LONDON - Is Sweden's version of the Scandinavian social model broken?
Five straight nights of rioting in the suburbs of Stockholm have dented the country's international image as a haven of tolerance, prosperity and tranquility.
As the unrest spread from the outlying district of Husby, where it was apparently set off on Sunday by the fatal police shooting of a local man wielding a knife, gangs of youths have torched schools and other public buildings and set alight scores of cars.
The rioting, for which the authorities have sought to blame a small group of troublemakers, has been focused in areas with a majority population of poor immigrants and asylum-seekers.
“I've seen in the international media that this is a riot between young people in some parts of Stockholm and the society,†Erik Ullenhag, Sweden's integration minister, said. “But this is not true. It's a small proportion.â€
Sweden, like its Scandinavian neighbors, is proud of a social model based on cooperative labor relations and a cradle-to-grave welfare system that is credited with having pushed it to the top of international tables of life expectancy, education and standard of living.
The Swedes, with their own currency, have escaped the worst consequences of the euro zone crisis that has afflicted some of their European Union partners.
Only this week, a Swedish government Web site boasted that Sweden wanted to export a welfare model that appeared to have “stood the test of time.â€
One expression of Sweden's tolerant outlook has been the welcome extended to immigrants and asylum-seekers fleeing violence in countries like Afghanistan, Somalia and Syria. Around one in seven of its almost 10 million people are now foreign-born.
But many newcomers have been pushed to the margins, reliant on low-paying menial jobs and often concentrated in poor suburbs like Husby.
Unemployment among those born outside Sweden stands at 16 percent, compared with 6 percent for those born in Sweden.
The policies of the center-right government of Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt have been credited with supporting economic growth. But a regimen of lower taxes and reduced state benefits has also been blamed for an unprecedented rise in income inequality.
A report published last week by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development showed income equality had plummeted in recent years, challenging the government's boast that the country has become almost a single-class society.
Discontent, particularly among young people, has now manifested itself in some of the largest-ever street disturbances in Sweden.
As in the widespread youth riots in Britain in 2011, the trouble has not been confined to the immigrant population. The rioters were a “mixture of every kind of people,†according to Kjell Lindgren, the Stockholm police spokesman.
The anti-immigrant Sweden Democratic Party, which has risen to third in opinion polls ahead of a general election due next year, blamed the riots on “irresponsible†immigration policy.
For its part, the government's left-wing critics have blamed the erosion of the country's social welfare model for the unrest, with the opposition Left Party saying “cuts, reduced future opportunities, segregation and stigmatization†were at the root of the riots.
