Haby, married to a Tunisian, has an interesting background. While growing up in a single room apartment in Gothenburg with her parents, one brother and one sister, her aspiration was to become a physical education teacher.“But when the time came to choose a profession, I chose to become a nurse and later specialized in surgery. It's a fantastic profession that involves close and trustworthy interaction with people. I've worked both in the public and the private sectors, and I've had union responsibilities. It comes naturally that health care is one of my dearest passions. Throughout my life I've always liked to take on new tasks and gain experience. I've run a business and a dental practice, and I participated in the start up of the Scandinavian Heart Center in Gothenburg. At 35-years-old I decided to get involved in politics; the closing of a school and the continuous bad management of the Sahlgrenska Hospital where I worked were the key factors. Since 1998 I've been a full-time politician. I currently have a seat in the municipal assembly of Gothenburg as well as in the governing body of the Moderate Party and the EU regional committee,” explained Haby in an interview with Sunday's Zaman.
“I've always reacted strongly against unjustified bureaucracy and the unfair treatment of people. Common sense and a sound attitude toward our fellow men are the cornerstones of my political work. For me it's very important to be close to my electorate. It's from them that I receive advice, support and criticism, and that is what encourages me. … My husband is from Tunisia. You can see Islamophobia everywhere, and that concerns me,” says Haby in the interview, which was held shortly after Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt, the head of the conservative Moderate Party, paid an official visit to Turkey.
Kulu, a town in the Central Anatolian province of Konya where almost every family has had at least one member living in Sweden for decades, was Reinfeldt's first stop before he headed for the capital city of Ankara. Kulu is situated approximately 110 kilometers from Ankara and 150 kilometers from the city of Konya.
Victim or inhabitant
Since the mid-1960s, an estimated 35,000 residents of Kulu have left to find fortune in and around Stockholm.
“I won't express ideas from an angle that is just for them, because for me it is important that the Turkish people, the Kurdish people, the Somali people, the Iraqis in Gothenburg -- they will all be inhabitants, not a minority,” Haby responded when asked what she would pledge to people coming from Turkey if she were delivering a speech at a city hall that was full of immigrants from Turkey.
“Because I hate this thing of grouping people because it makes a label that no one will have. I don't want to have a label that I'm Swedish or Turkish. I'm a typical Swedish woman, but I'm Susanna Haby. And I'm an international person because my family is everywhere,” Haby said.
“I think as the government we have the right tools nowadays. We were not working that well before. What we need to do is to see what these people's needs and abilities are. But we made them victims, pressed them down and we made them victims. We must now serve them in order to assist them in becoming inhabitants. We couldn't develop integration together with them, we put them apart. We have these political issues with which we put them aside, and now we have a divided society. We have to all be integrated so that the neighbor line is nowadays is very obvious. Here we're working with this government in order to have immigrant society contributing to society with full capacity. All of us have to be involved, because otherwise troubles and conflicts will emerge and we will have these ghettos,” the openhearted politician said.
“We have to see them as persons, I'm so sorry, but yes, we did it, we made them victims.”
