What can we do, then, to reduce the risk of people acquiring disparaging prejudices about the characteristics and behaviour of different races and groups of the population? I believe racism and xenophobia to be interconnected with segregation and with inequalities of living conditions between different ethnic or other groups in a society.

Segregation augments the risk of never meeting anyone but those who in every respect resemble oneself. This way one also becomes more receptive to distorted mages of the nature and behaviour of other groups. Unequal living conditions, with certain ethnic groups being given inferior opportunities to those of others, compound the risk of these groups actually behaving in such a way as to be looked down on. If, for example, we create for groups of young immigrants the kind of social situation in which they are more liable to develop drug abuse and criminal behaviour, then we are also responsible for augmenting the risk of racism and xenophobia. So reducing segregation and augmenting opportunities for positive encounters between people of different origin is one thing which I consider important. The other is creating the greatest possible equality of opportunity for different ethnic groups.

Regrettably, developments in Sweden during the 1990s moved if anything in the opposite direction. Segregation has increased and so has the difficulty for immigrants of achieving the same living conditions as other people in Sweden. This is borne out in several studies compiled by the National Board of Health and Welfare. As regards housing segregation, more than twice as many immigrants are living in deprived housing areas as in middle class districts. Unemployment in poor housing areas was three times higher than in the affluent ones. Thirty per cent of residents in the deprived areas are drawing social allowance –dependent, that is, on social security handouts – as compared with 2 per cent in more prosperous areas. Social allowance payments have above all increased in the poor districts.

Deprived areas also have a greater proportion of under-achieving pupils in schools. Nearly 40 per cent of the residents in poor areas do not vote, as against 10 per cent in the most affluent districts. And the differences between rich and poor have increased during the past decade. The situation for different refugee groups in Sweden has been specifically illuminated in a study by the National Board of Health and Welfare, focusing on Polish, Chilean, Turkish and Iranian refugees who came to Sweden in the 80s and how they perceive their situation.

What do we find? Firstly, the study confirms one of the essential theses of anti-racism, namely that conditions vary tremendously both between and within different refugee groups. We are dealing with individuals. These people and their situation simply cannot be described purely in terms of their being refugees, nor in terms of their being Polish refugees or Chilean refugees. But a number of patterns are also discernible. Many of the refugees approved of much that they encountered on arrival in Sweden, highlighting things like democracy, prosperity, social climate and economic security. But for many the encounter with Sweden had also included negative experiences. After 10 years living in Sweden, X per cent still had no jobs, and those who had been able to find work were most often doing jobs inferior to their qualifications and to the jobs they had had previously. Many felt that they were looked down on by the social welfare authorities when turning to them for help. They felt discriminated against both by the job market and by the authorities. Then there had been personal difficulties on coming to Sweden. Most of them had no Swedish friends, partly because they were living in districts where almost the whole population were immigrants.

There are also studies showing that opportunities for young immigrants of the second generation were inferior during the 1990s to those for young persons with Swedish-born parents. Unemployment, for instance, was appreciably higher among young people of foreign origin than for the rest of the young population. But at the same time it is important to note that, in Sweden’s experience hitherto, there has been a gradual integration in the sense of the problems of second-generation immigrants being a good deal less than those of people who were actually born abroad. The excess risk of unemployment, criminal behaviour and other social problems is a good deal less.
To reduce the potential for racism and xenophobia, then, I believe it is important to multiply meeting points between those of foreign origin and those whose families have been living in Sweden for several generations, and also to reduce differences of opportunity between those of foreign origin and other Swedes. This calls for initiatives at both national and local level. Questions relating to housing policy often call for decisions at national or regional level. For example, legislation and resource allocation may have discriminatory effects. But activities at local level are no less important. Interaction is needed between legislative measures and other central policy decisions on the one hand and initiatives in the local environment on the other.

Today I shall be mainly concerning myself with what can be done at local level. What can and should be done at local level to reduce the potential for racism and xenophobia?
I think anyone in a position of responsibility at local level should start by laying some sort of scientific foundations for their work, taking a good look at the real problems of their local community. What is the social situation of people living in the district? Questions of this kind include, for example, the degree of housing segregation, the unemployment rate and how it breaks down between different groups in the community.

 

What about young people and crime? To what extent are ethnic conflicts present in the crime scene, and are there crimes which are rooted in racism? These are things one can find out by gathering together the knowledge which is scattered between different authorities and local organisations in the district. It may also be a good idea to go on from there and, together with schools, to chart the racist attitudes prevalent among young people and the ethnically slanted conflicts existing between different groups of youngsters.

This survey provides a raft of knowledge for rallying and mobilising both public authorities and NGOs for the work that lies ahead – a good starting point for discussing what should be done and who should then be actually in charge of and tasked with the different issues. In both survey work and fact-gathering, one needs to involve a number and variety of groups, all of which can contribute important pieces to the jigsaw. For example, various local representatives of housing utilities and business enterprise. School and day nursery staff and others working with children and young people in the locality. The police, the Church and various local organisations. All of them have images of reality which can be pieced together into a consensus image and shared knowledge.
On this basis we can then join forces in working out a list of measures to be taken.

