Refugees flee for safety in Europe, to be met by systematic racism

After nearly three years of living in Sweden, Hassan decided he couldn’t take it any more. He was willing to give up his legal status as a refugee, a job in a care home and the part-time classes where he consistently got good grades.

Conversations with his friends, and his own research, made him fixate on moving to Ireland, where he thought he might find a more welcoming society. He booked a flight to Dublin before realising that, since July, visa-free travel for refugees to Ireland from other parts of Europe has been suspended. He looked into applying for a visa, but the process seemed long and unlikely to be successful. Eventually, he ended up in Calais in northern France, where he hid in a truck to arrive in the UK last month. He has now claimed asylum there.

One of Hassan’s friends made it to Ireland weeks before the visa requirement came in. Hassan personally knows at least four other refugees who have recently left Sweden for different European countries, and many more who want to. These are people who previously fled dictatorships or wars, but now say they are fleeing another scourge: racism. I have separately spoken to others who tell me they are planning to leave too.

A lot of Swedish people are racist, but some of them, they show it. You can feel it. When they laugh in front of you, they speak with you like you’re nothing

“Integration in Sweden is so hard,” Hassan, who asked that his name be changed, told me in a phone interview this week. “They are not open to other people. And they [judge] you by their ways. It was hard for me. It made me crazy in Sweden. There is a lot of racism.”

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The final straw, for Hassan, was when he overheard a Swedish person call him a “thief” (the person seemingly assumed he could not speak the language, even though he is fluent). Hassan believes this comment was made because of the colour of his skin.

“A lot [of Swedish people] are racist, but some of them, they show it,” he told me. “You can feel it, you understand it. When they laugh in front of you, they speak with you like [you’re] nothing. A lot of Swedish or white people think black people have no minds.”

Sweden has welcomed a significant number of refugees over the past few years, but the election of a loose coalition of right-wing parties to office last month appears to have emboldened some citizens to harass newcomers who have sought safety within their borders. The populist, far-right Sweden Democrats party, which has its roots in neo-Nazism, won the second-largest number of seats in parliament.

Their win was hailed by far-right politicians across the continent. “Everywhere in Europe, people aspire to take their destiny back into their own hands,” said Marine Le Pen, leader of France’s National Rally Party.

Hassan said he personally agrees with an argument made by right-wing Swedish politicians that more refugees should work, “but they are against all refugees, and a lot of refugees work and study hard”. He said the anti-refugee rhetoric spouted by politicians influenced the thoughts of people who he came across every day, affecting his ability to fit into his new society.

Hassan’s story demonstrates that there are indignities that can be hard to live through, even when someone has reached a location where the dangers are not so obvious

Days after Hassan arrived in the UK, I was in Modena in Italy, attending an investigative journalism conference. It was the same weekend that Italy was holding its general elections. Fears of a swing to the right – voiced by many of those I encountered there – were realised. Italy now has its first far-right government since the second World War. Giorgia Meloni, who has called for a “naval blockade” to prevent refugees and migrants reaching Italy, is expected to be the new prime minister.

Italy’s election day was, coincidentally and perhaps ironically, held on the Catholic Church’s World Day of Migrants and Refugees. Pope Francis, who has been outspoken in raising awareness about abuses against people trying to seek safety, titled this year’s message “Building the Future with Migrants and Refugees”.

“No one must be excluded,” the pontiff said. “God’s plan . . . gives priority to those living on the existential peripheries. Among them are many migrants and refugees, displaced persons, and victims of trafficking. The kingdom of God is to be built with them.”

There will be a lot of discussion about which policies these new governments could implement. There may not be so much discussion, however, about how an atmosphere of hostility at the most senior level in European countries is having an impact on the day-to-day lives of minorities and the attitudes they are met with.

Hassan may receive less sympathy for his move now than for what he, and others, went through before reaching Europe: dangerous journeys in unseaworthy boats, long-term arbitrary detention, war and persecution. But it is still a perspective that deserves to be heard and considered. It demonstrates that there are indignities that can be hard to live through, even when someone has reached a location where the dangers are not so obvious.

In the UK, so far anyway, Hassan says the people he has met are “kind [and] understand the cultures of other people.” He described receiving calls from a mother of five children still in Sweden, who wants to leave but doesn’t have the means, and “said she is afraid for the children because of racism”.

It is probably inevitable that Hassan will experience racism in the UK. According to the European Network Against Racism, for example, black people in that country are more than six times more likely to be stopped and searched than white people. Will this realisation send him running again? And what about others like him? Where will they end up?