I Have Some Political Questions

[Suicane75]

I'm hoping that this doesn't devolve, so please try and keep it civil even if your view or opinion is different from someone elses. I'm looking mostly for facts and figures here.

OK, So I have a good friend who loves to talk politics, we don't agree on much and I prefer to just not discuss it but I also don't want to just dismiss him out of hand. Lately his big talking points have been that Iran was pretty much a westernized country until the Revolution in the late 70's. He uses this as a basis for being pro travel ban and restricting refugee influx. My question is, exactly how "westernized" was Iran really? My spidey sense is that he's overdoing it in description of how things were, but I don't know for sure and I'd rather not get into a detailed conversation about something I'm not sure of. So enlighten me, if you have the time.

Next point is his contention that Germany/Sweden etc have become hotbeds for rape thanks to the influx of refugees. He's linked me things, but I'm not sure how sourced or reputable his links are. I've seen numbers that suggest that overall crime is down in those countries but that rapes have risen. Again, I'm not sure about the truth or where the best place to find the most accurate statistics are.

So, throw some knowledge at me, share links, studies, etc.

[wustin]

Pretty sure only the wealthy Iranians at the time enjoyed the westernization. A driving force for the revolution was the increasing gap between the rich and the poor due to inflation.

[molson]

I don't know enough to answer these questions, but you did inspire me to look up this:

Iran before the revolution in photos - Business Insider

[Suicane75]

Yeah, I read that on Wikipedia, which I tried to use, but it didn't really get into a lot of detail about the culture.

[NobodyHere]

Originally Posted by wustin

Pretty sure only the wealthy Iranians at the time enjoyed the westernization. A driving force for the revolution was the increasing gap between the rich and the poor due to inflation.

Well in the US in seems that the increasing divide between poor and wealthy is "western" too

[Groundhog]

Originally Posted by Suicane75

Next point is his contention that Germany/Sweden etc have become hotbeds for rape thanks to the influx of refugees. He's linked me things, but I'm not sure how sourced or reputable his links are. I've seen numbers that suggest that overall crime is down in those countries but that rapes have risen. Again, I'm not sure about the truth or where the best place to find the most accurate statistics are.

I know a little bit about the rapes in Sweden thanks to Trump's big mouth. Reported rapes fell from 2014 to 2015 (no 2016 figures in the article I read), and per 100,000 people are significantly less than the UK (100/100,000 for the UK, 60/100,000) for Sweden.

The Swedish government also claims that a higher percentage of rape victims come forward than in other countries for a few reasons, but I don't know any way of proving that with statistics.

[Suicane75]

Originally Posted by Groundhog

I know a little bit about the rapes in Sweden thanks to Trump's big mouth. Reported rapes fell from 2014 to 2015 (no 2016 figures in the article I read), and per 100,000 people are significantly less than the UK (100/100,000 for the UK, 60/100,000) for Sweden.

The Swedish government also claims that a higher percentage of rape victims come forward than in other countries for a few reasons, but I don't know any way of proving that with statistics.

Yeah, this is what I had read as well.

[Atocep]

What's getting twisted is the fact that Sweden has broadened it's definition of rape a couple times over the past decade plus and Sweden's efforts to decrease the number of unreported rapes.

As for a study that covers the overall theme of the discussion:

Immigration is not linked to rise in crime, study finds. In fact, it lowers it - University at Buffalo

[sabotai]

This article is from over a month ago

Here are Sweden's crime stats for 2016: analysis - The Local

“What criminologists do is to look at the 10-year, 20-year development. Then we can see the trends. Year to year, it’s impossible to judge why changes occur,” he added.

An example of a figure from Brå’s statistics which paints one picture in isolation but a different one with further context is that the number of rapes reported in Sweden increased by 13 percent in 2016 to 6,560.

But when that number is compared to 2014, where the number of reported rapes was 6,700, then a slight decrease can actually be seen. In other words, the number of reported rapes in Sweden dipped in 2015 (down by 12 percent to 5,920) then in 2016 it returned to around the same level as 2014.