 

Different agents will have different roles to play. At this point perhaps the roles of schools, social services and the police are most obvious. (Schools have the role of providing good education and instilling democratic values. The police are concerned with the more direct prevention and combating of racist crime.) But the local business community and various local organisations, for example, can also play a very important role in the task of creating good meeting point and improving opportunities for different groups, thereby cutting the ground from under the feet of racism and xenophobia in the area. The local business community, for example, can live up to its duty of not discriminating against immigrant job applicants. Societies and organisations have an immensely important part to play in overcoming isolation and creating positive encounters across ethnic boundaries.
This model of working both systematically and on a broad basis is used for local crime prevention work in several Swedish municipalities, and in our experience can pay tremendous dividends.

But of all the various institutions involved, I think schools are the decisive arena in the struggle against racism and xenophobia. So what can schools do? That question was discussed at a so-called satellite conference convened by the Swedish national Council for Crime Prevention at the end of last year, for both teachers and pupils. The proceedings were relayed to all high schools in the country and watched by several thousand students and school staff.

One question which came up at the conference concerned schools in areas with large immigrant populations. Schools in such areas very often become low-status schools. They have difficulty in recruiting the best-motivated students and have low average achievement levels. This, to my mind, is a most unfortunate turn of events. Every single municipality ought really to have the political strategy of ensuring that the best schools are located in the areas with the biggest immigrant populations. Good economic resources and the best teachers should be channelled into the most deprived areas.
There are no doubt good examples from other countries of this actually having been done. I would like to describe two good Swedish examples, taken from two Stockholm suburbs – Tensta and Rinkeby are their names – with large immigrant populations.
Tensta is one of the areas having to contend with big social problems. The residents are to a great extent unemployed immigrants. The area is far more crime-prone than neighbouring suburbs, with a high level of vandalism and insecurity. But this is also the location of Tensta High School, which includes, for example, one of Stockholm’s two research programmes in science subjects. Activities at the school are based on a vigorous funding effort made by Stockholm’s politicians when the school was built. Such are the quality and standard of the school that pupils from all over Stockholm mark it down as their first preference. Matriculating from Tensta High School is a feather in any student’s cap.

My second example concerns Rinkeby School. Rinkeby is a suburb where 80 per cent of the population are immigrants and more than a hundred different nationalities are represented. Many of the adults know very little Swedish and have had a very poor basic schooling. The senior level compulsory school in Rinkeby used to have a very bad reputation. The place was daubed with graffiti and pretty well smashed up. Truancy and bullying were part of the everyday scene. Ten years ago a huge campaign was launched to put things right. partly with the aid of parents, a large number of high-status but external activities were moved into the school. They included the school of music, the library and a school of arts and dancing, for example. At the same time, special arrangements were made for disruptive pupils. The field activities of the social welfare authority were also brought under the same roof. The recreation centre, which also moved onto school premises, was transferred to parental control and required to stay open 365 days a year between the hours of 4 p.m. and midnight. Parents have
been closely involved in this work. In this way a high unemployment rate could be turned to good account. Initiatives have also included an unusually advanced scheme of IT activities, with school computer rooms remaining open after school hours so that pupils can go there to do their homework.

With a host of different cultures and religions represented in the school, some way had to be found of bridging conflicts. A programme has been developed, called Abraham’s Children, pointing to similarities between different creeds. In this way an understanding is created for one another’s customs and traditions.

All these different measures have been aimed at establishing peace and quiet, so that the children at the school can get on with the business of learning and developing. Not only have violence and vandalism diminished, the school has raised its level of achievement. As a result, the school has attracted children from the neighbouring high-status districts. So children from this school will have a much better chance than before of going on to higher education and gaining a proper social foothold in Sweden. This is an important ingredient of the campaign against racism.

These, then, were two Swedish examples, but I know there are plenty of good examples from other countries as well. As regards local initiatives against crime, the EU runs an international competition for local crime prevention work, the European Crime Prevention Award, the purpose of which is to learn from other countries but also to encourage best practices. As regards measures to combat racism, the Vienna Observatory has an important task to perform. The last point I have to make is that concrete local work is necessary but not enough. There is also a need for advanced, intensified research into racism and xenophobia and into the efficacy of different counter-strategies. Many of the projects in progress go unrecorded and even fewer are evaluated. An organisation called Exit, of which we have acquired a positive image, is a case in point. Exit is concerned with helping former nazis to return to a democratic life style, but unfortunately Exit has not been evaluated. An evaluation could help them to identify strong and weak points, but it could also lay the foundations for building up more such organisations in other parts of the country. The national Council for Crime Prevention will now be undertaking an evaluation of exit, and I am convinced that this evaluation will also attract international interest. More evaluation and more research are needed, then, concerning effective strategies for countering nazism and racism. Only then can we be sure of the work evolved leading to enduring results.