A Bit More Detail

Friend of the blog Jussi Jalonen has just posted, at the group blog History and Futility, the essay "Refugee Crisis and the North". Here, Jalonen takes a look at the way the Syrian refugee crisis has impacted both his Finland and neighbouring Sweden, looking at the political climate in both countries. One thing I particularly liked is his prediction of different outcomes for refugee assimilation in each Nordic country, based on--among other things--the two countries' very different recent histories of immigration.

Some time ago, my hometown on the West Coast made a decision to accept refugees from Syria. The decision was historic. Although the town of Rauma has always had a relatively substantial community of guest workers and immigrants, the town has not accommodated refugees or asylum seekers so far. This morning, the residential building which was supposed to be used as a reception center for asylum seekers became a target of arson attack. Only a few days before, an old garrison building intended for similar use was burned to the ground in Kankaanpää. Evidently some people in Western Finland do not like the idea of providing housing for asylum seekers.


Another piece of news today came from Sweden. The school teacher who was injured in the Trollhättan attack in October has now died from his wounds. The attack made international headlines two months ago, and was also a sign of the times; a sword-wielding masked young man with far right sympathies assaulted a local Swedish school, in a violent assault against the immigrant students. So far, no comparable incident has occurred in Finland, although occasional direct assaults against asylum seekers have taken place. Three weeks ago, an Iraqi asylum seeker was stabbed by three local men at the reception center of Kangasala.

While a good part of the people in both Nordic countries have participated in volunteer work on behalf of refugees and asylum seekers, the refugee crisis has also triggered a wave of xenophobia. The European refugee crisis has occurred at the moment when the Nordic countries are experiencing the apex of the ongoing radical right-wing populist reaction. Sweden, which appears to be accepting the largest number of refugees, is going through a massive political realignment, as the so-far isolated and solidly anti-immigration Sweden-Democrats have enjoyed record poll support, occasionally as the largest political party. The refugee crisis has contributed to additional political radicalization, and earlier this year, the Sweden-Democrats terminated all cooperation with the youth organization of the party. Already in the spring, a number of SD youth activists were discharged due to their links with neo-Nazi groups.

The situation in Finland is somewhat different from Sweden. The main populist party, the True Finns, which contains its fair share of hard-core anti-immigration extreme nationalists, is exercising political power, having accepted a position in the new center-right government coalition. The party has found itself in a very precarious position, especially since Finland, as the only Nordic member of the Eurozone, is now facing impending austerity measures, and the center-right coalition is also enacting new, tougher labor laws. So far, the True Finns have quietly abandoned their former social conscience and their commitment to the consensus society. The party has acceded to these packages, and even moderated their position towards the EU bailout programs. The disappointment of the party rank and file has been visible in the polls, and the support of the party has plummeted. This has generated additional pressure for the True Finns to somehow crack down hard at least on the refugee crisis, and the party has been clamoring for new anti-immigration legislation modeled after Denmark, including cutting the welfare benefits of refugees and asylum seekers.

I've also linked to this essay at Demography Matters, here.

I've a post up at History and Futility noting the challenges faced by a particular language community--the users of N'Ko script, used by the Manding languages of Africa--and wonder briefly about the effects of the marginalization of relatively disadvantaged language communities. What's getting missed?

(Crossposted.)

http://historyandfutility.wordpress.com/2011/08/16/how-every-detail-counts-in-large-amounts/

I owe my co-blogger Jussi Jalonen thanks for the superb job placing last month's massacres in Norway in the context of an increasingly unhinged and conspiracy-minded ideology, Internet-based but spreading, whose protagonists claim that Muslim are taking over Europe (at least) through their superfecundity as enabled by traitorous multiculturalists. I couldn't write the essay; I'm even now trying to avoid despair over the issue.

Everything I've written here about information it's predicated on the beliefs that preserving information matter and that preserving as much detail as possible matters. Yes, that's in part an emotional reaction of mine to my own personal circumstances, but it's something that works very well for me from the perspective of scholarship. Detail does matter; everything counts.

My 2004 post on the non-existence of Eurabia was a product of my idle curiosity and my desire to seek some distraction from graduate school. Later, as I became more aware of what Eurabia was starting to do, I became more concerned, more strident. Breivik's massacre was the sort of thing that I'd expected to eventually happen; I felt guilty, frustrated, despairing that this had happened. If the mass of details describing reality don't register, what's the point of any of it?

Jussi's approach is best. Friend of the blog Jim Belshaw helped with this comment he posted at A Bit More Detail in response to my Eurabia-themed question wondering how you reach people who believe in unfounded things. Selected elements are below.

2. You can’t change people’s minds by direct attack on their views. You have to come at it indirectly.
3. Don’t deal in universals. Eurabia and Muslims have become universals, labels to which other things are attached. Each time you use them as universals, you carry other people’s labels with them. At a purely personal level I try to avoid the use of the world Muslim unless I am speaking about a faith with all its varieties.
4. Recognise diversity. Within Europe each country, and sometimes parts of countries, are different. Australia is different again.
5. Attack intolerance, but do not attack the validity of views on which that intolerance may draw. Precisely, recognise them and address them independently as different issues. Avoid culture wars. Don’t confuse issues.

