By Eben Harrell and Behrang Kianzad / Malm Wednesday, Nov. 10, 2010
Sweden's general election on Sept. 19 was an upheaval for a country known for
its cozy, consensus politics. Despite having roots in the White Power movement
and running a highly xenophobic campaign the Sweden Democrats became the
first far-right party to enter Sweden's parliament when they won 6% of the
vote. The result brought thousands onto the streets in anti-fascist protest
marches, and sent national columnists into a heavy bout of Scandinavian
soul-searching. But in the southeastern city of Malm where 30% of the
population are immigrants or of immigrant descent ethnic tensions took a
darker turn.
On Nov. 7, police arrested a 38-year-old Swedish man in connection with a
series of sniper attacks on Malm 's non-white population. Following the arrest,
police say they are working on up to 15 unsolved shootings that they believe
may have deliberately targeted people with immigrant backgrounds. The suspect
has been remanded in connection with eight of the cases. A motive for the
attacks has not been released by the police, but the suspect's father was
quoted by the Aftonbladet newspaper on Monday as saying that his son "lived in
fear of immigrants taking over Swedish society."
The attacks started in October last year when 20-year-old Trez West Persson
(the only ethnic Swede targeted by the shooter) was killed while sitting in her
parked car with a friend whose parents had moved to Sweden from Kosovo. Since
then, individuals have been shot through the windows of a gym, at bus stops and
in their cars. Persson was the only person killed, but seven others were
injured. No one has admitted responsibility. Targets have included a mosque and
a police station; in one incident, a group of African men were shot outside a
swimming pool. In the latest shooting, at the end of last month, the gunman
fled on a bicycle after shooting and then headbutting his target, an
Iranian-born hairdresser.
The alleged shooter, now detained on probable cause for one case of murder and
seven other cases of attempted murder, has been labeled "the new Laserman" by
the Swedish media. The former "Laserman," John Ausonius, targeted 11 people in
the early '90s in Stockholm, killing one with his gun armed with laser sight.
The killings were later found to racially motivated, and coincided with a rise
in popularity of a far-right, populist and anti-migrant party called Ny
Demokrati the forebear of the Swedish Democrats.
The current shootings have shaken Malm , a former working-class city of 290,000
that is home to an estimated 170 different ethnicities, but which in some areas
remains highly segregated between ethnic and non-ethnic Swedes. "It has been a
long, traumatizing autumn, where many Malm residents have not dared to move
around at night due to the fact that they have dark hair," says Rakel Chukri,
culture editor of the local paper Sydsvenska Dagbladet. "This horrid feeling
won't go away that easily." (Comment on this story.)
Bejzat Becirov, the 72-year-old founder and leader of a mosque in Malm , says
that his mosque has survived 300 hate attacks including fire bombs since it
opened in 1983. In the early years, he had to whitewash swastikas from the
building's fa ade. But he believes relations between Muslim migrants and Swedes
have lately grown worse. On New Year's Eve last year, a shot was fired through
a window of the mosque police are now re-evaluating whether the attack was
linked to the more recent shootings. Becirov blames popular stereotypes of
Muslims in the Swedish media for rising ethnic tensions. When he first issued
the call to the faithful 30 years ago, "an Imam was associated with a rich
Sheik," he says. "But now they are widely associated with terrorists."
But despite Becirov's despair, it would seem that the bulk of Malm 's
population relishes the city's multi-ethnic mix. Sydsvenska Dagbladet recently
launched a Facebook campaign "We Love Malm ," which celebrated Malm 's
multiculturalism and gathered some 13,000 supporters. Along many streets,
graffiti covers the walls with loving dedications to the city in its darkest
hours. Monday night saw some 20,000 people celebrating the Malm FF soccer team
victory, with street parties continuing late into the night. Of the 26 players
in the main team, only six are ethnically Swedish. Many residents in this raw,
wounded city hope Malm can now put this recent spate of violence behind it and
follow the team's lead as a model of social cohesion and 21st century
multiculturalism.