Kristian Lindmark, sitting in street lighting, reached out to get krona.
Kristian was accompanied by a small plastic bag that contained his possessions. It included a spare pair socks, clean boxer shorts, and half of a pack of cigarettes.
Last weekend, when I brought him a cup of coffee from the nearby 5-star hotel, he held onto the plastic cup in order to keep them warm on a cold night.
He stated in an objective tone that the government did not support Swedes living in their country. They instead give money to the state and warmth to those who visit this country to stay.
Fifty-two-year-old Kristian — from Uppsala, a cathedral town 35 minutes by train from Stockholm — lost his job as a butcher after a divorce. Like hundreds of other homeless men, he is also beggar on the streets of capital.
On Sunday last, he cast his votes in an election for the country’s national elections. This nation is renowned internationally for its openness and generosity to immigrants, multiculturalism, and generous welfare system.
Gun terror: Policeman and others try to assist a young mother who was hit with a bullet in the Eskilstuna playground shooting last month
The two rival gangs were from Arby in the town, and one was from another suburb about a mile. A 5-year-old boy from Arby was struck by a bullet while he played with children around seven at night.
Sweden’s Social Democratic movement was the first to promote the liberal dream. Their parties have been ranked at the top of national polls every year since World War I.
However, this election witnessed a major shift. Swedish voters supported an alliance of four Right-wing parties — including one, named the Sweden Democrats, which stands accused of historical links to neo-Nazism.
The final polls showed that on Thursday, the Right-wing bloc had elected the prime minister. This was in contrast to the Social Democrats.
Liberals across Sweden and the globe were shocked when the Swedish voters supported tougher immigration control, deportation of foreign criminals, and harsher penalties for young men involved in drug-dealing and shootings.
Torsten Elofsson (a former Swedish Police chief, and candidate for Christian Democrats), a new right-wing party, said that violent crime is getting worse. “These crimes used to be in Stockholm and other large cities like Malmo or Gothenburg. They are now common in small towns all over the country.
During an election party held in Stockholm, Ebba Busch (leader of Sweden’s Christian Democrats) addresses her supporters
The Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention claims that Sweden went from being one of Europe’s lowest fatal shooting rates to having the highest in just 10 years. With 44 guns killed in gun accidents by mid-August this year, it is close to breaking records for 2020’s 47.
The election that saw the shockingly low turnout of the Sweden Democrat anti-immigration party won just one vote out of five took place against such a troubling backdrop.
With electioneering underway, there was an altercation at Eskilstuna’s children’s playground. This pretty town is about an hour’s drive from Stockholm and home to the Volvo car-parts manufacturing plant.
A rival gang, one of the suburbs in Arby, and the other one from another suburb about a mile from town, was involved. One five-year old boy, who had been playing with children aged seven to seven, was shot by both gangs.
The boy — from a Syrian family with a flat in state-housing blocks overlooking the tree-lined playground — was terrified, hiding his head in his hands close to a climbing frame when the firing started, before he was wounded in the stomach.
Two people sustained injuries in an incident at Emporia Shopping Centre in Malmo (Sweden) were attended by ambulances.
As she sat down with her 4-year-old daughter, a mother in her 20s was also hit. After being shot in her hip, she was visiting relatives from Iraqi Kurds in Arby. She ran to safety and then collapsed on the grass. Blood was spreading across her blue jeans.
Nearly three minutes elapsed before the crossfire broke out between rival gangs who were standing side by side on the playground. The bullets flew past picnic tables, where families were having their picnics. After that the shooters disappeared into the trees. Last week, police were still investigating.
The Mail was greeted by worried mothers who showed bloodstains on the ground around a roundabout for children when they visited the playground following the shooting.
Fatima, a 38-year old woman with five children, arrived in Sweden from Somaliland as refugee 16 years back. To escape the gunshots, they ran away naked.
Fatima, a Care Worker, fears so much for her kids that she is planning to leave Arby. It is safer here than in Somaliland. Someone will soon die.
Parvena, a 45-year old resident of Iraqi Kurd heritage, said that her beautiful nine-yearold boy Ilyas had been just feet from a bullet. She said that children are afraid they might be shot outside of their homes.
