(Originally posted to the Gatestone Institute website}
A surge of rage has washed over otherwise docile Sweden. After a double homicide at an IKEA store in Västerås, where an illegal alien stabbed two random Swedes to death, more and more people are questioning why the government is exposing Swedish citizens to murderers from across the globe.
On August 10, news of the IKEA murders shocked Sweden. Two asylum seekers from Eritrea (the second largest source of asylum applicants in Sweden), were suspected of having grabbed knives from the kitchenware department and attacked two random Swedes. The victims were 55-year-old Carola Herlin and her 28-year-old son, Emil.
The elder of the two asylum seekers, a 36-year-old man, had twice been denied residency status in Sweden — because he had already been granted residency it in Italy — but he had not yet been deported. (Eritreans without residence permits in other EU-countries automatically get to stay in Sweden.)
The killer also inflicted life-threatening injuries on himself, and underwent several surgeries before the police could finally question him. On August 14, he confessed. His 23-year-old compatriot was released from custody, because the police no longer believe he had anything to do with the murders or had even known what his friend was planning to do.
Fear has now struck the Swedes. Even those who had routinely brand critics of immigration and multiculturalism racist, were shaken to the core. Questions flooded the social media: Who are these people that are let into Sweden? How many of them are not innocent victims of war, but in fact war criminals and other criminals, hiding among the refugees? And should we pay billions in taxes to support and shelter citizens of other countries, while some of them try to kill us?
The fact that the police refuse to deny the persistent rumor that one of the IKEA victims was beheaded, only adds fuel to the fear.
So many questions and no answers. No one from the government has even bothered to make a statement about the horrific double murder. None of the mainstream media has confronted the government about the violent crimes committed by asylum seekers against Swedes. On the contrary – the media have done the utmost to convince Swedes that everything is safe and sound in Sweden. Better than ever, in fact. The day after the double murder, Sweden’s largest morning paper, Dagens Nyheter, published an article titled, “After all, deadly violence is on the decline.” The article begins:
“In recent weeks, several brutal murders have been committed, and many people ask themselves where society is headed. The answer is that Sweden has, after all, become a safer place. Deadly violence has been on the decline for some time.”
Nowhere does the article explain that the reason deadly violence has been on the decline is that emergency medicine is now able to save the lives of a lot more victims of knife- and gunshot-injuries. The so-called Laser Man, for example, shot a number of immigrants in Sweden in the 1990s. Forensic pathologist Jovan Rajs commented, “The Laser Man shot eleven people, and one of them died. In the 1930s eight or nine would have died, in the 1970s about five, and today probably none.”
Ergo, deadly violence remains on an even level thanks to better health care in Sweden, but all other kinds of violent crime (including attempted homicide) has gone off the charts. Violent crime is up 300% and rape is up 1,472% since 1975, the year the Swedish Parliament decided to turn homogenous Sweden into a multicultural country.
Ninety percent of asylum seekers to Sweden lack proper identification papers, so in reality no one knows how many murderers, rapists and thugs hide among the 100,000 or so people granted asylum in Sweden every year.
Frustrated Swedes are now howling with powerlessness on social media. The normal democratic order, where citizens can contact politicians or the media to make their voices heard, has all but evaporated. Newspaper websites have removed the reader comment fields, and the politicians hide behind a wall of officials, who brand callers expressing concern “racist,” and hang up. Thousands bear witness to this on Facebook. One person who actually got to talk about her uneasiness is Ewa, who writes on Facebook about calling Immigration Services:
“Well, I’ve unleashed the devil now. I called Immigration Services and demanded to talk to a Unit Manager. … I gave him an earful about every injustice I could think of, like how badly we treat our elderly and how we take away their homes and give them to asylum seekers. I also told him how unsafe Swedish women feel due to all these gang rapes perpetrated by asylum seekers and other foreigners. Also asked him if we all have to be beheaded before they stop taking in these kinds of people. … Now I’m sitting here, feeling completely empty after crying, screaming, discussing, raging and getting all this frustration out of me. Told him there are many of us who feel depressed because of what Immigration is doing. He was really sorry I feel this way. Yes, I told him, a lot of people feel this way but they are afraid to open their mouths because then they are labeled racist. You don’t even have to be a Sweden Democrat to see that our country is falling apart more and more with each passing day. Something you and all the rest at Immigration Services are responsible for. Where do I apply for asylum, I asked, when the day comes and I can no longer live here? Our country is ruined economically, socially and so forth and you are responsible. He answered that it was the politicians who decided about this, but that they would do everything in their power to make things better.”
Another woman, Amanda, wrote on Facebook that she e-mailed Prime Minister Stefan Löfven. She noted that “nothing may change, but at least I’ve made my voice heard.” Her e-mail read:
“Hi, why did the Prime Minister feel it was essential and urgent to go and talk about the fire at the mosque in Eskilstuna, no one even knew what started it when he held his speech? But now, he’s as silent as the grave. Why? It’s his/your unconditional and lax immigration policies that have enabled this culprit to move freely in society, despite having received a deportation order not just once, but twice. Can you tell me if this is something the citizens of this country should get used to, that immigrants, upon receiving deportation orders, kill people in order to get a lifelong contract with the Swedish state? It is your personal responsibility every time this happens, I hope you know that. Because this is nothing if not a political issue regarding immigration, and… its massive consequences to an entire nation.”
