The Honest Five Procent

Hello and welcome to this blog. This is my first entry.

I thought that I would write a bit about my experiences being an Immigrant to Sweden coming from North America with my real name and passport and valid papers. This is an oddity in Sweden and some say 90 % of all immigrants to Sweden use smugglars that I believe can cost up to 20,000 USD and come in with false names and papers and false countries of origin. I think that perhaps 95 % is a better figure and being my statistic, it's as valid as any other imaginary statistic put out by any government, bureau, organization, or company in our not so honest world. So, I have made up the term, "The Honest Five Percent". Perhaps I should patent it and sell T-shirts to other members of this group. No, are not enough of us who are either honest or coming here from North America. Well, it was a good idea before I thought it through.

I remember back in 1994 on one of my early trips to Sweden seeing an Arab man in the Restroom collecting Passports and then getting on a plane to Norway a short time later. At the time my only knowledge of the Swedish society was from the PR being put out in the world medias about this so called, "Scandinavian Model" with it's freedoms and equality and justice for all. What I call, "The Scandinavian Party Line." I thought that perhaps he was a tour guide or tour leader for a group from a Middle Eastern country and holding their passports for them. Little did I know that to get asylum one must be paperless. I have often wondered how people can get on any airplane anywhere in the world without a passport and get through Customs. Again, I was very naive to the Swedish ways and I must confess it still leaves me a bit confused how such a thing can possibly happen. Oh well, every Land has it's own ways. I have learned to be more tolerant of other cultures and worry about myself that I begin to loose all logical and critical thinking and acquire Swedish logic.

Later I attended an SFI Swedish Language Class which is intented to teach new coming immigrants the Swedish Language and my classmates taught me how the system really works. This was back in 2000 and at that time a smugglar cost 10,000 USD. They all had similar stories and I wondered how so many Vets, Dentists, and Electrical Engineers would migrate to Sweden. Later, I found out they are given stories to tell the Immigration Department and to my surprise there was very much similarity in the stories. I assumed that Swedes were perhaps very trusting people or perhaps unwilling to question people more thoroughly or perhaps let panels of Dentists, Vets, or Engineers test them and question them about their training and skills. This seemed only logical to me at the time, but me being so naive to Swedish society and culture and their Integrity Law which to me in truth protects liars, theives, and criminals of every kind rather than having anything to do with honesty or being one of character. I think in truth it was created to protect those in the Swedish Government. I will perhaps talk about this Swedish definition of integrity in another blog entry. Here is the definition of intregrity from the websters online dictionary:

Main Entry: in·teg·ri·ty
Pronunciation: \in-ˈte-grə-tē\
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English integrite, from Middle French & Latin; Middle French integrité, from Latin integritat-, integritas, from integr-, integer entire
Date: 14th century
1 : firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values : incorruptibility
2 : an unimpaired condition : soundness
3 : the quality or state of being complete or undivided : completeness

synonyms see honesty
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/integrity