The victim of a stabbing attack on Almedalen, a Swedish political festival, was transported by police and rescue personnel to an ambulance car in Visby.
The playground has been the scene of shootouts for the third consecutive year. Ilyas saw two and told us in small voices that it was scary to be here.
Yet the mothers, and local politicians, say the playground gangsters came from the same communities of Iraqi Kurd, Somali, Afghan and Syrian refugees as theirs — families given sanctuary in Eskilstuna.
“They trade in drugs and make money this way,” Parvena said. Parvena explained that they don’t have any jobs. Parvena said, “Some of them are still in school at their local school. We know their names.”
Few understand more about the spiralling youth violence in the town than Elin Harnby, principal at Eskilstuna Middle School, which takes pupils up to the age of 17 — 60 per cent of them with mothers who have Swedish as a second language.
According to her, younger children asked her for bulletproof vests after the recent shootings. According to her, there are boys who leave school and don’t continue their education. They leave school, and they become criminals.
Jimmy Jansson is Eskilstuna’s mayor. He warned of a disaster in Sweden even before the results revealed that the Right-wing party had received half the votes.
The victim of a stabbing attack on Almedalen in Visby (Swedish island of Gotland) has received medical attention from police and rescue personnel.
According to the 44-year old, who is a leader in Social Democrats, there was a “pandemic” of young men engaging in drug-dealing, shootings, and rapes. About 15% of 8,200 persons deemed criminal gang members by the Swedish police last year were younger than 18.
He said, “I’m working class. But I don’t use drugs nor fire guns when I was a teenager.” “The children who are shooting on the playground are at our school right now. They lead a double existence, working as criminals and being pupils during the day. They’re chameleons.
He claims that many were brought up in Sweden by migrant families who sought asylum years before. He says that others arrived in Europe as children during the largest wave of migration since World War II.
Mr Jansson said his party once believed that Sweden’s ‘terrifically strong’ welfare state — offering free education, housing, medical care and copious child benefits — could cope with any problems of incomers with ease.
He said, “We didn’t get that some don’t want to become part of our society. They come here to learn but not to work.” They don’t want to be part of Sweden or its culture. “We reach out, but they aren’t interested.”
He said that this sad state of affairs has upset ordinary Swedes who feel their generosity towards immigrants is being repaid.
In March, emergency services responded to a scene at Malmo School in Sweden.
Left-wingers called Jansson a racist before the election because, unlike other politicians in his party, he advocated for an end to immigration. He said that Sweden shouldn’t pour gasoline on a fire.
He insists that family benefits should also be cut so migrant families are encouraged to have fewer children — the current system gives an extra monthly sum for each new baby. He also supports harsher punishments for gun possession.
A juvenile convicted of murder under the age of 18 is only allowed to serve two- or three years in Sweden’s reform institution. Jansson stated, “It might be too late save Sweden if it is not done now.”
Sweden is a master of cooking its own chickens. At least 163,000 people were accepted into Sweden during the 2007 migration crisis. This was despite the fact that the country had a relatively small population of 9.5 million.
Sweden believed the bulk of the newcomers were Syrians fleeing war — but many turned out to be Afghans, Iraqis, Iranians and Africans pretending to be genuine asylum-seekers. In those days, the most popular result for a search on an internet engine was “Sweden” if you entered the word asylum in Arabic.
Local media reports that Einar, a Swedish rapper and musician was killed in the street at this location in October 2013.
It was a very popular country and became one of the most rapidly-growing EU nations, receiving seven per cent (more than any other member).
This resulted in a culture war that was extremely destructive. Many incomers had difficulty settling down in the Western ultraliberal society that they were part of.
Other serious consequences were also possible. A Twitter account describing a Swedish rape epidemic against women and men was posted just this week.
The BBC later published data from Swedish National TV that showed that 58% of the men who were convicted or attempted to rape in the period of five years up until 2018 were foreign-born.
Swedish television broadcaster, who analyzed all court cases, found that 85 percent of the foreign-born offenders were involved in victims who did not know the attacker.
These findings are in agreement with other recent Swedish studies as well as those from Norway, Finland, Denmark, and Switzerland.
