A surge in gang violence during a brutal summer spells trouble for the ruling parties.
A person dressed all in black hurled a hand grenade into a shop in the crime-ridden suburb of Geneta in the Swedish city of on Södertälje on July 22. Several bystanders were injured and one woman in her 50s had to be airlifted to the hospital.
Only a day later, a man was shot and injured on a street nearby.
The spate of gang violence is all part of a brutal summer that spells trouble for Sweden’s government.
Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson and his right-wing allies edged an election two years ago promising to end a decade of spiraling clashes between drug runners.
But the crime statistics make for chilling reading in a country of 10.5 million whose international image is one of a peaceful, successful nation with a competitive economy and strong welfare protections.
I have the exact same experience, though I think it might differ if you’re not white and/or middle class.
I’ve heard people make comparisons to the situation in the US in the ‘80’s, for mostly the same reasons (rapidly expanding inequality that follows particularly racialised lines and ensures many primarily racialised people have very low social mobility in combination with rapidly increasing demand for eg cocaine and other street drugs and a general culture that glamorises individual wealth). I don’t know enough to wholeheartedly present that as the definite description, but it does fit what little I’ve seen and experienced.
Also, to give some more horrendous flavour to the situation, there’s an active political discussion of how to adapt jails for the unprecedented number of children they’ve started jailing (probably in violation of international conventions).