“We need to look at the more fundamental issue, which is class, which is racism, which is social status, which is income.”
(Rashid Musa chairman of the Swedish Young Muslims)
Never let a good crisis go to waste!
Invasion of Europe News….
I’ve written extensively (for years) about socialist Sweden’s welcome to migrants from the third world, but even with its arms wide open, Swedes can’t win. (See my Sweden archive.)
Now their welcoming society is responsible for killing off mostly Somali and Iraqi migrants as the government sought to keep its country and economy relatively free of draconian measures as those most countries have employed to (supposedly) stop the virus.
Here is the AP at ABC Newshelping to spread the social justice über alles message. Expect more stories like this one to help fuel division between the rich and poor (even in ‘socialist’ Sweden).
Coronavirus takes a toll in Sweden’s immigrant community
Rich skiers infect poor cabbie….
STOCKHOLM — The flight from Italy was one of the last arrivals that day at the Stockholm airport. A Swedish couple in their 50s walked up and loaded their skis into Razzak Khalaf’s taxi.
It was early March and concerns over the coronavirus were already present, but the couple, both coughing for the entire 45-minute journey, assured Khalaf they were healthy and just suffering from a change in the weather. Four days later, the Iraqi immigrant got seriously ill with COVID-19.
Still not able to return to work, Khalaf is part of the growing evidence that those in immigrant communities in the Nordic nations are being hit harder by the pandemic than the general population.
Sweden took a relatively soft approach to fighting the coronavirus, one that attracted international attention. Large gatherings were banned but restaurants and schools for younger children have stayed open. The government has urged social distancing, and Swedes have largely complied.
The country has paid a heavy price, with 3,175 fatalities from COVID-19. That’s more than 31 deaths per 100,000 population, compared with about 8 per 100,000 in neighboring Denmark, which imposed a strict lockdown early on that is only now being slowly lifted.
Inside Sweden’s immigrant communities, anecdotal evidence emerged early in the outbreak that suggested that some — particularly those from Somalia and Iraq — were hit harder than others.
Last month, data from Sweden’s Public Health Agency confirmed that Somali Swedes made up almost 5 percent of the country’s COVID-19 cases, yet represented less than 1 percent of its 10 million people.
Many in these communities are more likely to live in crowded, multigeneration households and are unable to work remotely. [I seriously doubt that large numbers are out working!—ed]
[….]
Sweden, Norway and Finland recognized early failings in community outreach in minority languages and are seeking to fix this. The town of Jarfalla, outside Stockholm, has had high school students hand out leaflets in Somali, Persian, French and other languages, urging people to wash their hands and stay home if sick.
[….]
But teacher and community activist Rashid Musa says the problem runs much deeper.
“I wish it were that easy — that you needed to just translate a few papers,” he said. “We need to look at the more fundamental issue, which is class, which is racism, which is social status, which is income.”
“The rich have the opportunity to put themselves into quarantine, they can go to their summer houses,” Musa said.
“I watch people wiping, disinfecting, masking, flinching, distancing themselves from nice looking couples with dogs. No amount of hand-sanitiser will save them from the state of this country and the people we have let in.”
(Katie Hopkins)
It happened in March, but made little news mostly we can only assume, and others have speculated, that it is because the violent act was perpetrated by a Somali woman against a beautiful innocent white child unknown to the attacker.
Emily Jones, Age seven
Early reports of the killing never mention a word about the identity of the attacker as a migrant from Africa.
I think that in addition to the political correctness of the media, much of the silence surrounding the horror is, yes, it was so horrible that people hide from the truth of it to protect their own hearts and to not have to face the blunt truth British writerKatie Hopkinssays of it.
Facing it means that one should do something about it and that is too fear-provoking for most who cower at the prospect of being labelled a racist!
Most people will avoid talking to you about Emily’s death because it is too terrible. The things we know are too shocking to mention in front of a grieving mum.
That your child was a happy little thing playing on her scooter in the park with her family on Mothering Sunday when she was stabbed to death, her life ended in one blow by a Somali woman, a stranger to you and to this land.
If these words are too brutal for the grieving, how is it possible these things can happen to the living, on an otherwise normal day?
Instead we tiptoe around the truth, soften our language. We do not talk of murder or of killing. We softly whisper that Emily was ‘taken from you’, like a reclaimed gift or prize, regretfully removed from your arms by gentle hands.
We are not supposed to talk, either, about the Somali killer who hides behind her color and her mental health.
That is only a bit of it.
Please read it all, and if you do nothing else today send this powerful letter to everyone you know!
Somali refugees have been in Arizona for more than 5 years, but their English language skills are lacking it seems according to data collected on the distribution of Coronavirus informational videos.
Videos in Somali are the most watched of ten videos produced by refugee advocates to teach them how to avoid spreading the virus.
Produced In 10 Languages For Arizona Refugees, COVID-19 Safety Videos Reach 70,000
The official language of the African nation Burundi is named Kirundi. Julie Ngiriye speaks it and other languages, which is why the social worker and care coordinator helped make an informational video about the coronavirus for Burundian refugees living in Arizona and beyond.
“I know the struggles they go through for having going through the same struggles myself,” she said.
