Two summers ago a friend of mine from Alcorcon, suburb of Madrid, whom I met on the Spanish southern beaches of Murcia
where we used to spend the summer as kids, told me about a guy she met while
she was out one night. Apparently, she came across a guy from her neighborhood
that was “Chinese but born in Spain and more Spanish than anyone of us”. I
listened to her and replied that I honestly did not understand the
“strangeness” of the matter. We started discussing the topic – and why it was
still so strange and somewhat exotic for her to meet a man with this
background, while it was so obvious and natural for me who had grown up with
this kind of multiplicity in Stockholm, ever since I was born there in 1983.
My
reaction has a logical explanation though; great waves of immigrants started
coming to Sweden a long time ago as “more immigrants arrived in a decade than throughout
the entire history”. This phenomenon started occurring during the seventies and
eighties, and continued to overflow during the nighties and the “zero zeros” as
well. Almost all of my childhood friends are born in Sweden or came here when
they were really young, and are therefore just as neutralized as me, the
“Chinese man” in Murcia or the former Barca Bojan.
During
our conversation we also talked about the Swedish friends that I have brought along
on other occasions to spend the summer in Murcia. Many of them have apparently caused somewhat
confusion amongst the locals. For instance: “Aren’t all Swedes supposed to be
tall, blond, and blue-eyed?” This preconception always amuses me. At least “my
Swedes” aren’t, especially not considering that they have Latin-American or
Persian roots, and as such not too many blue eyes or height to extract from
them. But this is only part of the truth. In reality, it is nowadays no longer possible
to claim that Swedes have blond hair, blue eyes or considerable height. Let me
give you an example; sometimes when I give public speeches in Sweden, I ask the
audience to raise their hands if they have blue eyes or blond hair.
Unsurprisingly, not too many do. This is because a few centuries ago the
migration currents from Belgium and Holland left very few people with blond
hair and blue eyes amongst those who “look Swedish”, irrespective of them
having been born in Sweden to Swedish parents and ancestors or not. This
re-defining process of identity has continued to develop slowly, but just
imagine: if it is running slowly within the Swedish borders, how is it running
outside of them?
Yet
this is the current situation. Sweden has 9.5 million inhabitants, and almost a
million and a half of them are immigrants. Around a million of us Swedes are
the fruit and loins of these 1, 5 million immigrants, not counting those who
like my parents have emigrated again. This is also an issue I will address more
thoroughly later on - I am referring to those who after immigrating decide not
stay after all.
One
thing for sure is that something similar to what I just described is going to
happen in Spain. Considering it has one of the smallest populations in Europe,
more immigration is in order unless you want a population with a median age of
60 in no time at all. And this is where the topic with which I started gets
serious: if you insist on treating the Spanish with darker skin or bigger eyes
as strange or exotic, you are going to end up
creating a society that is neither up to date with reality nor
necessity. Naturally, a short time-period of admiration or interest might
perhaps be inevitable in this case, but my advice is to avoid differentiation
as much and as soon as possible.
For
example, it should be natural for me in the Sweden of today to consider myself
and my friends as Swedish. However, many of us are still seen and treated as exotic
and strange, and what is worse – a danger in the eyes of the majority. We are
consequently and ridiculously excluded from employment, studies and from many
of the plenty of services that the Swedish society supposedly offers. I mean,
isn’t it ridiculous that I have friends whose children are considered a problem
to solve already as preschoolers because they have a Kurdish or Spanish name?
That they are regarded as the grandchildren
of immigrants? Nobody wants that society but many insist on reproducing it. The
best thing is to stop it at once!
