilians are encountering violence unheard of throughout most of Europe as well as the United States 🇺🇸.
Last year, Swedish Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson requested assistance from the military to deal with the rise of armed gangs in the once-peaceful country.
Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said he would meet with the armed forces supreme commander and the national police commissioner on Friday. [...]
The step was prompted by a severe wave of shootings and bombings that have claimed a dozen lives across Sweden, including teenagers and innocent bystanders.
Three people were killed overnight in separate attacks with suspected links to criminal gangs, which often recruit teenagers in socially disadvantaged immigrant neighbourhoods to carry out hits.
One of the victims was a woman in her 20s who died in an explosion in Uppsala, north of Stockholm. Swedish media said she was likely not the intended target of the attack. (EuroNews)
With all of the horrors happening in Sweden 🇸🇪, the political factions appear divided over the cause & solution for the rising crime rates.
Progressives on the left blame the lack of social services assisting the impoverished as the reason for rising tensions, while conservatives on the right blame unchecked immigration as the reason for the nation's woes.
However, the solution might be closer to the middle, as a brutal video from Sky News revealed during a riveting report released several weeks ago.
In the middle of the video, one of the police members blamed poverty, not ethnicity, as the reason for the rise in crime due to many of the youths being unable to find steady employment in the country.
Another issue is that many of the immigrants (especially teenagers) are being offered large amounts of cash to conduct assassinations on behalf of adult gang members, as the former will receive gentler prison sentences due to their age.
Adult gang members are taking advantage of the chaotic circumstances that many immigrant teenagers find themselves in, & are using the children as cheap, expendable pawns who can expand their criminal empires with little consequence from the law.
Although it might take extensive resources for Sweden 🇸🇪 to eventually thwart these criminal enterprises, a more practical approach at the local level (which was born out of tragedy) may help Sweden 🇸🇪 exit the era of wannabe child soldiers terrorizing the Swedish neighborhoods.
“My son went to the shopping centre and… two murderers, fully masked, came with electric scooters and opened fire on everyone,” says Mr Warsame. “Three were injured, two seriously and one mildly, but my son could not be saved.”
Reeling from the loss of his son, Mr Warsame felt that he could not cede the streets to the gangs. He founded Stop The Shooting, a group made up of parents who patrol the neighbourhood to engage with the youths they encounter.
Mr Warsame has a simple message to the kids he meets: “This is about their future and what we convey to them is that you should live. You don't have to be murdered when you're 17, 18, 19.”
The number of shootings in the area has dropped significantly since Stop The Shooting began making its presence felt on Rinkeby's streets, Mr Warsame says. (Sky News)
The minds of teenagers, especially children, are still impressionable to the world around them. Adult gang leaders realize this, & exploit young immigrants by giving them a purpose in life, as well as a sense of belonging.
Parents & law-abiding adults living in the community can also leave an impressionable mark on the youth. While these neighborhood patrols do not put extra cash in these youth's pockets, they are resolving a more significant need by positively integrating the young immigrants into the local culture, one the young will be reluctant to destroy.
Instead of waiting for a top-down solution from a capital bureaucrat, it might be faster & better for local neighborhoods in cities to engage with the youths directly. Later, Government agencies could partner with communities in each neighborhood by providing a custom approach to address the economic issues affecting each area (one option is matching the skills of a new immigrant with job opportunities in the country before entry).
This will not be an easy process, & it might take years to resolve. However, Sweden 🇸🇪 has the potential to emerge from this crisis in a far stronger position without giving into progressive naïveté or reactionary xenophobia.
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