Seen over a ten-year period, the number of reported rapes has gone up from 4,208 in 2006, partly because of legislative changes in the previous year and in 2013 broadening the definition, according to Brå.

[SteveM58]

On whether Iran was a westernized "culture" (which I think is the right term here), my understanding is that this is generally true. Starting with the CIA-driven coup in 1953 until the fall of the Shah in 1979.

Now, obviously any version of "western" culture from the 1970s and before (including the US) is going to look much different to us if we had a time machine and could go back right now. But the era of the Shah was a dictatorship which embraced many western values prior to the overthrow. So imperfect and flawed, but not a cesspool of despair, to my understanding. Iran is more modern and (what we might call) western today than most of the Middle East, and certainly not a cesspool of despair for the people there.

On the 2nd point related to rapes by Middle Eastern immigrants in European countries accepting the large influxes....yes there have been incidents. Do they make a dent in crime statistics beyond what the native culture has? I can't find statistics either direction. I've also read that some amount of the ME immigrants aren't integrating into the native societies so, if thats true (not a guarantee), it wouldn't be shocking that the isolated groups of immigrants may have different social norms about reporting crimes, or crimes of particular types (not just rape).

So yeah, I wasn't much help on the stats and data side. But I'm not sure these topics are going to be as clear as showing a report of rape being down or up...so therefore the immigration is good/bad.

[PilotMan]

This is the most accurate article I've found regarding Sweden.

Trump Exaggerates Swedish Crime

[JPhillips]

I'm not an expert, but from what I understand Iran was both westernized and not westernized. The Shah certainly had close connections to the West and there was plenty of travel and trade, but there were plenty of people that embraced a conservative, religious lifestyle well before the revolution.

In a sense it isn't any different today as Iran has plenty of western influenced culture alongside the conservative, religious officially sanctioned culture.

[Marc Vaughan]

Originally Posted by Suicane75

Next point is his contention that Germany/Sweden etc have become hotbeds for rape thanks to the influx of refugees. He's linked me things, but I'm not sure how sourced or reputable his links are. I've seen numbers that suggest that overall crime is down in those countries but that rapes have risen. Again, I'm not sure about the truth or where the best place to find the most accurate statistics are..

One of the main things to realise with this is the 'definition' of rape and how its reported within most European countries is VERY different to how its done here - its also worth realizing that a lot of the reports going on are simply not true and are driven by a right wing film maker doing shock journalism for a documentary.

The best way to get a balanced viewpoint is to source from actual news websites from those countries if you don't have friends from the regions involved ... if you don't speak swedish and find the auto-translation hard to handle then snopes has done a fair summary of things which I'll link to below.

Summary is crime is no worse than it was back in 2005 pretty much.

Snopes - Swedish Crime

Swedish Newspaper Link for Crime (discussing the 'report' of the Swedish police person) - Warning in Swedish

[Suicane75]

Thank you very much guys. I appreciate the help.

[Toddzilla]

Glad you asked as I actually lived in Iran in the mid-70s.

The Shah was very western-friendly and so that influenced the "westernization" of Iran if you can call it that. To me - I was 8-9 at the time - Iran was very primitive. If you consider the odd man wearing jeans or sneakers, then yeah, it was getting all western, but to an American like me, it was nothing like I'd ever seen and nothing like the United States at all. No American TV or radio, no advertisements, no movies, nothing like that.

So maybe someone who grew up in 40's and 50's Iran would say that by the mid 70's Iran was getting western-IZED, but it was NOT western by any stretch.

[CrescentMoonie]

I'll add that Tehran's Mehrabad was one of the busiest airports in the region during the 70s. This blog has another set of photos from the 60s and 70s. I'll agree with those who said that modern Tehran is fairly close to the level of westernization as before. Sci-hub, and Persian knockoffs, is huge there as their universities are actually quite good.

Also, Germany has recently said that things like the roving bands of refugees raping women was bunk.