Ping to the Swedish Ping List.
Posted on 12/06/2005 6:13:42 AM PST by Mount Athos
As a group of Swedish Muslims begin their midday prayers in a mosque still blackened by smoke from a recent Molotov-cocktail attack, Bejzat Becirov, director of Malmo's Islamic Center, is talking urgently.
"I'm afraid the same thing will happen here as in Paris," says Mr. Becirov, a Macedonian immigrant who opened Scandinavia's first mosque in this city in southern Sweden in 1984.
Malmo, which has one of the highest percentage of Muslims of any western European city, illustrates the challenges facing a continent whose native population is increasingly wary of a rapidly expanding and often discontented Muslim population.
But while the mosque has been a target for attacks since its founding, there is increasing evidence that Islamic militants are gaining a foothold in Sweden by successfully exploiting racial tensions and Muslim anger over economic underachievement, and ghettoization.
Bosnian authorities arrested a Muslim Swede in Sarajevo in October for possession of explosives while Islamist websites published several inflammatory but unsubstantiated claims in late summer that a mujahideen training camp has been established in southern Sweden.
Meanwhile moderate Muslims like Becirov, whose progressive mosque is a place where Sunnis and Shiites praying side by side, are increasingly under fire from both Swedish nationalists who see them as dangerous representatives of radical Islam and Muslim fundamentalists who see them as selling out to Western ideas.
"It's been like hell on earth to deal with this whole process," sighs Becirov, displaying Swedish press accounts of the last firebombing of the mosque Oct. 21.
But although the attacks on Becirov's mosque have generated support from Muslims in Sweden and abroad, many Malmo Muslims are turning to increasingly radical forms of Islam - in some cases alienated by Becirov himself.
"This mosque is no good," says one Palestinian refugee who works nearby. "The imam, he is no good. He says one thing and he does another," he says, accusing him of un-Islamic activities, such as drinking alcohol.
Such suspicions may be pushing even mainstream Swedish Muslims toward radical street preachers, especially in the nearby suburb of Rosengaard where Muslim immigrants form a substantial majority.
"These neighborhoods are hunting grounds for Islamists but how many and how organized [they are] it's impossible to say," says Aje Carlbom, a Malmo University researcher who began studying Rosengaard society nearly ten years ago.
"Twenty years ago when the mosque was established they [its founders] had some political problems and pushed the different factions out," Carlbom explains. "These small factions established their own mosques in basements."
It is a pattern echoed across Europe. While moderate Muslims may disown extremists and bar them from mosques, they do little to challenge extremist ideologies and the radical preachers merely regroup elsewhere, out of sight of both mainstream Muslims and the authorities.
"I know for a fact that there are small extremist groups in Malmo," says Arjumand Carlstein, a social worker at Malmo Islamic Centre, attached to the mosque. "And apart from the organized groups, you also have the Internet and extremists can easily communicate with each other in other parts of the world."
This global phenomenon appears to be spreading to Sweden. In August, several short video clips appeared on the Internet purporting to show experimental detonations of explosives in a wooded valley, supposedly in Sweden.
In September, another Islamist website claiming to speak for Ansar Al-Sunna, the Iraqi terrorist group, said the group had established "a small isolated training camp in southern Sweden."
"We wish to inform the Ummah," said the website, referring to the global Islamic community, "that the Army of Ansar Al-Sunnah in Sweden are well-trained to defend our holy countries ... having established a Mujahideen training camp, located in Skane [the region in southern Sweden that includes Malmo] ... with the help from Allah."
The website's authors claimed that the camp would only be used to train fighters for combat abroad. However they also promised to "capture and punish" the Swedish Evangelist preacher Runar Sogaard who in March called Islam's Prophet Mohammad a "pedophile" for marrying a girl who, according to many Muslim traditions, was only 9 years old.
The website has since been closed down, and experts interviewed for this article were unaware of any such camps. However, the jihadists' claims suggest that problems lie beneath the placid exterior of Swedish society.
