🚀 go-pugleaf

John R. Moore writes:
>WORLD history is filled with abuse and oppression. At least in
America,
>unlike most other countries that have a multicultural history, we
>try to do something about it. It is all well and good for you to sit
>in Sweden, which has not had a multicultural society, and condemn us,
but
>I don't think you have a clue as to how it works.

First, i don't think Johan Lindqvist's comment about previous racial
violence in the U.S. is necessarily intended as dumping on the U.S.
Mr. Schmidling implied that before the "multiculturalism" movement
the U.S. was a peaceful country; Mr. Lindqvist refuted that.  He did
not say the U.S. is the only country that has had such problems.  It
may be he wanted to imply that; i can't read his mind.  Neither can
you.  You jumped to conclusions.

Second, Sweden - as well as Norway and Finland - _are_ multicultural
societies, and have been for centuries.  In the first place, the
northern boundaries of these three countries, plus Russia, have
changed considerably over the years, and only the border between
Russia and the others has ever been strictly guarded.  Secondly, the
Sami (Lapps) were in the northern parts of these countries before the
Swedes etc. came there.  There has been conflict between these
cultures, and governments often tried to "assimilate" the Sami, or to
give the Sami less rights than others.  Fortunately the spirit now is
of cooperation, and there is far less conflict than there was in the
past - but there is still conflict sometimes.  And finally, there has
been immigration to Sweden in recent years, particularly political
refugees.  The immigration has not exactly been overwhelming but it
has been enough that there is a noticeable non-Swedish element in the
cities.

-Cindy Kandolf
 cindy@solan.unit.no
 Trondheim, Norway