Anyone have a decent source or insights (hoping scriver, Silverthrone or one of our other Swedes will fill us in) about these riots in Stockholm I'm hearing about?
Can do, Sir! Well, scriver is far more quick on the ball, I must say.
It is, in all honestly, not anything particular, this riot. Not in the great scheme of things. I suppose that is a symptom in and off itself, but such areas tends to flare up rather reguraly. Usually (such as in this case) it is in response to someone being arrested by the police. They arrive, carry out the arrest, and the suspect's friends either comes rushing to disrupt the arrest, or go on a semi-organised rampage in reponse. Although it changes somewhat case-by-case, I think that it is fair to say that the main motivation is a vague "fuck da poleez". Policemen, fire engines and other authorities, as it where, get stones pitched at them, and unattended cars get torched. These flare-ups are rather short-lived, it is almost always over come morning.
It is also worth noting that there is a select group of people that are involved in these riots. It is usually young, semi-criminal (or gang prospects, trying to earn their spurs) men, and they do not have popular support in the neighbourhood. Indeed, policemen responding to a similar flare-up in another city noted that people cheered for them from windows and balconies. However, people are naturally afraid to confront the hoodlums openly, and they do affect how people live their lives. While the criminal gangs do not effectively rule these areas as they wish, they have a very large influence.
Now, Rinkeby in particular is a bit of a back-water. 'In Stockholm', as noted by the headline, is not entirely true, it is a low-market suburb at the outskirts (an old ABC suburb, somewhat equivolent to the council estate blocks in England). Other than that, the article you linked is an accurate summary. The only unusual element to this particular flare-up was that one police patrol were so seriously troubled that they had to open fire. That is rather unusual (and I imagined it stained a few pairs of 'genuine' gangzta underpants, as well), although warning shots have been fired before.
As of now, it is the usual: social agencies are running through their usual "we will focus on this, that and this" routine and the police stepping up their patrols in the area. There is, as far as I can find, no particularly different re-action to this case, and I fear it will mostly be business as usual, for the time being.
Anyone have a decent source or insights (hoping scriver, Silverthrone or one of our other Swedes will fill us in) about these riots in Stockholm I'm hearing about?
These riots are happening in a government-built district called Rinkeby (more like a self-contained mini-city, really) that was built in 60s-70s without a police station for unknown reasons and is populated mainly (80-90%) by immigrants, which ensued in a stable criminal presence in the area, especially after most of the other government offices and banks in the area have been shut down due to budget cuts. Recently, police has been trying to reintroduce themselves by patrolling the district and building up a police station, and as a result, there's some conflicts going on.
All of that is from a Swedish forum person, and are sourced to a Swedish newspaper DN, which has its own website apparently. I did not check it, but the whole "district without a police station" seems to be something that's very easy to fact-check and is something outlandish enough to be hard to invent out of whole cloth.
At least now I understand from where the persistent "no-go zones" rumours appear. This "district" is technically not a "no-go" zone, the police does try to enforce law over there, but the whole "no police station" aspect makes it de-facto as if it was a no-go zone, for the majority of the time.
Yes, it can be a rather confusing misunderstanding, and I was rather confused about that, myself. As a special treat for the thread;
A Very Brief Run-Down of the Swedish Suburbian Districts.These areas (Rosengård, Hammarkullen, Husby, Rinkeby, Hjällbo, I shall be making a riot bingo one of these days, you see) are very similar. They are in different cities, but have the same properties; they are mainly areas of low-income and low-education. They tend to be mainly populated by immigrants, first to third generation, usually of the same or similar ethnicities. Actual local conditions differ, but it is a good average.
They are rather like self-contained mini-cities; that was the idea when they were built during the 1960's to the 1970's, in a massive government construction effort named The Million Programme (named after the ambition of building one million new dwellings). The idea was to provide most of the services an average citizen could need in one area, with good public transport routes to the city proper.
Unfortunately, that only works for as long as authorities (civil and state) remain a presence in these centres, and there has been an awful lot of ill-advised centralisation in the last decades. Most cities only have one central police station, for instance, and many other government offices of various sorts, like social offices, simply are not available in many suburbs any more. And, as noted by Sergarr, neither are other important institutions, like banks and special retailers. This creates a very real sensation of isolation, and creates an estrangement with other parts of the city and of society.
That is not to say that it is the same in all areas. Some are recovering, as this isolation is becoming more known, and more is being done to re-bind these neighbourhoods back into the city. Indeed, repairing the cracks in the old Million Programme is, if not well under way, at least on-going.
About No-Go Zones: As far as I know, there are no zones where the police simply will not go for fear of being hurt, but there are areas where they know they are not welcome, and will need to be careful.
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