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On Swedish initiative, two major international
conferences have recently been held on Euro-Islam1
focusing on the relations between Europe and the Muslim world. At the same
time, Islam is today a part of Europe, and as we have been talking of Eastern
Christianity it may be Western Islam. During the last ten years, much research
has been done on the Muslim presence in Europe.
France today stands with a tradition
of extending full citizenship to the immigrants but an argument is going
on about the lack of legitimacy for the assimilation project. Instead the
respect for cultural differences seems to have merged as a value and the
same time citizenship seems to have lost its meaning due to social disintegration
and exclusion from the labour market. The various so-called veil campaigns
are a sign of a new Muslim community identity.2
In Germany, the notion of ‘guest-worker’
expected the immigrants to return to their country and it has been difficult
to acquire German citizenship. There is today a fear of what is named cultural
ghettos being established, and at the same time a growing awareness that
Muslim groups should be part of the German society.3
In Britain with a liberal and pluralist
approach from the authorities, the political mobilisation of Muslim immigrants
starting with Bradford 1989 has become a vehicle for the expression of
frustration and anger. Islamic communalism has created a feeling of a different
and separate identity that challenges the British State.4
In this article, I will present the
Swedish experience in this regard -- a country as far away from traditional
Muslim settlements as possible in Europe, and a country without direct
colonial aspirations during the last centuries but today changing to a
multi-cultural society through immigration.
Encounters in the Past
We know about several historical encounters
between the Nordic and the Muslim countries through the centuries. As an
example, the emissary of the Baghdad Caliphate, Ibn Fadlan,
in his writings from 922 is one of the best-preserved accounts about pre-Christian
Swedish customs and habits. Excavations on the Swedish islands of Gotland
and Oland have revealed nearly 800,000 coins with Arabic inscriptions.
The presence of the coins is due to trading and a result of the sometimes
rather intense expeditions of the Vikings.
Muslims in present day Sweden
The number of Muslims living in Sweden
is not easy to find out. However, the overwhelming majority consists of
immigrants and their offspring. Immigrants are registered, based on the
country of origin but not referring to religion. In the 1960s labour immigrants
arrived from Turkey and Yugoslavia, in the 70s as refugees from North Africa,
Palestine, Lebanon and Pakistan, in the 80s from Iran, Iraq and Somalia,
and in the 90s from the former Yugoslavia.
Statistics of immigration from almost
all of these countries also include Christians, which implies you cannot
say that everyone coming from a specific country is Muslim. The Muslim
immigrants represent very well a cross section of the community of believers,
the Muslim Ummah, and the question in Sweden as well as in all the
West is how to face the Muslim population and the way their faith and practice
will turn out in their new settings. To be registered as a Muslim in Sweden,
you need to voluntarily join a Muslim organization. The membership-account
is held by the organization. Anyhow, when calculations are done they will
estimate the number of Muslims to be between 70,000 and 250,000 trying
to catch both active Muslims and people with a Muslim background.
There are also voices against the
government effort to map the immigrants. One argument claims one should
count only the people joining Muslim associations since in Sweden it is
a freedom to be a Muslim as well as not. Another argument is put forward
by a theatre manager in Stockholm, a former adviser to the ministry of
immigration. He has lived in Sweden since the 70s. As a Muslim with Sufi
interest, he says in a recent interview that the creation of statistics
of immigrants is producing polarization that condemns the foreigner to
stand outside the society. For him, it is more a question for everyone
to formulate his or her cultural situation,5
than it is a question of mutual recognition of Swedes of different religious
belongings. The Muslim associations on the other hand claim that everyone
coming from a Muslim background is a Muslim. They are eager to see Islam
as the major key of identification and that a large number gives more impact
on the society.
Here I will deal in short with Western
Christian attitudes towards Islam. We need to confess the existence of
negative images about Islam and Muslims. This is due among other things
to historical reasons and antipathy. Small nationalist and extreme right-wing
groups6
as well as Swedes with xenophobia and people in the outskirts of the society
through unemployment and financially problems also target the Muslims as
well as immigrants in very broad terms. The church as well as the society
has recognized the danger set out in mutual negative images from one side
or mutual.
The main newspapers in Sweden today
as and example present articles focusing Muslim life in Sweden. The ideology
of the Swedish immigrants policy has put multiculturalism with equality,
the freedom of choice and partnership as an official goal. This is combined
with an ‘All-Over-Sweden-Strategy’.7
The aim is to distribute the immigrants to all cities and towns that every
Swede should share the costs and the burden as well as the positive experience
it may create as a counterpart of the negative images of immigrants. As
a result, many of the traditional Swedes have to experience Muslims as
well as all immigrants in Sweden as the new neighbours in the Swedish society.
