Don't us Swedes need to start open up?

Last Thursday I went to a so called "language cafe" outside of Stockholm in a place called Fittja.

It was my first time in Fittja and people who knows me also knows how far away from town I consider that being. It's amazing how quickly you become a sad city slicker. I mean, 10 year ago I lived in a small town in the north of Sweden. The town were I grew up, that is.

Now I have recently moved to a place called Aspudden, after living for many years in the centre of town. Aspudden is a lovely place with lots of green areas, water and even som cliffs. It only takes ten minutes on the tube to get to the City Terminal in Stockholm. The perfect place to live I guess. And still I'm having problems accepting that I'm not living slam bang in the middle of town any more.

So, back to Fittja. I felt a bit lost, at first, when I got there, as it was as far out of town I've ever been on the tube. I did not see much of the place, as the "language cafe" is located a few hundred metres from the tube, so I can't tell you much about Fittja. But my feeling of being lost transformed in to excitment when I got to the cafe.

Short about the cafe. It is organised by SWERA (Swedish Refugee Aid) and it's open for refugees that want to meet Swedes and practice their Swedish. The Swedes there are people that have signed up as volonteers for this and other things, wanting to help in the integration process or/and just meet new interesting people.

So, as I said it was exciting at the meeting. Managed to have really interesting conversations even though the people I spoke to barely spoke any Swedish. It was great, I learned a lot and had lots of fun.

There were way more refugees there than volonteers there though. And it made me think. Are Swedes not interested in meeting people from other cultures? Isn't it as much fun and as interesting for a Swede as for a refugee to learn about other cultures and to meet people that the probably wouldn't meet otherwise? Isn't it just as important for Swedes as it is for foreigners that integration in Sweden works in a better way than it does at the moment?

According to one of the guys I spoke to at the cafe there is no longer any faith/trust between Swedes and foreigners. He blamed the small percentage of refugees that comes here and makes trouble and don't follow the law, as he said. Or actually as he said, wrote and explained with the help of a Swedish - Arabic dictionary. I don't think it's just that simple though. I believe that us Swedes need to open up properly and honestly to new citizens of this country. If we do many of the current problems would go away.