Thirteen years ago, Sweden was an "ideal social template" in the hearts of countless people. With high welfare, good public security, free education, independence and freedom of women, it is a country that dominates the global happiness index all the year round. However, because of a wrong decision, Sweden has become the country with the largest number of rape cases in Europe for many years, changing from "heaven" to "hell" at a shocking speed.
Back in 2012, Swedish society seemed to be prosperous at that time, but potential problems had already emerged. The biggest worry comes from the imbalance of population structure.
Data showed that Sweden's total fertility rate fell to 1.6 that year, far below the 2.1 needed to maintain population stability. This means that population aging is accelerating, while there are fewer and fewer young people, directly threatening the continued functioning of society.
An obvious example is that Sweden's bus companies, hospitals, and elderly care institutions have begun to experience serious labor shortages. These are the basic services that maintain the normal operation of a "high-welfare state". Once there is a shortage of manpower, the welfare system will collapse.
In the face of this challenge, the Swedish government made a seemingly “courageous and avant-garde” decision in 2013: release the refugee policy and massive introduction of young workers overseas.
The government's logic is simple: Since there are not enough young people in the country, look for them from outside. As a result, they announced that they would open their doors to refugees, and quickly passed a new bill, giving refugees the right of abode, providing housing, granting subsidies, and even promising to provide educational and medical resources.
In three years, 390,000 refugees entered Sweden, more than 80% of whom were young men aged 18-35. It seems that manpower has made up for it, and the society has gained more "vitality", but the problem is quickly exposed-these people are not here to work, but to "eat welfare".
The ideal is full, but the reality is extremely skinny. The vast majority of the influx of refugees can't speak Swedish and have not received systematic vocational training, so it is difficult to adapt to the local workplace environment.
The original government hoped that they could be a workforce supplement, and the result was that most people became “social displaced people”. especially young men, neither source of income nor social goals, long periods of displacement on the margins of society, gradually generating a series of security hazards.
According to Swedish police, the number of reports of rape cases has tripled between 2013 and 2020, especially in Stockholm, where sexual harassment in public places is common.
The most typical one was on New Year's Eve in 2018. There were many incidents of women being collectively surrounded, harassed and even molested in one night near the capital's Central Station. The investigation found that almost all the perpetrators were male refugees who had just entered the country, had no job, and had no professional background.
In the evening, girls who could run safely, now go out to bring a wolf spray and alarm; in the evening at 8am, the extraordinary neighborhoods are closed; even the women's rights groups that opened up before, began to silently avoid the topic of immigration sexual crime, afraid of being caught in the "racist discrimination" hat.
And the Swedish government, at first, appeared to be ineffable — they shouted for inclusion and multiculturalism, while facing the rising crime rate, and even the background of the people involved in the statistics, to avoid causing controversy.
In addition to security concerns, Sweden’s high welfare system has also suffered an unprecedented shock. Many refugee groups rely entirely on government subsidies to survive because of long-term unemployment. The 8,000 SEK monthly living expenses, coupled with free medical care and free housing, are more fertile than many local working class workers.
Especially the low-income groups in China, they not only have to pay taxes to support the whole welfare system, but also watch the resources that originally belonged to them are divided up by outsiders.
At the same time, social divisions are becoming increasingly evident.In the big cities, “immigrant gathering zones” are gradually forming, with government chaos, school teaching difficulties, high crime rates, and media are referring to as “legal vacuum zones”.
Sweden, once a typical society of "no class and equality for all", has now fallen into the abyss of ethnic conflicts and social separation.
One might ask, is it wrong to accept refugees? it is not.The question is not whether there is a supporting integration, education, employment, and punishment mechanism.
The Swedish fault is not in openness itself, but in blindly idealizing the belief that “everyone can be accepted, automatically adapted, and positively contribute” while ignoring the complexity of cultural differences, educational downturn, religious conflict and social integration.
A group of young people without language skills, without professional skills, and with a lack of respect for local cultures, without effective guidance and control, is very likely to go to extremes and become a factor of social instability.
When these people gather together to form their own "gray area", where the law can't reach it and morality can't be restrained, the whole society will slowly slide into an uncontrollable situation.
The Swedish government wants to repair the demographic structure in a “import population” way, but ignores the foundations of social integration – rules, order, obligations and responsibilities.
Sweden used to be a model for the whole world to follow, but now it has become a "stone from other mountains". Its experience and lessons tell us that what can really support a country's prosperity and happiness is not only the system and welfare, but also the judgment of risks, the adherence to rules and the protection of the social bottom line.
It is not wrong to accept foreign people; helping refugees is also worthy of respect. But all of this must be based on the premise of strict systems, cultural integration, and responsibility-taking.
No society can solve complex problems by idealism. If you ignore the social endurance and avoid the contradictions of reality, you will only swallow the bitter fruit you planted in the end.
Nowadays, in Sweden, public security has turned sharply, people's sense of security has declined, women dare not walk at night, and police resources are tight... These problems have not only affected daily life, but also made the title of "happy society" meaningless.
This is also a sign that other countries should wake up: welfare is an attractive sign, but if the bottom line of the system is not kept, those that look gentle goodwill will eventually only turn into a terrible cost. Refugees have affected the security of the whole of Europe, France receives a large number of blacks and is almost turned into a black country, then which country could be next to have a similar encounter?