The Brussels Journal has published an essay describing the clash of civilizations in Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. If you want to know what’s been happening in Scandanavia, this lengthy, depressing article is worth your time. All emphases are mine.
Denmark
It was no coincidence that the issue with the Muhammad cartoons started in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, as Denmark is probably the one Western nation where the debate surrounding Muslim immigration is most mainstream and open. Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen’s centre-right government has imposed some of the toughest regulations in the EU on asylum seekers.
Unfortunately, this does not mean that Denmark’s problems are over. In 2005 attackers set fire to the immigration minister’s car. A leftist groupcalling itself “Beatte Without Borders†said it carried out the attack, condemning the government’s “racist immigration policies.†Muslim extremists have declared that the Danish PM and Defense Minister are legitimate terror targets because of Denmark’s participation in Iraq. Members of Denmark’s moderate Muslim community say they are reluctant to speak out with critical observations of their religion, fearing social isolation, threats and violence . . .
Imam Abu Laban was one of the prime movers in making the cartoons a major international issue: “We want to internationalize this issue so that the Danish government will realize that the cartoons were insulting, not only to Muslims in Denmark, but also to Muslims worldwide,†Abu Laban said. He has earlier tried to implement sharia practices in Denmark. In one prominent case, two men were killed in a row involving a group of second generation immigrants in Copenhagen. According to Imam Abu Laban the thirst for revenge could be cooled if 200,000 kroner in “blood money†were paid to the victims’ families. The 200,000 Danish kroner is approximately the value of 100 camels, the stipulated sharia price for a Muslim man’s life.
Meanwhile, there is growing fear amongst politicians that the immigrant environment in the Nørrebro area in Copenhagen, which has been unofficially declared an “Islamic state†by some of its residents, is developing into a parallel society where ancient traditions threaten Danish law . . .
. . . In 2004 a leading Danish mufti said that Danish women not wearing the veil “were asking for rape,†a comment seemingly less offensive to the Muslim community than a few cartoons. The twelve Muhammad cartoonists now live underground and with police protection.
Norway
In Norway Bruce Bawer, the author of the recent book While Europe Slepti, tells on his website of the capitulation of Velbjørn Selbekk, the editor of the tiny Christian periodical Magazinet – the first publication to reprint the now famous Muhammed cartoons. He had firmly resisted pressure by Muslim extremists (who made death threats) and by the Norwegian establishment. But then Norway’s Minister of Labor and Social Inclusion hastily called a press conference at a major government office building in Oslo. There Selbekk issued an abject apology for reprinting the cartoons. At his side, accepting his act of contrition on behalf of 46 Muslim organizations and asking that all threats now be withdrawn, was Mohammed Hamdan, head of Norway’s Islamic Council. In attendance were members of the Norwegian cabinet and the largest assemblage of imams in Norway’s history. It was a picture right out of a sharia courtroom, with the Muslim leader declaring Selbekk to be henceforth under his protection.
Two representatives from the Islamic Council for Norway and a senior pastor representing Oslo’s bishop then visited Qatar, where they were to meet the top Muslim leader Dr Yusuf Al Qaradawi. The trip, partially funded by the Norwegian authorities, was a public relations effort on the part of Norway, which had suddenly found itself the target of Muslim outrage because the cartoons that originated in Denmark were reprinted in a Norwegian publication. Qaradawi has supported suicide bombings, and has publicly bragged about how “Islam will conquer Europe.†The “moderate†Sheikh Qaradawi was not satisfied with the apology from the Norwegian editor who printed the Muhammad cartoons. He wanted to dictate that Norway adopt Islamic blasphemy laws . . . [The ACLU’s Parvez Ahmed wants to do the same thing in the U.S.—Ed.]
Mullah Krekar, the former leader of the Islamic terror group Ansar al-Islam, still lives in Norway, even though he has pretty much openly threatened the country with terror attacks and has called Osama bin Laden “the jewel of Islam.†At the same time, Krekar denies he is a threat to national security in Norway . . .
In 2005 Stortinget, the Norwegian parliament, passed a new Discrimination Act. The act says in pretty clear words that in cases of suspected direct or indirect discrimination based on religion or ethnicity, native Norwegians are guilty until proven otherwise . . . Reverse burden of proof is combined with liability to pay compensation, which means that innocent persons risk having to pay huge sums for things they did not do. In 2005 the Norwegian police issued a mobile security alarm to Progress Party leader Carl I. Hagen. Hagen had criticized Islam, and could see no similarity with the concept of morality and justice found in Christianity. Hagen also said that if Israel loses in the Middle East, Europe will succumb to Islam next. He feels that Christians should support Israel and oppose Islamic inroads into Europe. In an unprecedented step, a group of Muslim ambassadors to Norway blasted Carl I. Hagen in a letter to the newspaper Aftenposten, claiming that he had offended 1.3 billion Muslims around the world. Other Norwegian politicians quickly caved in and condemned Hagen.
