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Sweden ethnic harmony: Darin Zanyar won
the "best song" award
17.2.2006
By Ivar Ekman
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Swedes step ahead on ethnic
harmony
STOCKHOLM Sweden's new king of pop is 18 and
a heartthrob for the preteen set. The new queen is a
23-year-old singer-songwriter with a penchant for
poetry. Both were enshrined at a recent gala for the
Grammis, the country's most prestigious music
awards. Both have roots in the Muslim world.
The consecration of Darin Zanyar, born in Sweden of
Kurdish parents, and Laleh Pourkarim, who arrived
from Iran at the age of 8, is the latest
manifestation of how immigrants in this formerly
all-blond country are entering the mainstream.
Zanyar, who sings dance pop and is known here simply
as Darin, won the "best song" award last week for
"Money for Nothing," a Michael Jackson-style tune
sung in English. The Grammi was not a surprise: His
catchy songs and boyish good looks make young
Swedish girls go giddy.
Pourkarim, or just Laleh as people call her, a
long-haired brunette in the mode of folk stars of
yesteryear, was named "best artist" for her poetic,
guitar-based pop music. She has a broad following in
Sweden for songs like her latest hit single, "Live
Tomorrow," a ballad (again in English) about
loneliness, broken dreams and hope.
How profoundly attitudes have shifted here is
evident in the fact that the religion of the two pop
stars is not only not a hot topic, it is so far
under the radar that the subject has not come up in
the many interviews the two have given in this
deeply secular country. And, despite the current
intense interest in Europe and Islam, the origin of
the two is of no apparent interest to fans.
"Darin! He's the best!" said Hanna Osterberg, 9,
outside her school in central Stockholm, adding, in
a typical response among young people here: "He's a
Kurd? What's a Kurd? Whatever, he's the best!"
Like most Western countries, Sweden
is struggling to adapt to a multicultural reality,
and analysts say there are signs that the country is
making progress in its integration of foreigners
from different ethnic backgrounds.
"There is a wave of young immigrant Swedes coming
who are beginning to use art, culture and words to
express themselves," said Zanyar Adami, a columnist
for the newspaper Svenska Dagbladet who himself has
Kurdish roots. "When this began, the establishment
couldn't see past the surface: A writer with an
immigrant background was always 'an immigrant
writer.' What is happening now is that many are
beginning to see past that surface."
In some ways, Sweden has been more dramatically
affected by immigration than other European
countries. Virtually free of non-Nordic immigration
until the 1930s, Sweden has seen an explosion of its
foreign-born population since the Second World War.
The first to arrive, during the boom years of the
1950s and 1960s, came from southern Europe. But in
the last three decades, asylum seekers from further
afield have dominated, with people flowing in from
Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Bosnia, Albania, Chile and
Somalia, among other places.
Today, in this country of nine million people, the
foreign-born population stands at 1.1 million, or
about 12 percent, according to the Organization for
Economic Cooperation and Development. While the
proportion is comparable to the situation in the
United States, it is greater than in France, 10
percent, and Britain, 8.3 percent, and nearly twice
as high as in neighboring Denmark, the country at
the heart of the controversy over the Prophet
Muhammad cartoons.
"The change is bigger and has happened more quickly
here than in most other countries," said Christer
Lundh, a professor of economic history who has
written extensively on immigration. He noted that
Sweden, with no colonial history, had no previous
connection to the immigrants' countries of origin.
Nonetheless, he said, "We're a multiethnic country
today, and we will never return to the situation we
had before."
To be sure, the changing demographics have created
tension. Over the last decade, there have been
anti-immigrant demonstrations and firebomb attacks
against mosques, most recently in April 2003, when
the mosque in the southern city of Malmo was set
afire and parts of it burned to the ground. There
have been no arrests.
On the labor front, official figures from 2004
showed that unemployment was significantly higher
among immigrants than among other Swedes, with
joblessness at 10.6 percent for the foreign-born
population but 4.3 percent for those born in Sweden.
Segregation in the housing market is also a major
problem. Districts like Fittja, outside Stockholm,
and Rosengard, in Malmo, are dreary suburbs with
high concentrations of immigrants, unemployment and
crime.
Still, Sweden has largely been spared the violent
ethnic confrontations that have roiled other
European countries in recent years. There has been
nothing like the race riots that broke out in
English cities in 2001, the disturbances across
France last autumn or the murder of the Dutch
filmmaker Theo van Gogh by a self-proclaimed
Islamist militant in 2004.
Nor does Sweden have an openly anti-immigrant party
with national influence like the Danish People's
Party, the Northern League in Italy or the National
Front in France.
An opinion survey by the Swedish Integration Board
in 2004 found that 78 percent of Swedes thought it
was good for their country that people from
different cultures were mixing, up from 73 percent
1999.
While acknowledging that difficulties lie ahead,
people involved in dealing with the new, multiethnic
Swedish society look to the future with a certain
optimism.
"I am more positive now than I was some years ago,"
said Anders Carlberg, an activist and author who has
worked on matters relating to immigrants and
integration for 20 years.
"We have a good starting point now," he said. "Far
from all problems are taken care of - the
unemployment worries me - but there is reason for
hope."
Adami, the columnist, is even more optimistic,
especially when it comes to the younger generation.
"The division that worked 30 years ago between
Swedes and immigrants doesn't apply anymore," he
said. "Instead we see something new: an updated kind
of Swedishness."
As for Darin and Laleh, the pop stars, they have
said little about their foreign roots. "I'm neither
Christian nor Muslim," Darin said in a recent online
chat, "but I believe strongly in God, and that's
enough for me."
Darin says he is proud of his background, but does
not think it matters for his music.
"My music isn't Swedish, it's not Kurdish," he said.
"It's pop, and that's universal."
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