While lavish welfare payments have to some extent enabled Sweden to buy off Muslim discontent more effectively than France, some think this has also fomented other problems by preventing many immigrants from advancing economically or socially in Swedish society.
"The Swedish system is very pacifying," says Carlstein. "A lot of people feel you don't have to get a job or learn the language," adding that unemployment and social immobility can help fuel radicalism.
But so far there have been no terrorist attacks or Paris-style revolts in Sweden, and violence in Malmo has been largely between criminal gangs, together with some sporadic attacks against Jewish targets and municipal buses.
"France has a tradition of revolt and demonstration against the state," says Jonathan Friedman, professor of social anthropology at the nearby University of Lund. "But in Sweden it's almost as if the state has sided with the immigrants against the Swedish working class."
"Sweden thinks of itself as immune from terrorism because of its foreign policies," adds Magnus Ranstorp, an analyst at the Swedish National Defence College.
"But one has to be worried about issues like in Holland," he continues, referring to the murder of filmmaker Theo van Gogh, "although it would take a lot for something like that to happen in Sweden."
How nice, a Little Mecca right in the heart of Scandinavia. I think the Swedes will regret this before too long.
It's simple Sweden. Convert or die. What's the problem?
Ping to the Swedish Ping List.
That is going to jump up and bite them sooner than they think.
BTW, you'll have to remove the cross from that flag.
Muslims will always be discontented as long as an infidel lives. Its in their book.
More:
http://www.lauramansfield.com/j/112905_sweden2.asp
29 November, 2005: Stockholm Mosques: selling cassettes with Statue of Liberty in burning American flag, calling for a genocidal jihad against Jews; Imams saying one thing in Swedish and another in Arabic
by Laura Mansfield
It will probably come as no surprise to Iraqi-born Swedish journalist Salam Karam that a Stockholm mosque is selling audio cassettes calling for a Holy War against Jews. Swedish Radio News reports that one of the cassettes shows a picture of the Statue of Liberty wrapped in a burning American flag.
According to the report, a spokesman for the mosque blamed volunteers for stocking the mosque bookstore with the cassettes. (Sales of material promoting genocide are against the law in Sweden.)
But Salam Karam has had much the same experience that I did. He started investigating the mosque in Medborgarplatsen Square in Stockholm. His goal: to compare the Imam's speeches in Arabic with the interpreters Swedish translations.
He found that violent tirades against the United States and other Western countries were never translated.
His report cites the following example:
“America rapes Islam,” the Imam roars in Arabic from the platform
“We condemn USA:s torture of Iraqi prisoners” says the translator
Another example cited by Salam is the following:
Friday May 14, when SvD visited the mosque, the Imam was talking about the torture pictures of Iraqi prisoners in the Abu Ghraib prison. Hassan Mousa speaks formal, classical Arabic and roars into the microphone.
“What's wrong with you grandchildren of Mohammed? How long will you endure this humiliation of Muslims without reacting? American and British soldiers, grandchildren of Hitler, are torturing Muslims in Iraq.”
The words sink like a carpet bombing over the hall. Everybody feels them. Many have tears in their eyes. Heads are sunk and eyes are lowered onto the the blue coloured soft carpet.
Minutes later the Swedish translation of the speech is read by an interpreter. In Swedish, the American torture of Iraqi prisoners is condemned, but at the same time the translator emphasizes earlier good works for Muslims done by the US, among others in Bosnia. Not a word on how America is raping Islam, is the enemy of Islam and wants Muslims to be humiliated and under submission.
According to Salam, the Imam denies that the mosque spreads double messages. The Imam blames the Swedish language for the differences:
“It just happened. Arabic is a much richer language than Swedish. It's impossible to translate everything. I usually improvise as I speak as well and say things that aren't in the translation.”
