Yo, I think you are attacking the wrong person here.

I don’t know where you read into what I said and got off track because I am not the strawman you seem to be painting me as…?

I am totally on the side of the refugees in these scenarios, I never said otherwise. The subtext of what I was saying was it is a good thing for any culture to be open to outside influence and the Scandinavian countries have been isolated culturally more so than many other areas of the world. Honestly, one of my favorite pastimes while living in Sweden was calling out the Swedes for the racist bullshit, and very specifically around this exact topic.

They opened their borders for refugees because they had space, stability and wealth to share with those in need. That does say a lot about their culture and wanting to help others but the system shock it caused created backlash that has yet be be resolved. You can’t treat some citizens one way and another set of citizen another. I did not say the social safety net shouldn’t be provided for them as I believe they should have every right as equals in their new country. I honestly wish my opinion on the matter could be used to stop this schism on the opposite side of the world to where I currently live but I don’t have that ability. Racists are gonna racist and as much as I hate that I am powerless to stop it worldwide.

I grew up around many cultures; many of my friends parents were first gen immigrants and didn’t speak the native language but they tried. I don’t fault them one bit for not learning it, languages are hard. I’ve learned 4 as an adult, none have been easy but my interest in foreign languages started when learning foreign words/phrases around the dinner table at my friends houses growing up.

Oddly Swedish was the most difficult but not for the usual reasons. I tried to speak it but Swedish people would inevitably hear my terrible accent and then just assume I know English and respond that way. Hard to practice when everyone under the age of 60 speaks fluent English and want to show it off. But that is Swedish pride for you, I can’t dismiss that maybe they opened their borders to refugees with the assumption their life was so much better than what the refugees were used to that they would of course want to assimilate to Swedish culture. Which kind of is the basis for the whole problem, they didn’t expect the refugees to have a different opinion and made no space for them to do so. Which is also why they need to assimilate towards each other, not only in one direction, and that takes a few generations worth of time.

It kinda feels like you parroted what I said back to me but… angrily? It feels like you’re working something out that doesn’t really have anything to do with me. It’s ok though, I think we are both on the same page.