Unidentified assailants fired shots at an Oslo restaurant owned by the family of a Pakistani-born female comedienne who has achieved prominence for lampooning conservative Islam. The comedienne, Shabana Rehman, described the incident as “an appalling act of terror†and said it would not deter her from continuing her work. Samira Munir, a Norwegian politician of Pakistani origin, was found dead under suspicious circumstances at a train station outside Oslo in November 2005. She had received death threats many times from the Pakistani community in Norway because of her courageous fight for the rights of Muslim immigrant women, and for banning hijab, the Islamic veil. The leader of the Socialist Left party and now Norway’s Minister of Finance, Kristin Halvorsen, praised all the “blood, sweat and tears Pakistanis in Norway have spent on building the country†when she started the party’s election campaign in the Pakistani countryside in 2005.
Sweden
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. . . The ruling Social Democratic party went to the drastic length of closing down the website of a competing political party that featured a Muhammad cartoon online . . . Probably no other Western nation has more problems with, yet less debate about Muslim immigration than Sweden, and the only thing the elites are doing about this is demonizing neighboring Denmark for “xenophobia.†The Swedish security services (Säpo), in collusion with Foreign Minister Leila Freivalds, forced the website SD-Kuriren offline for publishing the Jyllands-Posten cartoons. SD-Kuriren is the house publication of the hard-right Swedish Democrats. Freivalds stated that “it is terrible that a small group of extremists are exposing Swedes to danger [by reprinting the cartoons].†. . . The Sweden Democrats and SD-Kuriren received threats after the publication of the pictures. Violent assaults and life threatening attacks against members of the Swedish Democrats, by Muslims or “anti-Fascists,†have taken place many times, but are rarely mentioned in the media. No dissent is tolerated in Sweden.
. . . Two Swedish girls were sent home from school for wearing sweaters showing a tiny Swedish flag. The headmaster was concerned that this might be deemed offensive by some immigrants. Helle Klein, political editor of the newspaper Aftonbladet, boasts: “If the debate is going to be about whether there are problems with immigrants, we don’t want it.†Hans Bergström, former editor-in-chief of the Swedish newspaper Dagens Nyheter, worries that Sweden has become “a one-party state.â€
In a sermon at Filadelfia church in Stockholm in March 2005 the Norwegian celebrity evangelist preacher Runar Søgaard, repeated his declaration that Muhammad was “a confused pedophile†since his wives included a girl aged nine years old. Søgaard was placed under police protection after receiving death threats. The sermon triggered fears of a religious war in Sweden. Muslim radicals posted a very explicit threat to launch a wave of terrorist attacks against Sweden for the “insult.†In February 2005 a Swedish museum removed an erotic painting plastered with verses from the Koran from an exhibition about AIDS. Some vocal members of the Muslim community launched a letter-writing campaign that resulted in hundreds of e-mails, among them messages along the lines of “remember what happened in Holland.†The museum, however, insisted that the “threats†it received had nothing to do with the removal of the work. At the same time, the Swedish historian of religion Matthias Gardell claims that Islamophobia is perhaps the greatest threat to democracy in the Western world today. The Swedish writer and leftist intellectual Jan Guillou has stated that the rhetoric employed by the Nazis against Jews is now used to target Muslims. In Sweden an anti-Semitic crime is reported to the police once every three days . . .
- An excellent book I recently read.↩
As Mark Steyn recently wrote, paraphrasing Jim Carvell’s famous line for Clinton’s successful presidential campaign, ‘It’s about the demographics, stupid.’
There are European websites which have calculated the differing growth rates of immigrant populations versus indigenous populations in several European nations, and yes, the sheik is correct, several European nations will become Muslim eventually, while their principal urban areas will become majority Muslim quite soon (Copenhagen, and perhaps Paris stand out as examples).
Both Islam and Christianity are proselytizing salvific religions; but whereas Islam is a warrior’s religion (an honor/shame society), Christianity celebrates self-abnegation (a guilt/righteous society). It is very difficult to imagine how self-abnegation will succeed, philosophically, against the honor code of a warrior.
Europe’s immigration policies will create naturally what two military attempts at Vienna failed to do: make Europe Muslim.
James Bowman, dryly, laconically, introduces a recent piece as follows:
“Of course, the anti-Danish riots – now there’s a phrase I never thought I’d have occasion to write – in the Islamic world were a put-up job …”
Indeed. Telling, guffaw-inducing understatement, rightly understood, is perhaps the best way to summarily take in the rioting, murder and mayhem which followed in the wake, not of Jyllands-Posten’s twelve cartoons, but of Danish Imam Abu Laban’s tour of the M.E. with the additional and far more offensive caricatures which were not published by Jyllands-Posten’s. These and similar incitements are often not even alluded to, much less properly framed, within many articles and analyses of the discussion.