Another example cited by Salam follows:
Quote from the Imam's sermon in Arabic:
“How long will you sit with your arms crossed and watch as the enemies of Islam imprisons your brothers and sisters, torture them, dishonour and kill them? Have we as Muslims sunk so low that we allow American soldiers to rape us and piss on us? Haven't you understood that America doesn't want what is best for the Muslims? Haven't you understood that the only thing America wants is the humiliation of Muslims? Haven't you understood that America wants that the grandchildren of the Prophet submit to Bush.
America will pay the price for all martyrs who have died in Palestine. There are those who are spreading lies in the media, saying that we in the mosque don't think that the former Hamas Leader, Sheik Ahmad Yassin, is a martyr, He is certainly a martyr and the martyr of martyrs. I want everybody in Sweden to know that.”
Quote from the interpreter's Swedish translation of the Imam's sermon:
“We condemn America's torture of Iraqi prisoners. The UN:s treaties forbid torture. We want the Americans who are responsible to brought before the court. America has committed inhuman acts. But at the same time we want to remind Muslims to not judge all Americans alike... Think about all American parents who sent their children to Bosnia in order to help Muslims there.”
How big of a problem is jihad in Sweden?
The infamous Jihadi Kids video, released on the internet in the summer of 2004 showing children reenacting the beheading of American hostage Nick Berg, originated on a Swedish website.
This weekend, a video was released on the internet from Sweden features a man claiming to represent a Swedish group loyal to Al Qaeda terrorist Abu Mus'ab al Zarqawi. The man identifies himself as a member of the Swedish Branch of the Tawhid wa Jihad group. In the video, the man sits in front of a poster with the word Allah featured prominently. A Qu'ran sits beside him, along with two items that appear to be shells which are wired to a third device, presumably a detonator. (See related article at http://www.lauramansfield.com/j/112605_sweden.asp)
It’s clear that Sweden, like most other western countries, has a serious problem with Islamic radicals.
Houston, we have a problem!
And it’s not just in the mosques of Sweden. It’s happening in the mosques of the United states and throughout the world.
Ping
Yep, they're like cockroaches.
"But while the mosque has been a target for attacks since its founding, there is increasing evidence that Islamic militants are gaining a foothold in Sweden by successfully exploiting racial tensions and Muslim anger over economic underachievement, and ghettoization."
No wonder the muslim immigrants are gnashing their teeth. They have to live in a ghetto surrounded by muslims. I'd be pissed too.
From the spiraling number of muslim dead from the global jihaad, I think they have a problem with each other too, not just with infidels.
I don't know how you refute so-called extremist ideologies when the so-called extremist's can point to the Koran for justification.
As a non Muslim (Infidel)after having read the Koran, I believe the so-called extremists have the correct interpretation, and the moderates are more interested in getting along in this world, than seeking eternal salvation with Allah, by getting infidel blood on their hands. - Tom
There are only three kinds of Muslims:
1) Murderous jihadists
2) Enablers of murderous jihadists
3) Lapsed Muslims
I pray for the day when only the third kind will exist.
Pacifist may not be a strong enough word to describe Swedish culture. They are not only inactive, but active promoting inactivity, if that makes sense.
The fact is that the muslums are outbreeding the Swedes...and Norewigens, and French....hell, just about everyone. Couple that with abortion on demand within western civilization, and you are faced with a grim and grimy situation....living in the 6th century dirt...with your women walking around mutiltated, ignorant and covered with a dirty tent.
If Ben Laden and Zarqui's goal was world wide mohammadism, all they would have to do is back off and just let it happen....but they are such arrogant lunitics they want to see it happen themselves and take the credit for it.
Gustavus Adolphus and Charles XII must be rolling over in their graves.
It's sad. Sweden HAD a strong Christian history. But the stupid Swedes have surrendered--willingly--their wonderful heritage, in exchange for a thoroughly secularized mess of pottage. My devout Lutheran Swedish grandparents are spinning in their graves.
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