What’s the Matter with Sweden?

by Hugh Fitzgerald

The latest sign of civilizational degringolade in Europe comes from the Swedish Department of Justice, in its hysterical reaction to a Facebook posting by Christopher Larsson, who is the leader of the Swedish Democrats — an islamocritical party — in Karlskrona City Council.

Permission had been granted by the Swedish authorities for a local mosque to have a muezzin chant the call to prayer from a minaret in Karlskrona for the very first time. Larsson objected to this, for he understood that the minaret is more than just an innocuous means for broadcasting the call to prayer. Thrusting skyward and lording it over non-Muslim houses of worship, the minaret underscores the Muslim presence, and is potent symbol of Islamic power. It stakes a claim; it says to those non-Muslims forced to endure, five times a day, a raucous call that begins with the first before sunrise, and the last after sundown, that we Muslims are here to stay, we don’t care if our call interferes with your sleep; our “rights” to have the call to prayer broadcast outweigh your rights to sleep.

Erdogan famously once recited a poem, the Soldier’s Prayer, which contains the line: “The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers.” Erdogan understood perfectly that the minarets themselves deliver a bellicose message of Islamic supremacism. And that’s why Muslims are so eager to use these minarets, thrusting skyward and imposing ear-piercing azans on Europe’s Unbelievers. Nowadays it is completely unnecessary to deliver the call to prayer from minarets. Cell phones in universal use can now be programmed to ring softly or vibrate, reminding their owners of the times for prayer, without disturbing the Unbelievers. But that’s just the point: Muslims want to have the call to prayer broadcast from the minarets, even if, or especially if, it is no longer needed, to show the Unbelievers whose claims now prevail.

What was it that Larsson posted at Facebook? He wrote that it was a sad day for Sweden — “a day of mourning occurs on Friday” — and that “allowing the chant from the minaret” was deeply disturbing, He noted that it was not merely a call to prayer, but included the phrase “Allahu Akbar,” the same phase that jihadists routinely cry out when “they explode in the air.” It appears that the Swedish authorities deliberately failed to convey the full meaning of “Allahu Akbar” — a supremacist war cry that means not that “Allah is great” but that “our Allah is greater than your god” — which only makes Larsson’s distress even more justified.

Well, was Larsson wrong? Don’t Muslim terrorists scream “Allahu Akbar” when they attack Infidels? Haven’t survivors of those attacks testified to hearing that? Don’t we have many Islamic propaganda videos showing American armed personnel carriers and tanks being blown up by I.E.D.s,, while on the soundtrack we hear the triumphant screaming of “Allahu Akbar”?

Why is it, in Sweden, impermissible to point this out? How do the Swedes propose to censor all the examples online of “Allahu Akbar” being shouted during attacks? And how can the Swedish authorities charge Larsson with “hatred against an ethnic group”? Which ethnic group are the Muslims? When did Muslims in Sweden — including Arabs, Turks, Persians, Afghanis, Pakistanis, Somalis, Malays, Uighurs, and dozens of varieties of European converts, too — become a single ethnic group? And what exactly was the “hatred” Larsson is accused of spreading? He is objecting to a practice — the unnecessary call to prayer from the minaret in Kalrskrona — not to Muslims as people. There is a difference.

When it comes to Islam, the Swedish government cannot bear very much reality. It simply does not want any unpleasant truths about Islam to be known. Mr. Larsson only stated a few facts, but for Swedish apparatchiks defending Islam, truth is no defense. They do not want to hear, nor do they want ordinary Swedes to hear, about the supremacist Islamic war cry “Allahu Akbar” that half the world already knows by heart. And they want to pretend that Muslims are an ethnic group, in order to persecute, and prosecute, poor Mr. Larsson for a nonexistent hate crime.

What’s the matter with Sweden? I really don’t know. It must be something about the water.

First published in Jihad Watch.