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Being of foreign origin myself I think that this is a very interesting question. It is also a topic that should be discussed far more often in society than it is today. It seems as if a majority of the population is either scared of being viewed as rascists discussing immigrant policy or they just do not have the energy to discuss a question they most probably view as not concerning themselves. Well, I think this is a great mistake. Anything that transforms a society, which the immigrants undoubtedly have done, is a major concern of its inhabitants. So let us look at some of the aspects for and against integration and assimilation .
Let us start with integration, which I view as when an immigrating group/person and the recieving country adapt to eachother - i.e both sides make an effort to adapt to be able to live together and hopefully enjoy eachother's company by enriching eachother's cultures. Of course this is the utopia of the integration process and one that I feel that the Swedish government has tried to achieve so far by for example giving immigrant's children the right to have lessons in their mother tongue as well as giving education to all immigrants about their new countrie's culture and language .
In theory this is all well and fine but in practise, as we have seen in Sweden during recent years, the integration process has not worked so well. Partly because there seem to be a lack of communication between the native Swedes and the immigrants, especially in cases where the immigrants are non-european. Many Swedes seem, during times of economic hardship, not to understand why they should share their jobs, their social security benefits etc. with foreigners. Many Swedes ask themselves what will happen to the "pure" swedish cultural heritage if they keep on integrating foreigners into Swedish society? Why should native Swede have to adapt to a Turk's way of being? Maybe what has been lacking in the integration process is an education of Swedes about foreign cultures. Maybe this lack of "cultural knowledge" explains why immigrants in Sweden, the immigrants should be assimilated into the Swedish way of being and fully accept the Swedish culture. In other words if a muslim wants to live in Sweden he should drop Allah and become a good Swede with impeccible Swedish. This would simplify the contact between different people and would perhaps make society easier to understand. I can see that many people would be more at ease with this idea - to have the native culture as a base for all social life is non-threatning and comfortable for many people, but where would it lead us? I think the whole idea of assimilating people into a culture always ends up in a lot of grief and self-oppression. I think history, time and time again, has shown us that assimilation does not work. A person will always be aware of his/her origin since it explains part of who he/she is. To be forced to supress one's culture in favour of a big majority culture always leads to a degrading self-denial and a build up of emotions that at one point are going to explode .
So between a choice of integration and assimilation I would say that integration is the best way to go, even though it creates tensions between different cultural groups in society. One should also keep in mind that Sweden is not an isolated island and that it has always thrived on foreign influences. Sweden needs new influences from the outside world but it also needs to influence its surroundings to make its voice heard in a rapidly globalizing world. I think an integrating immigrant policy will help Sweden with this and with creating an exciting multicultural society .