The mosque fire in Eskilstuna that Amanda referred to happened December 25, 2014, and is one of many incidents affecting Muslims and other immigrants that have received huge attention, while the rape epidemic in Sweden is basically ignored. After the fire, the Prime Minister was quick to make a statement:
“It is despicable, a despicable act. We will never tolerate this type of crime. People who want to practice their religion should have the right to do so. Today I feel great sympathy and empathy for those affected.”
Three months later, it turned out no crime was behind the mosque fire, and police dropped the investigation. Most likely, it was caused by an accident or children playing with fire.
But when a Swedish woman and her son are brutally knifed to death in the most Swedish of all places – an IKEA store – the Prime Minister has nothing to say.
The Swedes are not prone to rebellion. To find a citizen that took up arms and marched on the citadels of power, one has to go back to the days of Gustav Vasa – the king who during his reign, 1523-1560, founded the nation-state of Sweden.
Although Sweden today is not occupied territory, it is governed by a power that has shut down the democratic process by the “December Agreement” of 2014. In the general election that year, the only party critical of mass immigration, the Sweden Democrats (SD), became the third-largest party in Parliament. The left-wing and center-right blocs then agreed to lock SD out of political power, but SD refused to be silenced. When the left-wing minority government budget was presented one month after the election, SD voted for the opposition’s budget – a shocking and unique occurrence in the Swedish Parliament. Here, it is considered “good manners and decorum” to vote for your own budget proposition first, then lay down your vote and let the government win. But after the Sweden Democrats’ “coup,” Prime Minister Stefan Löfven (of the Social Democratic Party) was forced to govern with a center-right budget during his first year in office.
One would think that this came as a pleasant surprise to the center-right opposition, but that was not what happened. No one wants support from the “racist” Sweden Democrats. Rather than call a snap election, the two blocs entered into an agreement in which the center-right opposition promises to abstain from voting when it comes to important issues such as a proposed budget.
Thus, the December Agreement is in reality a kind of “relay-race” dictatorship: The left-wing government gets to do what it wants for the next four years, and after that, for next the four years (if there is a change of power), it will be the center-right government’s turn. This means both parties are free to ignore the 58% of Swedes who now feel that immigration is too high, and may choose to vote for the Sweden Democrats in the next election.
When the Swedes got the news about the December Agreement, they did what they usually do – clenched their fists in their pockets, formed Facebook groups and wrote angry comments on Twitter and Facebook. But the politicians congratulated each other on once again restoring order; they ignored the people’s concern that democracy had now become even more eroded.
A well-known stand-up comedian, Magnus Betnér, thought it a good idea to mock frightened Swedes in a YouTube clip:
“Yes, it’s really tragic two people were murdered in IKEA. … but… it’s not dangerous; Sweden has never been safer than it is now. … Very few of you guys watching this clip will be murdered. And those of you who are, will be murdered in your own homes.”
When the establishment refuses to take people’s concerns seriously, rumors on social media spread fast. A stubborn rumor claims that Carola Herlin was beheaded by the Eritrean murderer. According to sources interviewed by Gatestone, the woman had her throat slit and was also stabbed in the abdomen. Her son tried to defend himself, but received a deadly stab wound to the stomach.
When Dispatch International called Per Ågren, the police investigator in charge of the case, and asked him about the rumor, he said: “I’m not going to confirm… describe anything at all about what happened, except to say that two people were murdered. You won’t find out how from me.”
One of the first measures taken by the police after the IKEA murders was to start guarding all the buildings housing asylum seekers in the county. There was some apprehension concerning “dark forces,” the police claimed, without specifying who these “dark forces” were. The night of August 15, an asylum house in Arboga had to be evacuated after someone shouted something about a bomb outside. Now the mainstream media were really on their toes: Carola and Emil Herlin, according to their reports, had been “at the wrong place at the wrong time.”
The newspaper Aftonbladet interviewed an anonymous woman who said, “My cousin has lived here for over a year. He told me the Swedes are the nicest people in Europe. Then something like this happens. I could never have imagined.”
Once again, it is supposedly the Swedes who should bow their heads in shame. Supposedly, we are not the ones grieving; we do not have the right to be frightened to death over the immigration policy of our rulers – it is the asylum seekers who are the victims, even when they kill, rape, rob and abuse.
The burning question is: What will the people do, whom no one will listen to? In East Germany of 1989, the people took to the streets, scaled the Berlin wall and made the government to resign. The other communist dictatorships of Eastern Europe fell in similar ways. The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (the right to bear arms), exists to ensure that the citizens are able to seize power from a tyrannical government.
If powerlessness drives people to answer violence with violence, maybe one should not ask why Swedes are “racists” if they do not want the highest immigration level in Europe?
The most relevant question is why one government after another has chosen to spend Swedish taxpayers’ money on citizens of other countries. While Swedish students take a plunge in the PISA tests, 60% of the welfare benefits go to immigrants who make up about 15% of the population. Healthcare and other social services are deteriorating, according to many Swedes, while violence is exponentially increasing. When more and more Swedes feel that they are being badly treated in their own country, the politicians have created a powder keg ready to explode at any minute.
The truth is that even the docile Swedish people have a limit. When those in power expose us to bloodbaths, whether in the Big Square of Stockholm in 1520 or at IKEA in Västerås in 2015, there will always be those who are ready to overthrow the mighty. Just as in Gustav Vasa’s day, a lot of Swedes have firearms. They are not as easy to come by as in the United States, but more and more Swedes are getting hunting licenses, and are thereafter legally able to buy guns. From now on in Sweden, anything can happen.
{Ingrid Carlqvist is editor-in-chief of Dispatch International}