Sweden: Does the "taking the Arab children" controversy reflect a misunderstanding and a cultural gap between two worlds?

Afrasianet - Hassan Attia - Sweden has become a mirror of the fight against the Muslim community in the West, and it always witnesses provocative acts, from the kidnapping of Muslim children to the burning of copies of the Noble Qur’an, so what are the reasons behind that?

It is undeniable that the events of the present and the future are an extension of a series of paths in the past, especially with regard to politics, economics, and building societies and their culture.

Perhaps the reflection of this fact can be seen in the continuous attempts to transform what has become known as “Islamophobia” or “Islamophobia” from a phenomenon into a “culture”, a thought that groups and activists have sought to suppress for decades, but the extreme right-wing movements always try to ignite the fire of sedition.

And racism, the latest of which was in Sweden, when a copy of the Noble Qur’an was burned in front of a Stockholm mosque. Perhaps this offensive behavior against Islam and Muslims is not the first of its kind in Sweden.

For years there have been movements and abuses in it in particular, and in other Western countries, but in Sweden matters were not limited to slogans and movements, but branched out to be part of it the kidnapping of Muslim children from their families under various pretexts, including "concern for their future."

Many questions arise about this anti-Islamic trend, including: Why burn the Koran, kidnap children, oppress immigrants and fight Muslims?

There is no doubt that things are a mixture of a process aimed at defining the authoritarian and social structure of Western countries based on a historical background that stands at the West's struggle with Islam.

Here, we can start trying to search for the reasons for the war against Muslims in Western countries, from what the American political thinker Samuel Huntington wrote in his book "The Clash of Civilizations": "Islam is the only civilization that made the survival of the West questionable, and it did so twice."

Definition of "Islamophobia" and its industry in Sweden At the outset, we must stop at defining the term “Islamophobia”, which is fear of Muslims, prejudice against them, and prejudice against them, which leads to provocation, hostility, intolerance, threats, harassment, abuse and incitement against them, whether on the ground or on the Internet.

Islamophobia is the result of several transformations at the level of the historical relationship between the Islamic world and the West on the one hand, and at the level of contemporary transformations that have taken place in Islamic societies and within Western countries themselves, on the other hand.

The term appeared at the beginning of the twentieth century, but in practice it was previously present. French sociologists used this concept to describe the rejection of part of the French administrators and their hostility to the Muslim societies whose affairs they used to manage at the time of colonialism and mandate, after they had been living and integrating with Muslim societies in order to manage their affairs administratively, politically, socially and economically.

There is no doubt that the source of hatred is primarily racist, cultural, and psychological, and it goes back to the prevailing colonial discourse that continues today, which aims to refute Muslim societies and show that they are “barbaric,” “brutal,” and “far from freedom.”

Therefore, the Western machine has significantly increased its promotion and incitement against Islam since the beginning of the new millennium. Over the years, and in light of the growing economic and intellectual power of Muslim countries, and the arrival of a large number of Muslims in Western countries, it was necessary to try to tarnish their image.

Campaigns followed every global event, starting with the attacks of September 11, 2001 in the United States, all the way to trying to show all Muslims in the form of “ISIS”.

Many practices reflect this war on Muslims in all its dimensions, as hostilities against Muslims and Arabs grew and against mosques and cemeteries that have been desecrated on more than one occasion, and groups of right-wing youths appeared that systematically and systematically attacked Muslims in the streets and alleys of European cities whenever they had the opportunity As has happened in Sweden several times. abuse in Sweden The latest extremist abuse was in Sweden, where Muslims seek integration into society, but extremist movements, as in France, Austria, Poland, the Netherlands and others, seek to prevent this from happening, including the "hard line" or "Stram Course" movement against immigration and Islam led by Rasmus Paludan Holder of both Danish and Swedish nationalities.

It is noteworthy that this movement does whatever it wants with the protection of the police, and this is what happened in the latest insult to Islam, which was evident in the burning of a copy of the Qur’an a few weeks ago, with the approval of the Swedish police, who announced their permission to organize a demonstration whose organizer plans to burn a copy of the Noble Qur’an outside the main Stockholm mosque.

The approval came two weeks after an appeals court rejected a police ban on demonstrations organized to burn copies of the Holy Quran, and the perpetrator was a young man of Arab origins. Perhaps it was not a mere coincidence that he was "the right man" to send the message that "Arabs are fleeing their Muslim societies."

In previous times, Muslims in Sweden were trying to come out against these behaviors, so that the police would respond to them violently, and push them to respond in kind, which is what it wants from them: to appear violent in Sweden, to promote an unbalanced image of them, and to promote the phenomenon of "Islamophobia" in society. As for the political dimension, the growing current feeding on "Islamophobia" in Europe prompts Sweden to adopt it as well, because it is one of the means to reach power.

Therefore, the crime of burning a copy of the Qur’an aims to provoke Muslims in Sweden, insult and humiliate them, and to show Islam and its authority in the world weak and unable to protect its sanctities (the Qur’an), with the aim of managing a long-term conflict, which reduces Muslim immigration, pushes away refugees, and opens the door to the departure of Muslims.