The TV program added that the worst result of the Swedish research was the fact that, other than Swedes and Afghans, Afghans were among the most frequent nationalities of convicted rapists (45 out of 843).
Although the program’s editor noted, however that while there were more reported rapes than in Sweden courts, this was still a much higher number. So, no definitive conclusion could be made about whether immigrant participation in sexual assaults.
Guards stand by at Emporia Shopping Center in Malmo.
An ex-police officer from Afghanistan who helped young Afghans settle in Sweden told the program that some youngsters’ attitudes towards equality were different from those in Afghanistan.
On his Instagram, a young migrant who lives in Sweden aged 24 posted a disturbing video. The video shows him punching an apparently innocent girl with text overlayed referring to her a “whore”.
In another video in the feed, a man says to the camera: ‘We Arabs are here to take over your f****** country, you Swedish whore.’ The Twitter account claims that the man was arrested two weeks after the recording was made.
Sweden was overwhelmed by the sheer number of immigrants arriving in its country, and had to quickly check their backgrounds during 2015-16’s first wave.
Newcomers received council flats at Eskilstuna which are already home to refugees. In a gesture to show kindness and, as many say now, great naivety, Swedish policymakers encouraged them to share their homes in the same area.
The double negative impact was that it had two. First, native Swedes became disgruntled — and some remained homeless, as migrants were pushed ahead in the state housing queue. The second was that the area where the migrants settled became ghettoised. It was full of mostly Arabic-speaking people who saw police as an enemy. They ignored laws such as street smoking bans and compulsory cycling helmets.
Now, the liberal political elite of Sweden is being asked uncomfortable questions by its citizens about what kind of society they have become and how it will continue to be.
After two severely injured children were found near a police car in the north-western Stockholm apartment block, a police van was left parked in front of it. This happened in November 2021.
The independent Pew Research Centre (U.S.) estimates that Muslims will make up about a third in 2050 if the level of migration continues at its previous highs and there is a decline in native Swedes’ birth rates.
Basem Mahmoud, an unrepentant imam, claimed in February that Muslims would soon be taking over Sweden.
In a recorded speech, the imam, who had called Jewish people the offspring pigs and an apes’, claimed he was quoting Islam’s Koran.
Peter Springare, a senior officer in the police force who bravely exposed the immigrant crime wave that was plaguing Sweden a few decades ago led to this week’s shift to the right.
His online post described his week, including rape and robbery as well as aggravated assault and rape-assault-and-rape and extortion and blackmail. . .
“Countries that are responsible for the crime this week: Iraq and Turkey, Syria. Afghanistan. Somalia. Somalia again. . .’
Before a debate between other leaders of parties, the Swedish Prime Minister, Magdalena Andersson and the leader of Social Democrats, Ulf Kristersson and Jimmie Akesson are shown in a studio.
Inevitably the officer of police was brought in front of Swedish officials to be charged with committing hate crimes. After protests from the public, no actions were taken.
Mikaelstromberg entered politics because of such revelations. He was a potential MP, and an official from Eskilstuna’s Sweden Democrats. Before the election, he said to us: “Everything has to change” in order for Sweden not be a ‘disaster.”
“We have shootings on weekends, during the weekdays, and all night outside of schools, nurseries for children, and in parks. Every tenth shooting in Sweden — whether it kills or not — happens in Eskilstuna.
According to the European Commission, Sweden is currently the most dangerous country. Eskilstuna, in Sweden, is the most hazardous place.
After working as an international technical advisor, he became a politician. “I was afraid I wouldn’t be capable of looking at my 15-year old son straight in the eyes if I don’t do anything to help Sweden.
His wife, 42 year-old daughter, and their two young children (aged four and six), lived in an apartment on a block painted pink, just steps from Eskilstuna’s main square.
“We couldn’t leave,” he said. He said, “There were too much shootings here and even rapes.” It was a terrifying time for me and my family’s future.
Kristian is also worried about his future, the Swede who begging in central Stockholm for coins.
Unsurprisingly, his vote went to Sweden Democrats last weekend because he believes that the party can help ordinary Swedes such as himself.
Evidently, many other people in this nation are feeling the same.