Even if this is an official policy, after a while the new Swedes tend to
move on to the big cities and some of the suburbs in these cities today
as up to 50 languages.
A query about the interest in religion
among immigrants and refugees was done in 1996. 76.4% of the Muslims in
Sweden say that they pray at least once a week at the mosque and 96.3%
states that their interest in religion is unchanged or has increased during
the stay in Sweden.8
Other statistics claim that 17% of the Muslims visit a mosque weekly, 7%
at least monthly, 22% at least on holidays and special occasions, and 45%
never or almost never visit the mosques.9
Nevertheless, in the long run religion seems to be less important.
A New Law
The Muslims in Sweden are organized
according to the same pattern as the non-Lutheran so called Free-Churches
(in relation to the state). This is a way of adopting the religious life
accepted to the state and being part of the public space. Being associations
accepted into a government committee for support to denominations, it gets
the same benefits from the state and is as such accepted as a religious
association in Sweden.
In the year 2000, there will be a
new law for the church of Sweden and another new law for the churches and
religions. The church of Sweden is in a special situation. All other churches
have joined hand with the Muslims as well as the Jews producing a response
to the government propositions about the relation between the state and
the religions.
The religious communities are urging
for one law concerning everyone. One change in the new laws will be that
Muslim associations as well as Christian non-Lutheran churches will be
looked upon as a religious community, formally and juridical, instead of
being an association or organization; another change will be that the state
will collect tax money for every denomination according to the wishes of
each individual. A Muslim as well as a Catholic can decide to which denomination,
if any at all, his or her money should go.
Today there are at least three national
Muslim associations in Sweden. One is "The Swedish Muslim Council" which
includes "The Swedish Muslim Association", "The United Islamic Organization
in Sweden" and "The Swedish Muslim Youth Association".10
Together they organize local congregations and there are 34 imams. The
other national organization is "The Islamic Council in Sweden" organizing
local congregations belonging to "The Islamic Cultural Union in Sweden"
with 36 imams.11
All of these are dominated by the Sunni
sect but an association for the Shi‘ah sect is on its way as well as for some of the smaller sects. The existence
of different Muslim national organizations also indicates a struggle to
be the guards of the Muslim population and of receiving representative
status.
Christian-Muslim Relations
The churches in Sweden as well as
the Muslims have tried to handle this new situation and I want to give
some examples. A project named "The Development of Knowledge Encountering
Islam" is run by the Church of Sweden aiming to improve the knowledge of
Islam and Christian – Muslim relations. Very important is the recent publishing
of a book in Swedish "Muslim Neighbours – the Church of Sweden Encountering
Islam".12
This project seems to reach out quite well in informing and making local
congregations and priests active for dialogue and understanding.
What about the Muslim agenda? Dr Ake
Sander has summarized interviews made with Muslims that they are now turning
away from practical issues focusing their presence, role and future in
Sweden. "(1) What kind of (multicultural) Sweden do we, as Muslims, want
to have in the future? (2) What kind of multicultural state do we think
is necessary to safeguard the long-term survival of the Muslims as a cultural,
ethnic and religious minority group in Sweden? And (3) what can (ought)
we as Muslim do to bring that about?’13
There are signs of ethnic-religious
mobilization, and Sander suggests it should be understood as a local defense
strategy. They mobilize for recognition, identity and survival. Of special
interest are the young Muslims. They sometimes look upon themselves as
a new force distancing themselves from traditional and international bounds,
wanting to be a Swedish face of Islam. They are born in the West by Muslim
parents. Some of them are born in mixed marriages and they know both a
Christian and a Muslim way of living. Some of them are well educated; they
speak the language and are born as citizens of Sweden. And the common language
for the variety of Muslims is Swedish.
One of the reports from the Euro-Islam
project says "The goal for young Muslims … should be to accept, understand
and respect differences, but also to understand common values and goals
and try to implement them. Young Muslims should form a bridge between European
and Muslim countries".14
They want to build up a solid religious identity to achieve the acceptance
of Sweden as the new homeland and accelerate the integration in a society
where Muslims must play an active role.15
On the national level, a group aimed
at dialogue has been set up consisting of Christian, Jewish and Muslim
representatives. From the Christian side it consists of representatives
from the Lutheran, Catholic, Orthodox and Free-Church traditions. From
the Muslim side there are representatives from the national bodies. The
Jewish Congregations in Sweden represent the Jews. The group is discussing
issues of a common life in Sweden and ethical matters of importance for
the religions. This involves mutual understanding of each other, the ways
each religion is presented in the textbooks in the Swedish schools, the
question of Halal-slaughter
and the right to be buried according to each religious tradition.
