The last ten years a number of new political parties have evolved in all the Nordic countries. "Sverigedemokraterna" in Sweden, "Sannfinnländarna" in Finland, "Fremskrittspartiet" in Norway and "Dansk Folkeparti" in Denmark. The one thing in common is that they are all against immigrants moving to their countries. Well, maybe not all immigrants. They mostly focus on one category of immigrants, the Muslims.
One common mistake that these parties are doing is mixing up a number of different issues into one.
- Problems with the integration of immigrants in their respective country. This is a real problem, but not only in the Nordic countries. It is also common in many of the western countries. The immigrants does not speak the language properly, many of them are lacking proper education and their cultures differs from the one in the country they are living in. The lack of work leads to that may immigrants live in poor neighborhoods and the rate of criminal activities are higher than in the surrounding areas. But on the other hand even the well educated immigrants have a hard time finding a job. In Sweden public investigations has shown that if two people, one with a Swedish name and one immigrant with a non-Swedish name, with the same academic training apply for a job, then the immigrant will not even be called upon to be interviewed.
- Threat of Islamist terror actions. The global war on terror has had an impact on the Nordic countries. All countries have troops in Afghanistan and daily there are reports in the papers about suicide bombers n the Middle East, North Africa and Central Asia. What many do not understand is that most of the people who die by the hand of Islamist terrorist are other Muslims. The deeds also mostly take place in Muslim countries.
- Expansion of Islam. Since Islam is not one of the major religions in the Nordic countries, many people have no knowledge about the reality of this religion. Instead they read in the papers about honor killing of daughters, women being forced to wear Burka, public killings in the streets enforced by Sharia courts etc. The anti-immigrant parties add to this fear by quoting the Quran, "You shall kill thy enemy", "You shall spread the word of good by Holy War" etc. What they don´t mention is that the same writings exist in the Bible and the Torah. But since people can see what happens in the streets in some Muslim countries they connect this to the Quran in itself and not the local culture. One of the major Muslim countries is USA. As far as I know there are no Sharia courts and no public killings on the streets in USA?
The anti-immigrant parties in the Nordic countries are mixing these three categories into one with the clear message, "Islam and Muslims are evil and we don´t want them in our country". They can stay if they become native, shave their beards and act like "normal" people. The political propaganda mix the fear of the unknown Islamic threat, the threat of Islamist terror with the actual problem of immigrant integration.
In the Nordic countries there are very tolerant laws regarding the freedom of speech and the freedom of spreading information in writing. These tolerant laws has for many years been abused by different categories. Neo-Nazis has spread their propaganda about the Nazi activities during the second world war. Palestine groups have spread antisemitism in order to attack Israel (e.g. radio Islam in Sweden). Even different kind of pornographic material that is not legal in many countries has been tolerated in the Nordic countries. Today the freedom of speech is used by the anti-immigration parties and groups related to these parties. Many Nordic Internet sites are focused on Anti-Islam, Anti-Jihad, etc.
Anders Breivik wrote a manifest that has been spread on the Internet. He also e-mailed it to many people with whom he felt close relationship. As of now the Security Police in the Nordic countries is looking into this manifest to see if it holds any future threats to the Nordic countries. Who knew about Breiviks plans? Where there any people supporting the terror act? It will be very interesting if the mail-boxes of the politicians connected to the anti-immigrant parties were investigated by the police as part of the criminal investigation. Breivik has had meetings with the English Defence League (EDL), but what about the anti-immigrant parties in the Nordic countries?
When a hate message is allowed to be publicly spread it can results in three things:
1. It raises the lower threshold of what is allowed to say about other people and other religions. Sooner or later even the people on the streets will believe the message, since there is no one stopping it.
2. It can push immigrants out of the normal society and into the hands of Islamist terror groups. By not allowing people to become part of the society we therefore risk to increase the number of possible future terrorists. This is further increased by bullet no 1. Breivik clearly believes he is part of a "war". But, who started the war? The same rhetoric used by Breivik is also used by Nazis in Sweden.
3. A few of the followers of the anti-immigrant parties (as was the case with Anders Breivik who was for a number of years a member of Fremskrittspartiet in Norway) can feel the need of taking action themselves. Either against the immigrants or against the government who allow the immigrants to stay.
Bullet 2-3 clearly shows that the agenda used by the anti-immigrant parties do not decrease the threat to the society. On the contrary it will most likely increase it!
