The impact of global conflicts on local contexts: Muslims in sweden after 9/11 – the rise of Islamophobia, or new possibilities?1

The data used in this article are taken mainly from Larsson 2003, a much longer report in Swedish. The work for this article was completed during my stay as a post-doctoral researcher at the Department of Religious History at the University of Leiden, the Netherlands. My stay in Leiden was financed by a grant from STINT.

Abstract

This article presents the most important data from a Swedish interview survey on the situation of Islamic communities in Sweden following 9/11 and also discusses how global conflicts affect local communities, even though the latter may be separated from the former in time and space. It argues the need for more empirical data that can be analysed and used for comparisons with other minority groups in Europe and the United States in order to avoid either positive or negative generalizations about Muslims and Islam in the West.

Notes

The data used in this article are taken mainly from Larsson 2003, a much longer report in Swedish. The work for this article was completed during my stay as a post-doctoral researcher at the Department of Religious History at the University of Leiden, the Netherlands. My stay in Leiden was financed by a grant from STINT.

Even though I am talking about ‘the Muslim community’, it should be stressed that the Swedish Muslim community is far from being a homogeneous entity but is internally differentiated with regard to ethnicity, religious observance, language and political world view. For a general presentation of Islam and Muslims in Sweden, see, for example, Roald (2002b).

As well as the questionnaire, a number of interviews were also conducted with Muslim leaders in Gothenburg and Stockholm. One year after 9/11, a second interview round was also conducted to make it easier and safer to enhance evaluation of the answers given in the survey.

General problems, for example, are how the response group should be selected, whether the collected sample is representative, and how the data should be analysed.

A large number of examples are given in Larsson, (2003). See also Kriisa, 2001; Wolters, 2001; Ghersetti & Levin, 2002; Leth & Thurén, 2002; Morge & Modh, 2002 and Nordström, 2002.

Andersson, B., 2001; Andersson, J., 2001; Wallin, 2001.

The Jewish community is fairly well integrated into Swedish society. This is not the case with the Muslim community. First of all, Muslims have not lived in Sweden as long as Jews. Second, the Muslim community, or rather communities, are much more heterogeneous that the Jewish community.

This fact was addressed by the organization Save the Children. In his report for Save the Children, Svensson discusses how the massive media coverage of the terrorist attacks on the United States affected Swedish children. See Svensson, 2002. Cf. Larsson, 2003, pp. 37–44.

Runnymede Trust Commission on British Muslims and Islamophobia (1997), p. 1.

According to Gardell, 2003, Tossavainen's report was problematic partly because of its many methodological problems. For example, the use of only three sources for the report could easily be questioned. These sources were (a) information provided by ten non-Muslims who had worked as teachers in schools with a high percentage of Muslim students; (b) information taken from three Swedish Muslim websites; and (c) information provided by Jewish congregations and representatives of the Israeli government.

Information given by the press archive at Dagens-Nyheter on 2004–07–19.