Kidnapping of Muslim children With regard to the kidnapping of children, the "social" or social services system commits violations, including the withdrawal of Muslim children from their parents' homes under unconvincing pretexts.

It has come to them to take infants from hospitals from Muslim families. This system considers that parents’ talk to their daughter, for example, about the importance of modesty and encouragement to wear the hijab, is considered “family oppression.”

They classify the family’s warning to their children against adultery, obscenity (obscenity in speech) and forbidden relationships as an “honor crime,” considering that what falls under the term “ Honor" in Islamic culture is "an assault on personal freedom".

Attorney Seo Westerberg, a member of the Scandinavian Human Rights Committee, reveals some of the secrets of the social services system in Sweden, and draws attention to the financial aspect of the issue.

Speaking to Anadolu Agency, Westerberg, an international lawyer who has won eight cases in the European Court of Human Rights over Swedish social services, says that the authorities "kidnap Muslim children, and they don't accept the idea that Muslims have other ways to live."

Muslims in Sweden.. Growth ignites extremist Western fears The arrival of Muslims to Sweden was gradual. In the beginnings, emigration coincided with World War II.

As for the second wave of immigration, the aim was to search for work. Thousands of laborers emigrated from Turkey, North Africa, Palestine, Iraq and Yugoslavia, and they officially started establishing the first Islamic minority in the country, and they established associations and clubs that reflect their religious and social identity.

In the mid-1970s, migration turned from labor to political-humanitarian, and the people of Lebanon, Kurdistan, Bangladesh, Uganda and Palestine fled to Sweden, who fled political, security and economic crises to settle in a number of cities, most notably Ytbori, Malmo and Upsala. In 1975, the first Islamic association was established in the country, with its headquarters in Malmö (south), and it was called the “Association of Islamic Associations in Sweden.”

It gained legitimacy with the recognition of the Swedish government, so that migrations continued from Iran, Iraq, Eritrea, Bulgaria, Turkey and Pakistan, and the number of Muslims reached more than more than 150 thousand.

According to the Swedish Information Center, the number of Muslims in Sweden was 1,000 in 1966, but it reached 875,000 in 2023, constituting 8.5% of the population, with a total population of 10 million.

These figures, if they indicate anything, indicate the strengthening of the Islamic community in Sweden, which may open the door for it in the future to demand representation in power, which the Europeans in general, and the Swedes in particular, and especially the extremists among them, will not allow.

In 2015, Sweden closed the door to immigration and placed restrictions on immigrants, which led to international criticism. This coincided with the rise of the influence of the extreme right, led by the Sweden Democrats, which took anti-Muslims and refugees as its most prominent slogan, which it employs from time to time to win the support of the "populists".

In order to justify this extremism, the Swedish intelligence said that "extremism" is growing among immigrants, and claimed that the number of "extremists" had increased by 1,000% in less than a decade, and that more than 300 people from Sweden had joined the "ISIS" organization during the past years, although 140 of them withdrew from the organization later.

In order to legitimize the prosecution of Muslims, the head of the agency, Anders Thornberg, said that extremists and, if you will, Muslims, must be monitored for fear of "carrying out attacks against Swedish targets." Far from the "propaganda of extremism", the Swedish Security College submitted a special report to the Civil Authority on the map of the spread of Muslims and their demographic expansion, revealing that the number of Muslims has increased 10 times in less than 10 years.

The college warned that preachers and the call to Islam will lead to an increase in this number, which constitutes a "threat to the national demography in the future."

Economic problems in Sweden..

Immigrants the cause of the crisis? In 2007, the wave of "Islamophobia" rose in conjunction with the global financial crisis.

The extreme right has begun to promote the idea that migrations from North Africa and the Middle East are the cause of the crisis, and that they are trying to steal opportunities from Europeans, costing the balance sheet exorbitant expenses.

This is the same idea that was promoted with the increase in Syrian displacement due to the war on Syria.

In Sweden, in conjunction with the wave of anti-Islam and offensive actions against the sanctities of Muslims since the beginning of this year, there are economic problems that are no longer limited to inflation, whose rate, according to official figures, reached 10.5% last April, unemployment is increasing, and retail sales In the decline of the high prices, in addition to the rise in interest rates, which have become a threat to vital sectors.

Therefore, the Swedish Central Bank raised the interest rate to 3.75%, the highest in 15 years. This economic change will have an impact on the countries whose companies are associated with this country.

The interest rate hike in Sweden has been going on since the beginning of this year, in an attempt to reduce inflation and the price level and slow consumption, which has reached record levels. Returning to the discourse on the global financial crisis and the economic problems in Sweden, it would not be surprising if extreme right-wing movements appeared to attribute the causes of this crisis to the increasing number of Muslims in the West.

All this serves the marginalization of the Muslim community in the West and its struggle to limit the increase in its presence, which does not constitute any crime against freedoms, and Sweden's attempt to support its position on joining the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).