Racial tensions spread through Scandinavia

Press, 7 December 1987, Page 39

Racial tensions spread through Scandinavia

By

ALAN ELSNER

NZPA-Reuter Oslo A new wind, carrying the seeds of racial tensions and hostility toward immigrants, is blowing through the traditionally tolerant societies of Scandinavia.

Right-wing, anti-immi-gration parties scored major successes in recent elections in Norway and Denmark.

In Sweden, a decision by a small local council in November to hold a referendum on whether to accept 15 refugees stirred a national debate with ugly racial overtones.

“It is a macabre expression of egoism and a violation of the refugees’ human dignity to run a campaign on whether they are welcome or not,” said Georg Andersson, Immigration Minister of Sweden’s Social Democratic Government.

The majority of Third World immigrants to Scandinavia arrive as refugees seeking political asylum. In the last year, the biggest groups have been Iranians, Sri Lankan Tamils, Chileans and Yugoslavs from the troubled province of Kosovo.

The success of the antiimmigrant Norwegian Progress Party in doubling its vote in local elections last September to 12.2 per cent prompted a rare plea by the country’s 84-year-old King Olav for toleration of “our new countrymen.” Progress Party leader Carl I. Hagen denies charges that he is stirring up racist feelings. He maintains that most of the 6500 asylum seekers who have arrived in Norway so far this year are not genuine refugees, but people hoping to sponge off the Norwegian Welfare State. “The Government gives them free accommodation in hotels, clothes and pocket money and they do not have to work,” he told Reuters. “They get their food in restaurants and they do not do the dishes,” he said. According to Annette Thommessen of the Norwegian Organisation for Asylum Seekers which tries to help newcomers settle down in Norway, much of the hostility towards refugees stems from ignorance.

“The Labour Government has done a lousy job with the reception of refugees. We have managed to make people scared and create negative" feelings,” she told Reuters. The Norwegian Government recently began repatriating some refugees, whom it said had failed to prove they were escaping persecution. “We are taking huge risks with other peoples’ lives ... God knows what will happen to them,” said Thommessen.

The number of asylumseekers landing in Oslo has more than doubled this year. This may be because a new law in Denmark has closed the door there to all but a few refugees. They now have to get entry visas before coming to Denmark, instead of having their claims processed after arrival. As a result, only 1700 refugees entered the country in the first 10 months of this year, compared to over 9000 last year. “Although their number is very small by European standards, there is a lot of resentment over refugees and immigrants,” said

Niels Helveg-Petersen, leader of the Centrist Radical Party. “If we have rising unemployment, negative growth, cutbacks in public services, I fear the immigrants will be used as scapegoats," said Svend Auken, leader of the main opposition Social Democratic party. The Danish press recently carried stories of how 23 Turkish immigrants who came to Denmark in 1969, increased their number to 371 within 18 years. The report prompted a member of the ruling Conservative party to call for legislation to prevent immigrants from going back to find spouses in their countries of origin.

“The Danes have so many prejudices towards immigrants,” said Hanne Petterson, who runs a course for young Turkish women in a Copenhagen suburb.

“They imagine that all Turks are the same; that they are forced to marry a person the family chooses, have lots of children, and want nothing to do with Danes,” she said. Until recently, Sweden’s

refugee policy was relatively uncontroversial. the country grants asylum to about 13,000 refugees every year and its 8.4 million population includes one million first and second generation immigrants. But the decision of the local council of Sjobo in southern Sweden to hold a referendum next year on whether to accept immigrants brought the issue into the open.

Demonstrators chanted "Keep Sweden Swedish” outside Sjobo city hall during the council debate, while council chairman Sven-Olof Olsson said the referendum was a protest against a government policy of "flooding

Sweden with refugees.” In contrast, Finland has recently indicated that it is slightly easing its immigration policy, which is among the most restrictive in Europe. Refugee organizations in Scandinavia say the upsurge of feeling against outsiders is particularly distressing among people who for years have taken pride in their internationalism and concern about Third World poverty.