"The Muslims are our greatest foreign threat" by SD leader Jimmie �kesson

“The Muslims are our greatest foreign threat” by SD leader Jimmie �kesson

Scandinavia • October 2009 • Views: 909

My translation of the article referenced in “The Local”, written by the leader of the Sweden Democrats (far right populist party).

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7 comments

cenotaphium Tue, Oct 20, 2009 4:23:59am

Original article in Swedish found here.

I’m not a professional translator, mistakes are quite possible.

nonic Tue, Oct 20, 2009 4:47:42am

Cenotaphium, can you give an idea of the general tone and opinion of the comments? BTW, thanks for the article translation.

cenotaphium Tue, Oct 20, 2009 5:22:03am

re: #2 nonic

I’m unsure about whose comments you refer to. There’s some reactions and additional links in the comment I made in the main thread - here.

nonic Tue, Oct 20, 2009 5:27:59am

re: #3 cenotaphium

The Aftonbladet article in Swedish, for which you gave a link in your #1 above, shows 300+ comments — in Swedish. I was wondering what the reaction of Swedish readers was, generally.

cenotaphium Tue, Oct 20, 2009 6:17:40am

re: #4 nonic

Like any open comment section it’s filled with more heat than light; both those defending SD and those against it. Browsing through the first 150 or so, it’s hard to get a general direction; both defenders and critics are well represented.

In true Swedish fashion, most of them are pretty luke-warm “there may be something to this” or “I don’t buy it”. Then there’s the more rabid commenters expressing absolutes about Islam never amounting to anything good, or moral relativism with Christianity..

While SD currently polls at 4.7 percent (a clear minority party), I believe the support for their opinions is much more wide spread in the small format. Swedes harbor a hushed tone xenophobia along the lines of “immigration is okay, as long as there aren’t any immigrants around here”. If you look at the election results of 2006 distributed over the country, you’ll also notice a clear segmentation; the southern tip of Sweden - Skåne - has a long history of being xenophobic, even toward the rest of Sweden (historically, the region was Danish and has been a battleground between the two nations). It is also home to the third largest city; Malmö, where there is a larger immigrant population and there’s been a surge of violence far above the national average. Both are factors in the election results, I think.

Wow, what a tangent. The point was that the reaction of “the average Swede” is going to differ heavily due to factors other than the article itself. Anyway, I hope that contributed something. Otherwise I could just translate a handful of comments to give you a better idea of the opinions.

nonic Tue, Oct 20, 2009 6:36:38am

cenotaphium, thanks very much. So the comments are “mixed” and generally not overly strong in either direction, except for the few inevitable extremists. And thanks for the informative tangent, too. Please don’t go to any more trouble for my sake. :-)