By Marco Zoppi

The recent suspected arson attack to Eskilstuna’s mosque in Sweden has put once again in the spotlight the delicate question of the relation among the different communities composing multicultural societies, of which Sweden is an example. More precisely, the presumed attack has been described as the consequence of rising “anti-Muslim sentiment”, a reading of the event perhaps influenced by the fact that the deplorable act took place in welcoming and tolerant Sweden, in addition during Christmas holidays.

However, I argue that this explanation is rather simplistic and unidirectional in the conclusions it draws: while radical political activists who oftentimes seize on religious matters for their scopes do exist in every society (and shall be deemed equally dangerous), the line of explanation based on the religious factor alone may not be enough and is most likely to get us farther from a lucid analysis of reality. In the firm condemnation of every form of violence, I believe that events of this kind may found other kinds of roots explanations. Moreover, given the environment of increasing political radicalism in Europe, where religious issues are easily used to serve political causes, alternative explications shall be encouraged.

In the research I am currently developing, I focus on issues of welfare as well as social security, which I believe can explain a good deal of both human behaviors and social tensions between the so-called host countries and the migrants living therein. This argument holds crucial importance for the focus group of my research: the Somalis living in Nordic countries, who are considered by media and national authorities to be the least “integrated” group in Scandinavian societies. Nevertheless, some of the following considerations may have larger validity.

I start from the idea that questions of welfare and social security are overlooked or, even worse, considered to work the same way in every culture. In contrast with this view, my point is that while everyone would agree on the necessity to ensure oneself and the respective family with an as much as possible secure future, different people would still find themselves out of lines with each other when it comes to the identification of those means necessary to achieve social security: means can in fact vary, even largely, from one culture to another in reason of several factors, among which we can list the natural environment.

However, even in a context when cultural differences are acknowledged and respected, in the long run migrants are still expected to conform to the welfare system of the host country whatever their background; they are expected to trust certain institutions and adopt certain dynamics which shall become the repository for their sense of safeness about the future: changing one’s way of thinking about the future in terms of social security is yet a delicate process, often entangling a perceived loss of autonomy of the migrant individual which we need to put on scale.

This situation implies that two or more welfare systems confront themselves within a multicultural society, whereas only one is privileged over the others because is sanctioned by the majority of the population. In other words, only one system is legitimate or legal in the eyes of national citizens and state officers.

There may be many differences characterizing this or that welfare system: to mention but two points of reflection, the role of the state as welfare provider in a given society is likely to be the first and paramount issue of confrontation among its multicultural inhabitants. One shall not presume that the state is the only institution capable of ensuring welfare and providing for the security needs of the people. Similarly, even the demarcation of the welfare recipient, usually embodied by the family, would create disagreement due to concurrent definitions of nuclear against extended families.

What I am briefly touching upon here is an “asymmetry” that so far has been neither addressed properly (theoretically) nor mediated successfully (practically), leaving in place multiple, and to a good extent competing, systems of welfare provision within the society. The most important consequence of this asymmetry results in the unbalanced degree of contribution to the nation-wide recognized welfare system (the state) among different groups composing the society. In other words, if a person finds the state to be “intrusive” (as one of my interlocutor has put it) s/he will avoid visiting state institutions every time s/he can instead refer to the extended family or to any other non-state network in order to solve her/his problem. This lack of confidence into the state, it shall be noted, is also a direct manifestation of the legacy of colonialism, which in post-colonial Africa especially has left the painful memory of the predatory nature of the state in people’s mind.

By the same token, those contributing regularly and with firm belief to the state welfare system may develop in the long run criticism towards the behaviors of non-national members, because the latter are seen as only taking and not giving, that is contributing. In the scarcity of awareness on the role of colonialism in the history of non-European societies, and in the lack of understanding on how social security is achieved in other cultures, this situation becomes a source of tension as well as of political exploitation: that’s why I have encountered considerations about Somalis going like “they are renowned for not working”.

The picture is made even more complicated by another aspect that we need to take into consideration when dealing with the aforementioned asymmetry: welfare systems, that in Scandinavian countries realize some of their most efficient examples in the world, provide not just security for the future but represent also an identity source for their supporters. Putting this complex question in simple terms, welfare systems permit the process of “individuation” through which the individual can develop her/his own identity in detachment from the family; besides, through welfare benefits (employment protection; unemployment benefits; insurances; retirement funds and so on) people are granted with economic independence as well, a condition that is usually welcomed by the individual who therefore decides to support the system by paying taxes and observing norms. The state provision of security replaces to some extent the role that the (more or less extended) family has in many communities around the world, and promotes common identity among its members. In such context, tax contributions have become a shared and ritual practice, while the certainty that those in need will receive an adequate support strengthens solidarity and (national) social cohesion. This dynamics tell us about moral before than legal obligations that people adhere to; but these obligations are retrievable also in essentially stateless societies, in the form of kinship ties.

In this framework, it comes naturally that especially in Scandinavian countries “suspicion” is the attitude reserved for solidarity links based on family or on blood kinship, as they bypass the state system and threaten the national identity by undermining the principles of the individuation process. This discourse is particular true for the Somalis in Scandinavia, given their reliance on family connections for which there is good evidence in the academia.

In concrete, I believe that tensions arise from contending visions and interpretations of both future and future insecurities, while religious matters are not of paramount importance and seem to be rather used as pretexts for political games. What perhaps can be said is that the dichotomy state-family in the provision of welfare is likely to be more evident when comparing Nordic societies with some non-European ones like the Somali, for a number of reasons that can be debated further elsewhere.

To conclude, I argue that describing social tensions of this kind only as rising anti-Muslim sentiment is misleading, since it leaves in the shadow a vast range of practical issues concerning the future of migrants who therefore endure a condition of existential insecurity. The hasty categorization of societal tensions as religious won’t take us any step further. The provision of the instruments more apt to realize future expectations according to cultural nuances should be in fact the priority, because social insecurity is the real societal urge that is emerging: by indentifying in welfare and social security the core matters of the whole question on the one hand, and by discharging superficial explanations and labeling on the other, a more responsive policy-making may be achieved.

 By Marco Zoppi
WardheerNews contributor
Email:marcozoppi@hotmail.it

———–

Marco Zoppi is a PhD Fellow, Roskilde University, Denmark