In the video, Ngiriye explained how to wash your hands. She also talked about social distancing, not sharing plates or food utensils, and sneezing into your elbow. The goal, she said, is to inform.
“How it is really pandemic, not a simple disease,” she said.
The video is one of 10 produced in different languages. They feature Ngiriye, staff called cultural health navigators, and a doctor at Valleywise Health’s Pediatric Refugee Clinic.
“It is actually the best medium to be able to reach the majority of them in the community,” Ngiriye said, and noted that many refugees don’t read or write.
The doctor said shared apartments, jobs with no sick leave, and limited child care options make refugees especially vulnerable to COVID-19. As the coronavirus started to sweep through Arizona, state officials and Valleywise Health joined forces to make safety videos in languages like Swahili, Karen and Arabic.
In less than a month, the 10 videos have been watched on YouTube about 70,000 times. The video done in Somali has the most views. A local leader said it’s because most of the Somali community has been here for years. Making sure newer arrivals also get the message is the hard part.
I am not saying the large number of African refugees working at a wind turbine plant brought any virus to North Dakota, but I think you can see the problem brewing in large plants that employ immigrants many of whom do not speak English and live in close-knit immigrant enclaves.
Testing held near North Dakota plant while virus cases climb
FARGO, N.D. (AP) — Health officials and National Guard members spent Thursday afternoon screening people for the coronavirus after eight positive tests were confirmed among workers at a North Dakota wind turbine plant that employs a large number of immigrants from African countries.
The drive-thru screenings outside the LM Wind Power in Grand Forks took place on a day when state officials reported a record number of new coronavirus cases for the second consecutive day. A total of 52 cases were confirmed in the last two days, including 28 on Thursday.
Cars were lined up in four lanes outside the LM plant, where officials administered 424 tests in five hours to people who may have come in close contact with the infected workers, said John Bernstrom, spokesman for the city of Grand Forks.
Shirley Dykshoorn
Shirley Dykshoorn, vice president at Lutheran Social Services in Fargo, the state’s refugee resettlement agency, said many of the employees are immigrants or former refugees who have worked at the plant for some time.
“Most of them have good English skills,” Dykshoorn said. “Maybe not as many in their family understand everything so we’ve tried to support them and help them with what they need going forward.”
Dr. Paul Carson, a public health and infectious disease specialist at North Dakota State University and adviser to the governor’s COVID-19 team, said he’s not surprised to see several cases pop up in a large plant. He said it’s important to aggressively pursue people who came in close contact with those who are infected.
“We’re going to find these little flare-ups and I think we should accept them. What we need to able to do is jump on them and try to prevent them from going any further,” Carson said. “We want to avoid what happened with the meat packing plant down in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.”
I had planned to post Neil Munro’s piece at Breitbartfrom a few days ago about problems in the meatpacking industry with the spread of the virus. See it here.
Over half of the more than 1,300 cases in South Dakota have been tied to an outbreak at a Smithfield pork processing plant in Sioux Falls.
The plant is one of the largest known clusters of COVID-19 cases in the country. A total of 598 employees have confirmed infections, plus 135 of their close contacts.
Sigh! Giant global corporations with a voracious appetite for immigrant labor changing the heartland one town at a time.
I’ve been writing about North Dakota for years and it was one of the states I visited during my 2016 road trip through the Midwest and West to see the impact of refugee labor on communities throughout middle America. See my North Dakota archive.
Ed Morrissey writing atHot Air reports on how the COVID-19 hysteria could spell the end of the European Union as countries rediscover the need for BORDERS!
Trip down memory lane!
He also reminds us how the beginning of the end came when Hillary/Obama and various EU governments joined forces to bring down Gaddafi in Libya in 2011 which opened the flood gates for African migrants by the hundreds of thousands to descend on the continent.
European Leaders Lament: Coronavirus Might Just Kill The EU Too
If the European Union now finds itself in “mortal danger,” it’s only because it’s faced its first truly mortal threat. The Washington Post reports that European leaders have begun to warn that unilateral actions by its members — most recently Hungary but also core members France and Germany— will undo their decades-long experiment in continental unity.The raising of borders and the imposition of trade barriers in the coronavirus pandemic has all but sidelined Brussels in the crisis, and there’s little indication that EU members are interested in anything but their own domestic political standing.
[….]
In other words, Europe has rediscovered why borders matter and why government works best on the principle of subsidiarity. The borders lesson got taught the hard way, as I wrote two-plus weeks ago, after Europe and the US precipitated a massive refugee crisis by decapitating the Qaddafi regime in Libya. The flood of refugees from there and Syria created cultural dislocation throughout the Schengen Zone, provoking the Brexit push in the UK and setting the stage for their current disunity.
Remember this! We wrote about Hillary’s role extensively at the time and over the years since as the invasion of Europe progressed. See here.
It should come as no shock that Germans expect the German government to prioritize Germans in an existential crisis rather than a super-national quasi-governing body. Nor should it shock anyone that the same is true for the French, the Italians, and so on. That doesn’t mean that they can’t work cooperatively to approach common interests and problems, but that in a crisis, they’re responsible to their own citizens first and foremost.