Thanks, Jim, for the reminder. The details will reappear, here and elsewhere. It'd be an honour if you'd join us all here at History and Futility for the ride.

Over at History and Futility, my co-blogger Jussi Jalonen has written about how the ideas that inspired Norwegian Anders Behring Breivik to go about his mass murders this Friday past are pretty far from being idiosyncratic to him, that they are actually the product of a disturbingly broad and productive Internet-based movement of ideologues proclaiming the existential threat posed to Europe by anything and anyone at all relatable to Islam.

The entire essay is well worth reading, three paragraphs of which are copied below.

Breivik wrote a manifesto where he openly stated his motives and clarified his political opinions in detail. Published in the internet, the “European Declaration of Independence” – which can be downloaded from here – is essentially a grotesque compendium of blog posts and columns, tied together with Breivik’s own narrative. The quoted writings all have in common an openly islamophobic, anti-immigration theme. According to Breivik’s twisted, but coherent logic, the “multiculturalist Marxist establishment” is attempting to convert the European Union into a “Marxist superstate, the EUSSR”; these “cultural Marxists” are also responsible for the “mass Muslim immigration” and “islamization” of Europe. Breivik is, in other words, a true believer in the so-called “Eurabia”-predictions previously discussed also on this blog, and he also believes that an open discussion of these threats was impossible due to the pervasive European “political correctness”. In his own words, Breivik was using the mass murder as means to “send a message” to the “Marxist, multiculturalist elites”. His chosen method was to wipe out the next generation of the left-wing politicians whom he saw as the culprits of the immigration policy and the destruction of his cherished European civilization.

What’s important to remember is that Breivik’s ideology was not original, and his sick ideas were not of his own making. In essence, he was a product of the internet age, a dedicated consumer of the radical anti-Muslim political propaganda which has circulated around the websites and weblogs ever since the 9/11 attacks and the controversial Muhammad cartoon episode. Breivik maintained a lively interest in the most notable anti-Islam bloggers, such as “Fjordman”, with whom he occasionally seems to have corresponded, advertising his book project; one example of their dialogue can be found here, in the comment section. The title of Breivik’s book, “Declaration of European Independence”, is actually borrowed from a column which “Fjordman” wrote for the cultural-conservative “Brussels Journal”-blog. Breivik describes his ideology by the name “Vienna School of Thought”, which is a reference to another well-known paranoid anti-Islam blog, “Gates of Vienna”.

This internet sub-culture where Breivik spent his pastime has not been without political significance. The very same post-modern, radical, fanatic cultural-fundamentalist atmosphere which produced Breivik has made serious inroads to the mainstream politics in the Western World, basing its success on populism and fear. The writers who inspired Breivik included known Muslim-baiting hate-mongers such as Robert Spencer, Pamela Geller and Daniel Pipes, and he was fascinated by the Tea Party movement. Geert Wilders, the head of the Dutch PVV and the producer of Fitna, was among Breivik’s heroes, and his book even mentions – in one of the quoted posts from “Fjordman” – Jussi Halla-aho, a Finnish anti-Islam blogger who was elected as an MP of the populist “True Finns” party in the last elections and became the chairman of the parliamentary committee in charge of police, border guard and the immigration affairs. Breivik’s book endorses several “anti-immigration, cultural conservative organizations”, ranging from the Sweden-Democrats to the Polish PiS, all of which he saw as the possible salvation of the Continent from the supposed evils of multiculturalism and immigration. The only thing which made Breivik special was his conviction that this parliamentary political activity needed to be supplemented with direct action, and he saw himself as the man who could provide it.

Go, read.

I've a post up at History and Futility made as I watch the Boston-Vancouver game, noting that the exciting series has demonstrated that Canadian do care a lot about the game--it explains so much about what has been going on here!

Go, read. And enjoy the game!

I've a post up at History and Futility reacting to Freeman Dyson's recent review essay "How We Know", an essay reviewing James Gleick's latest that examines information theory. There's too much information to be fully understood, but there's so much information that motivated people can build powerful descriptive databases--and don't forget motivated individual systematizers!

Go, read both.

I commemorated Pi Day over at History and Futility with a post that takes a brief look at how the simple irrational constant π has had so much meaning placed on it. And we like it that way. Just try not to learn too many of the number's secrets ...

I've a post up at History and Futility commenting on the ways in which maps--of territories, of thought processes--don't necessarily reflect and can significantly influence reality. Feedback, feed-forward.

Go, read (and follow the links there, and enjoy the Borges)!

While revolution rages in Libya and we fear for our future, we should pay attention to writer and researcher Steven Pinker in this TED speech when he argues--convincingly--that we humans are far more peaceful than at any point in our past history, that much better reporting and a much lower tolerance for cruelty make us more sensitive, and that the modern state works so well in removing the need for individual violence and one-upsmanship.

"Coffee Time (Director's Cut)" (Watch on Vimeo)

Here's the transcript.

Go, read my post and the transcript, and watch the speech.

I've a post up at History and Futility that riffs about a post by Understanding Society's Daniel Little commenting on a book which examines the problems of planning for the future when the future's fundamentally unpredictable.