I consider this work from both the
Christian and the Muslim sides to be important to mutual respect and for
the necessity for the Muslim community to receive legal recognition by
the Swedish society and the Swedish State.
State and Religion in Sweden
The Swedish law since the beginning
of the 1950s is covering four aspects of freedom of religion. The first
paragraph declares the right for everyone to freely conduct his or her
religion if there is no harm against the society. Secondly, everyone has
the right to associate with others taking part in religious meetings. Thirdly,
there should be no hindrance against official service following the rule
for meetings open for everyone. The fourth aspect is freedom from religion.
The individual has no duty to belong to any religious community at all.
Muslims in Sweden as well as in the
entire West are of course not considered Dhimmis,
but citizens in a secular state. The Swedish authorities and practice have
favoured an interpretation where religion has been conceived as a right
and a property of the individual. Religion is then basically business for
the individual. The right to conversion is then by law the right of the
individual and a private business. Of course, conversion is a sensitive
question but nevertheless in existence. One figure claims that about 5,000
people have converted to Islam.16
This number includes both conversions through marriage and children in
mixed marriages.
When the church of Sweden presented
the outcome of an inquiry, they claimed that conversion by Muslims to Christianity
is more frequent then vice versa. In 48% of the parishes with many Muslim
immigrants they know about conversions. For some it may be a hope of getting
asylum in Sweden but it is not the reason for the majority.17
And reports from different Free-Churches are telling the same.18
And still neither the Muslims nor
the main churches in Sweden are involved in any active missionary attempts.
It is just an individuals personal choice, and no one really knows the
number due to the law of the privacy of religion. The freedom of religion
and freedom of choice for the individual are important values.
Making space for the everyday ritual
and practice is important. I will give some examples. It is not forbidden
to build mosques but the experience is that until the last year, it had
been quite difficult to get a piece of land for building. Still, most mosques
are situated in basements and cellars of ordinary houses but there also
exists a handful of new mosques. If you want to organize an official procession,
you as a Muslim or as as a Christian must get permission.
Conclusion
I will conclude this article with
some remarks about perhaps the hottest issue in Sweden, the Muslim as well
as the Jewish kosher slaughter. The dietary laws are not easy to follow
for a Muslim in Sweden. The schools are today offering alternative dishes
without pig and blood for Muslim students. Both the government and the
Muslim associations publish lists of products allowed to Muslim tradition.
And still one cannot be sure about all ingredients of, for example butter
and bread. But the main obstacle is that Halal slaughter is forbidden since the 1930s with the exemption of birds
and rabbits.
Halal slaughter is not considered being an issue of freedom of religion but
a question of the animal welfare. The animal must according to the law
be stunned before the slaughter. That is required even when the farmers
slaughter for their own household. This leaves the Muslim population with
some different solutions. You can import the Halal meat from other countries which becomes quite expensive as a result.
This is a possibility for Muslims living in areas with many Muslims and
special shops for Halal meat. Some Muslims accept stunning as a Muslim slaughter, before the
death of the animal.
Anyhow there is a continuing fight
from the Muslim and the Jewish sides to change the law. A special commission
has as late as 1992 investigated the issue but without any representation
from the religions concerned.19
Considering this investigation, the parliament decided not to change the
law. Of course, both Jewish and Muslim associations protested. The churches
asked for a new investigation. Almost every subsequent year, individual
parliamentarians from different parties have asked for a change of the
situation. The Muslims and the Jews continually raise the question in different
ways. Now we are waiting for an initiative from the Swedish council of
churches and it seems that the minister of agricultural is reconsidering
a new investigation.
Owing to the short experience of Sweden
as a multi-cultural and multi-religious country and the lack of experience
for both the state and the church, I am still prepared to say that Sweden
is on its way. Since the law of religious freedom in the early 50s, Sweden
has developed from a homogeneous society to a multi-cultural and multi-religious
society with about 15% of the population with foreign background. This
is, at least before the tragic development in former Yugoslavia, as Jorgen
Nielen has pointed out, a greater transformation than in any other European
country.20
There is still a long way to go before
Muslims can feel that they are on the equal level in the society. And the
discussion will continue concerning what will be the freedom of religion
and about necessary limits in a secular setting. The relation between on
one hand economical and social human rights with unemployment and housing
problems, and on the other hand political and individual human rights being
fundamental in the Western society will be questioned.
(Courtesy: "Al-Mushir", Rawalpindi,)
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