Sweden’s liberal migration policies, that is to say a failure to maintain any sort of border control at all over the past few decades, have led to ghettoised communities that the state props up with generous welfare payments and socialist lecturing.
When I got off the train at Malmo’s Central station last week and dragged my suitcase noisily over the cobbled pavements I thought to myself, “There’s no way this place has ‘No Go Zones’”.
Downtown Malmo is a gorgeous though freezing cold place to visit in February. I checked into my hotel — passing between a “Burger King” and a “Schwarma King” along the way, the latter of which recently took the spot of the “Stortogets Gatukok” in Malmo’s Great Square — and set off for my destination: Rosengard.
Much has been written about Sweden’s “No Go Zones” in recent years. We’ve watched them burn over the years with a combination of disbelief and shock. When the Sweden Democrats leader Jimmie Akesson told me — as we walked through Molenbeek in Brussels just days after the Paris terror attacks in 2015 — “we have these places in Sweden too”, I was sceptical.
Sweden is supposed to be paradise-like, I thought. Isn’t it all leggy blondes and Ikea and Abba and lingonberries?
Well if you stay downtown in Malmo or Stockholm, perhaps it is. Even the elevator muzak had a whiff of “Fernando” about it.
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