Who sets the political agenda in Sweden?
And who actually holds the reins of power?
A large number of Swedish Muslims, backed up by extremist supporters flooding in from Denmark, marched through the streets of Malmö in southern Sweden shouting the notorious Muslim battle-cry ”Khaiber, Khaiber ya yahud, ya’ish Muhammad saufa ya‘ud” (Khaiber, Khaiber, Oh Jews, Mohammed’s army will return to finish you off). This racist call to arms refers to the Muslim slaughter of Jews about 1300 years ago in the oasis of Khaiber in what is now Saudi Arabia. The problem is that this racist battle-cry is echoing through the streets of Malmö in March 2009 – and nobody is being arrested for racial incitement.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMP0_DMaIjU&hl=en&fs=1]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMP0_DMaIjU
This is one picture of how some Muslims choose to profile their social mores, political beliefs and religious affiliations.
A totally different picture of Muslim-Jewish relations is obtained when reading an article written by an objective observer of Israel from the inside.
The writer is an Arab. And a Muslim.Ishmael Khaldi holds is Israel’s deputy consul general for the Pacific Northwest in the United States. He writes as follows.
Other Muslims with insight into both the Muslim and the Jewish Israeli worlds also provide a different view. Their perceptions are based on their flight from Muslim Sudan through Muslim Egypt and past a whole raft of Muslim states in order to seek and receive asylum in the world’s only Jewish nation, Israel.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGa2_8tgsKw&hl=en&fs=1]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGa2_8tgsKw&eurl
There thus appears to be a worrying disconnect between how Swedish Muslims view Jews on the one hand, and the way Israeli Muslims and Muslim refugees from countries formally at war with Israel view Jews.
How is it that perceptions in Sweden are so radically and frighteningly different?
Could it be because of Sweden’s infatuation with political correctness, no matter what that costs Swedish society? Or because the Left has so totally infiltrated the media that there is no longer any room for an alternative discourse other than the radically pro-Islamist and anti-Semitic narrative pursued among an increasingly vociferous Muslim population? It should be noted that about one-quarter of the population of Malmö is Muslim and the Left-wing parties are currently in opposition, with the government being headed by a centrist coalition. With Sweden’s Muslims numbering about 400,000 (out of a total population of 9 million) the next election could be decided on the streets of Malmö. One TV report among many others that poses interesting questions can be seen here.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRnP-XzB_U0&hl=en&fs=1]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRnP-XzB_U0
Irrespective of whether one’s political affiliations are aligned towards the Left or the Right or anywhere in between, these contrasting snapshots undoubtedly pose some interesting questions.
Perhaps foremost among these questions is: how is it that the Swedish Left consistently refuses to strongly, openly and unequivocally distance itself from the extremist Islamist forces that always seem to figure so prominently in Left-wing gatherings? The demonstration against Israel’s participation in the Davis Cup tennis tournament in Malmö on March 7 turned into an outright anti-Semitic hate-fest, yet Socialist Party (formerly known as the Communist Party) leader Lars Ohly was proudly wearing a keffiyeh which showed all of Israel erased and replaced by the single Islamistic Arab state of Palestine. A policy entirely in line with what prominent – and highly vocal – Socialist Party figure Muhammad Omar openly supports (this article is in Swedish).
A Swedish Member of Parliament wearing a keffiyeh that clearly shows the whole of Israel eradicated and replaced by a single Islamist Palestine. Democracy in Sweden in 2009 has a distinctly worrying future.
If Swedish domestic security is not to continue to be shaped by cruel events from Middle Ages Khaiber in the Arabian Peninsula, and if Swedish foreign policy is not to continue to be dictated by political demagogues sowing seeds of racist hatred in order to reap a political harvest in the next elections, then Swedish politicians, the media, the police and judiciary, the nation’s schools – in short, Swedish society – is going to have to think very carefully about where the nation is headed.
Towards democracy, or towards democracy’s destruction.