Text/Sun Ruixi
In the 1960s, with the development of oil fields in the North Sea, there was a serious shortage of low-skilled labor in Norway. To address the labor shortage, Norway recruited workers from Pakistan and Turkey. By 1975, as the labor market saturated, the Norwegian government began to stop recruiting foreign workers, but immigrants from Pakistan and Turkey continued to increase due to factors such as family reunification. By the 1980s and 1990s, refugees seeking political asylum from Somalia, Iraq, Iran, Yugoslavia, Sri Lanka, and Vietnam had become a major part of immigrants from developing countries during this period.
More than half of Norwegian immigrants come from European countries, especially Sweden, Denmark, Finland and the British. Due to cultural proximity and the existence of multilateral international agreements, the Norwegian Government has largely refrained from migrants from Western Europe and other developed countries, and the so-called migration policy is mainly applied to immigrants from less developed countries and regions.
In the minds of many, Norway is one of the countries with the highest happiness index in the world, and the capital of Norway, Oslo, is a beautiful city where people live a leisurely, prosperous and stable life. However, many people may not know that Oslo is also the largest concentration of Norwegian immigrants, a city divided by immigrants. To the west of the city, neat, wealthy, and safe, the vast majority of people live here are natives; to the east of the city, dilapidated, poor, and chaotic, the vast majority of people living here are immigrants.
Under the impact of the "wave" of immigrants, new problems have emerged in Norwegian society. First, immigrants have a hard time integrating into mainstream Norwegian society, forming subcultural circles. After settling in Norway, immigrants are limited by their language and are unable to communicate with the locals in depth, and they still retain their language, culture, code of conduct and their own way of life, so they cannot integrate into mainstream Norwegian society. Immigrants have their own social organizations, religious groups, and slowly form a "subculture" community. Second, the immigration crime rate has risen due to poor circumstances.
Some immigrants from less developed countries have significantly higher unemployment rates in Norway than local residents, and some political refugees are in a worse condition, with many having to live in remote reception centres for long periods of time, with few finding jobs or reuniting families. For many years, Norway has always been known for its low crime rate and social stability and peace in the developed countries of the West. However, in the past decade or so, the crime rate in Norwegian society has shown a trend of increasing year by year. According to official Norwegian statistics, many perpetrators of criminal activities have immigrant backgrounds, and objectively speaking, the increase in crime rate in Norwegian society is indeed not unrelated to the large influx of immigrants.
In addition, the large number of immigrants eating "relief" has become a heavy burden on Norwegian society. According to statistics from the Norwegian Department of Social Welfare, among the social assistance benefits issued by the Norwegian government, the proportion of Norwegians (including immigrants from other Western countries) and immigrants is equal, but the population base of the two is very different. In other words, the proportion of immigrants who eat social assistance is dozens of times higher than that of native Norwegian citizens.
In Oslo, for example, about a third of foreign immigrants living in the city (over the age of 18) receive social assistance. Among them, more than half of migrants from southern Africa receive social assistance, more than 30% of immigrants from north Africa receive relief, more than 40% of immigrants from Vietnam receive relief, and more than 20% of immigrants from Pakistan receive relief. According to the oslo overseas Chinese organization, Chinese immigrants who eat government relief cannot be said to be "unique", but they are definitely very few. The Chinese in Norway have maintained many of the traditional virtues of the Chinese nation, they work hard, they are thrifty and thrifty, and they are hard-working. Many people started from scratch in Norway, and a few years later, they bought a house and real estate, and their careers flourished. Their achievements in Norway can be said to be "well-known" and are the envy of many Norwegians.
Norway has a small number of immigrants, but the migration problem is not minor. For a long time, there has been discrimination against immigrants from developing countries in Norwegian society: a small number of nightclubs and clubs refuse to accept non-Europeans; the police often stop Asians or Africans on the street and ask them to show their identity documents; some companies do not consider candidates with non-European names when recruiting. To make matters worse, in recent years there have been some far-right groups in Norway that have come up with racist slogans such as "Whiten Norway Again".
On July 22, 2011, Norwegian right-wing Breivik committed a world-shattering explosion and shooting terror in the capital Oslo and nearby the island of Yute, killing 77 people. By July 24, the death toll from terrorist attacks in Norway had risen to 98. The Utter Massacre was the worst violent attack in Norway since the end of the Second World War. The bloody case has led to the hidden dangers of Norway's far right.
In recent years, large numbers of refugees from Syria, Iraq and North African countries have poured into EU countries, some of whom have moved on to Norway in the hope that the Norwegian government will take immediate care of them. But in fact, the process of applying for Norwegian refugee status is very long, taking months or even years. Faced with a swarm of refugees, the Norwegian government has a new countermeasure: throw money away. Norwegian media reported that if a family of four who applied for asylum voluntarily left Norway, they would not only receive a free one-way ticket, but also up to 80,000 NORWEGIAN KRON (ABOUT $9,400) in cash.
On 29 December 2015, the Norwegian government proposed as many as 40 amendments to regulations related to refugee reception and resettlement, aiming to significantly tighten Norway's immigration policy in response to the growing refugee problem. The Norwegian Government believes that the large number of refugees who come to Norway to apply for asylum, which may have serious consequences for the Norwegian welfare society, must be addressed. According to statistics released by the Norwegian Migration Service, more than 30,000 people have applied for asylum in Norway in 2015, nearly three times the same period in 2014.
In response to a series of measures taken by the Norwegian government to treat refugees, Broutzmann, a professor of sociology at the University of Oslo, said that the political atmosphere in Norway on the refugee issue is relatively conservative, and the main issue considered by the government is how to protect Norway, so the corresponding political policy is to reduce the number of refugees as much as possible. This does not fully reflect the will of the people. Overall, the attitude of the Norwegian people towards refugees, and especially towards Syrian refugees, is positive and open.
At the same time, the Norwegian government has also taken many measures to control the rising nationalist sentiment in the country, establishing institutions such as the "Center for Combating Racial Discrimination" and promulgating some laws and regulations to combat racist illegal activities and protect the legitimate rights and interests of immigrants. In this process, a number of Norwegian non-governmental organizations, such as the Centre against Racism and the Institute against Public Discrimination, have played a very active role.
(Author: Ruixi Sun, Scholar in Europe, Certified Human Resource Manager, International Career Trainer, Global Career Planner, Global Career Coach)