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2006-05-19 23:36:03 UTC
Sweden's Unholy Alliance
By Nima Sanandaji | May 19, 2006
Recently, Atef Adwan, the minister of refugees of the Palestinian Hamas
government, gave a speech in Malmö, the third largest city in Sweden.
The speech was delivered during the fourth international conference,
concerning the right of Palestinian refugees to return to a free
Palestine. According to the Swedish daily paper Sydsvenskan, Adwan made
the following remark: "By allowing me to travel here the Swedish
government is sending a clear message to our people that somebody is at
our side."
Perhaps he is right. That a representative of the Hamas terrorist
organization chose to begin his European tour by visiting Sweden, and
that he was given a visa to do so, is telling of the soft mentality
among European socialist governments towards terrorism. Swedish
politics is full of similar examples. Two members of the Swedish
Parliament have recently attempted to invite the group leader of Hamas,
Salah Mohammed al-Bardawil, to the Swedish Parliament. The fact that
Hamas is a terrorist organization with the blood of innocent civilians
on its hands does not seem to bother the politicians too much.
Indeed, as the September elections draw closer, it seems as if the
Swedish left are openly embracing radical Islamic groups. Recently,
Swedish public television revealed that the leading Social Democratic
party has started fishing for votes with the help of radical Muslims
clergies. For several years the Christian wing of the Social Democratic
party, called The Brotherhood, has been working with the influential
Muslim leader Mahmoud Aldebe, president of Sweden's Muslim
Association.
But the new ally of the Social Democrats is anything but democratic.
Already in 1999, Aldebe went on radio proposing that Sharia - the
Islamic law - be introduced in Sweden. In addition, Aldebe has in a
letter to the Swedish minister of Justice in 2003 involved himself in a
heated debate regarding an incident of honor-related murder where a
Kurdish girl was murdered by her two uncles, shot several times in the
head. Aldebe did not condemn the murderers - rather he forcefully
defended the perpetrators. Aldebe sees the entire debate regarding
honor-related murders as an attack against the Islamic religion and
claims in his letter that a public debate regarding these acts of
murder risk to "encourage immigrant girls to revolt against the
tradition of the families and their religious values."
One might ask how a democratic party can justify co-operating with
Sweden's Muslim Association. During the above mentioned documentary
the Social Democrat Ola Johansson referred to the book Social Justice
in Islam by the Islamic ideologue Sayyid Qutb as proof that the social
democratic ideology could find common ground with Islamic ideas. As the
Swedish paper Expressen has exposed, Sayyid Qutb was not only a social
thinker; he was also inspired by the German Nazi movement. He was an
important figure in the Egyptian Islamic movement in the 50's and
remains an inspiration for Muslim Extremists.
Sayyid Qutb calls for an all out war against the western civilization;
he hates liberal democracy, views capitalism as a sick idea and is an
extreme anti-Semite. Perhaps it is not a coincidence that Qutbs
writings were translated to Dutch by Mohammed Bouyeri, the murderer of
Theo van Gogh.
There is little sign that the unholy alliance between the Swedish
Social Democrats and radical
Muslims is ending. After the last election in 2002, Sweden's Muslim
Association sent a letter to the re-elected Social Democratic Prime
Minister Göran Persson, congratulating him on his victory and hoping
that Persson would work for implementing some of the demands of the
Association in the future. It will be interesting to see if this
emerging alliance will become part of daily political life in Sweden.
By Nima Sanandaji | May 19, 2006
Recently, Atef Adwan, the minister of refugees of the Palestinian Hamas
government, gave a speech in Malmö, the third largest city in Sweden.
The speech was delivered during the fourth international conference,
concerning the right of Palestinian refugees to return to a free
Palestine. According to the Swedish daily paper Sydsvenskan, Adwan made
the following remark: "By allowing me to travel here the Swedish
government is sending a clear message to our people that somebody is at
our side."
Perhaps he is right. That a representative of the Hamas terrorist
organization chose to begin his European tour by visiting Sweden, and
that he was given a visa to do so, is telling of the soft mentality
among European socialist governments towards terrorism. Swedish
politics is full of similar examples. Two members of the Swedish
Parliament have recently attempted to invite the group leader of Hamas,
Salah Mohammed al-Bardawil, to the Swedish Parliament. The fact that
Hamas is a terrorist organization with the blood of innocent civilians
on its hands does not seem to bother the politicians too much.
Indeed, as the September elections draw closer, it seems as if the
Swedish left are openly embracing radical Islamic groups. Recently,
Swedish public television revealed that the leading Social Democratic
party has started fishing for votes with the help of radical Muslims
clergies. For several years the Christian wing of the Social Democratic
party, called The Brotherhood, has been working with the influential
Muslim leader Mahmoud Aldebe, president of Sweden's Muslim
Association.
But the new ally of the Social Democrats is anything but democratic.
Already in 1999, Aldebe went on radio proposing that Sharia - the
Islamic law - be introduced in Sweden. In addition, Aldebe has in a
letter to the Swedish minister of Justice in 2003 involved himself in a
heated debate regarding an incident of honor-related murder where a
Kurdish girl was murdered by her two uncles, shot several times in the
head. Aldebe did not condemn the murderers - rather he forcefully
defended the perpetrators. Aldebe sees the entire debate regarding
honor-related murders as an attack against the Islamic religion and
claims in his letter that a public debate regarding these acts of
murder risk to "encourage immigrant girls to revolt against the
tradition of the families and their religious values."
One might ask how a democratic party can justify co-operating with
Sweden's Muslim Association. During the above mentioned documentary
the Social Democrat Ola Johansson referred to the book Social Justice
in Islam by the Islamic ideologue Sayyid Qutb as proof that the social
democratic ideology could find common ground with Islamic ideas. As the
Swedish paper Expressen has exposed, Sayyid Qutb was not only a social
thinker; he was also inspired by the German Nazi movement. He was an
important figure in the Egyptian Islamic movement in the 50's and
remains an inspiration for Muslim Extremists.
Sayyid Qutb calls for an all out war against the western civilization;
he hates liberal democracy, views capitalism as a sick idea and is an
extreme anti-Semite. Perhaps it is not a coincidence that Qutbs
writings were translated to Dutch by Mohammed Bouyeri, the murderer of
Theo van Gogh.
There is little sign that the unholy alliance between the Swedish
Social Democrats and radical
Muslims is ending. After the last election in 2002, Sweden's Muslim
Association sent a letter to the re-elected Social Democratic Prime
Minister Göran Persson, congratulating him on his victory and hoping
that Persson would work for implementing some of the demands of the
Association in the future. It will be interesting to see if this
emerging alliance will become part of daily political life in Sweden.