In Sweden some of the politicians with connection to the Swedish Democracy Party (Sverigedemokraterna) has gone public saying that Anders Breivik did the killing because a lot of people were against his political ideas and condemned his party. basically it is all the Muslims fault!? The message is "If you don´t feel the same way as me there is a risk that one of my followers will kill you"? Is this democracy? Now, Jimmmy Åkesson tries to clear this stain on his party by denying that this in fact is what the party believes. But why then can this message be read on anti-immigrant blogs that are linked to from SD politicians home-pages?
What is needed now is to stop the anti-immigrant rhetoric on Internet blogs with connection to political parties and in public political speeches. The anti-immigrant parties need to cut the links from them to the anti-immigrant blogs. The Nordic countries need to focus on the real problem and that is the lack of integration of the immigrants. Not Islam or not even Islamist terrorists. Otherwise this "war" risk to escalate. For too long, the message has been all hate. Now it is time to love. The people in Norway has sent this message to the rest of the world! "If one man can show so much hate, how much love couldn´t we all show together?"
SvD1, SvD2, SvD3, SvD4, SvD5, SvD6, SvD7, SvD8, SvD8, SvD9, SvD10, SvD11
DN1, DN2, DN3, DN4, DN5, DN6, DN7, DN8, DN9, DN10, DN11
Someone forget to teach you to address an issue with a critical mindset.
ReplyDeletewriting in English does not make your stupid argumentation any wiser.
I can in make a summary of you pathetic rambling. Guilt by association.
a nasty way to argument my sick friend.
Yes, I agree that I am a little bit harsh. But this is done in the same way the anti-Islam groups treat the Muslims in the Nordic countries today. Guilt by association is used everyday. All Muslims are guilty for what the Islamist terrorists are doing.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.svd.se/nyheter/inrikes/sd-bloggare-utreds-som-namndeman_6352260.svd
And Breivik has a lot of people connected to these anti-immigrant parties who feel the same as he does. You only have to follow the anti-Muslim blogs to read the same kind of twisted rhetoric as he has been using.
http://www.svd.se/nyheter/utrikes/en-ny-form-av-hogerextremism_6351154.svd
In the anti-Muslim web pages they only write articles about crimes done by Muslims. There is never a word mentioned about all the crimes made by regular Swedes, Norwegians etc. This is done in order to increase the threat that normal people and people like Breivik feel when they talk and hear about Muslims. Fear makes people vote for the anti-immigrant parties. But fear also makes the lunatics kill to protect themselves!
When the first news about the killings in Norway were published, all these anti-Muslim web pages had articles about the Muslim threat killing innocent people. It wonder what the reaction from the anti-immigrant parties would have been if it would have been an Islamist attack? I don´t believe they would have said it was a single crazy lunatic and all the rest of the Muslims are not part of this?
It is clearly time to close down these web pages and blogs and stop the "guilt by association" discussions. It is time to stop spreading fear for the Muslims. It is time to make peace.
Another Sweden Democrat shows his true side.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.svd.se/nyheter/inrikes/ytterligare-en-sd-politiker-kritiseras-for-uttalande_6352972.svd
Well, not even the FBI has got everything correct these days.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/07/fbi-islam-101-guide/
This article with an analysis of Breiviks alternate version of history is well worth reading.
ReplyDeletehttp://www.economist.com/blogs/easternapproaches/2011/07/norway-killings
The anti-Islam groups in the Nordic countries too often choose to take bits of the world history to fit their view upon the world. Very much like the christian "science" that choose bits of science to prove that the Bible is correct. The problem for both categories is that there are other parts of history and science that say otherwise.
Our "dear" Sweish anti-islamist homepages are back to business as usual.
ReplyDeletehttp://imittsverige.blogspot.com/2011/07/while-sweden-slept.html
Note that these recommended books are among Breiviks favorites.
Sooner or later there will of course be an Islamist terror attack in the Nordic countries. This can´t be denied. But is this due to our countries accepting immigrants? Nope. We could stop everyone at our borders and even throw the ones that are in our back out (as suggested by Breivik). But the only hing this would accomplish is making the Islamist terrorists more likely to hit our countries.
The way that "imittsverige" and other anti-Muslim blogs are working will only lead to disaster. Either a Islamist terrorist attack or another Breivik.