Stockholm beggars, still clogging streets, store entrances, and subway entrances throughout the city, reflect a problem all of Sweden is experiencing. The beggars come primarily from Romania and employ such identical passive approaches that it’s hard to believe they aren’t shown, by some phantom figure (boss), exactly what they are to do.

Stockholm beggars

I wrote extensively about beggars in Stockholm a year ago, describing links between these beggars and organized crime syndicates in Romania. I then traveled to Romania to further research organized crime and human trafficking of beggars (and pickpockets). The comments posted to these articles, and others, reveal the divisive split among Swedes who, as a friend of mine quips, are either beggar-huggers or xenophobes.

Thus, the stage is set for a polarizing political agenda, which the Sweden Democrat Party has just taken to a new venue: the Stockholm subway system. There, bold text in English begins:

“Sorry about the mess here in Sweden. We have a serious problem with forced begging. International gangs profit from people’s desperation. Goverment [sic] won’t do what’s needed. But we will!”

The party has taken this anti-begging platform to the subway platform where, ironically, one is likely to have just witnessed the very subject of the platform immediately before coming face to typeface with its blatant message. One must step around at least one sprawling beggar at virtually every subway door.

Why is this audacious political message in English? Why is it in the subway at all? Well, the public transport system can’t discriminate among advertisers, so it can’t stop the ad campaign. And though the ad pretends to inform foreign visitors, it is obviously speaking to Swedish voters (who practically all speak English).

If you visited Sweden four or more years ago, you doubtless remember the pristine condition of public and private spaces. One can’t help but notice the stark difference today. Beggars languish here and there on pavements made filthy with dark stains. Stuffed black trash bags are piled near each beggar, sometimes in baby strollers or shopping carts. Laundry is spread on the ground around some beggars, along with beverage cups, food packets, and blankets. The areas they squat look like mini-slums.

The message in the subway specifically targets forced begging, which is the heart of the controversy in Sweden. Are these beggars organized and trafficked by crime bosses? Or are they desperately poor, unable to get help in their home countries, and seeking a better life in a rich nation full of possibilities? Or are they seeking a lifetime of handouts with no intention to immerse themselves in a new culture, learn the language, seek gainful employment?

The beggar-huggers must believe that all these East European beggars—all several thousand of them—came as sole and separate individuals; and that each is uneducated, each unable to work—yet each has organized herself (most of these beggars are women), traveled herself, found her own begging place and sleeping place, her own laminated family photo to display… It’s impossible to imagine these passive women, who at most now whimper “hej-hej” (hello) to passersby, mustering the gumption to attempt such an international endeavor.

The xenophobes blame immigrants for the mess. Others cry racial foul. But the hatred isn’t for an ethnic group—it’s for a work ethic. Begging has been a rare phenomenon in Sweden, therefore arousing real sympathy. Altruistic Swedes readily opened their purses. Now, with a beggar on every corner and ubiquitous rumblings of organization by crime syndicates, Swedes are uncertain, confused, afraid to trust their innate generosity, and afraid of what others will think of them if they don’t.