This is a strange situation. Apparently this guy Jan Sjunnesson, who used to be the editor of a far-right Swedish paper, organized a pride march through a Muslim neighborhood. I'm not exactly sure what the political spectrum is like in Sweden or what the far right is associated with there, but I've certainly never heard of a right-wing gay pride march before. I don't know what Sjunnesson's orientation or personal politics are, or really much at all about him beyond what the article says. He doesn't seem to have an entry on Wikipedia and everything else mentioning him is in Swedish.
Maybe someone who speaks Swedish can shed some light?
Anyway, I'm pretty much on the fence about this and awaiting further information. I can see there being concerns that this is right-wingers using gay people to push their anti-immigration agenda, which isn't very nice to anyone. On the other hand, if this march is happening in these neighborhoods because gay people feel like they're discriminated against in these places, that's a bit of a horse of a different color. If the Muslim majority neighborhoods are more homophobic and more conservative then it makes sense to target those places.
At any rate, the only way this can really be successful in 'turning them against one another' is if there's a strong conservative religious presence that actually promotes and endorses homophobia. If there's not, then the parade should be welcome. If there is, then it's really not is parade that's created the rift, but religiously inspired homophobia.
Anyway, this is weirdly backward enough that I thought it'd be a good kick-off to a new tag.
No. Just right away. Nazis in the 80's killed homosexual people in Sweden. And when people marched and protested against them they took photos and looked up who these faces were, where they lived, who they cared about. They set fire to a place where young leftist activists slept. And now people involved have said that they knew that. Thay were taught that a war was coming. They are taught a war was coming. And no. They are not. Muslim neighborhoods and immigrant neighborhoods are not more homophobic. And once again. THIS IS DONE BY AN ORGANISATION THAT HAS DIRECT TIES TO MURDERS OF HOMOSEXUAL PEOPLE. They are not only doing this to provoke, thay are doing this to scare, and inflame and NO. And ths parade is being supported by no-one who has any respect in Sweden. And this isn't bizarre or weird or anything. YOU are weird. We hear on the news about riots and shootings and racism and sexism in the US. And we think "They USED to be strong". We think "What poverty and desperation can do" YOU the minority. We don't look at the US as a shining example of society. We view you as society collapsing. We look at mexicans entering your country and think "holy shit - it must be horrible if the are fleeing to the US" So NO. This isn't bizarre. You don't have enough information.
Well, I mean, it is bizarre. Conservatives hosting a pride march is a weird thing no matter why they're doing it. Especially if they've got ties to fascism. If the Muslim neighborhoods in Sweden aren't particularly conservative or homophobic that's a good thing. I'm not sure why you suddenly used the second half of that to go on a screed against the US.
Beacause I often get US people assuming the world both loves them and want to be like them (or are backwards/bizarre) And no, it's not bizarre because they are doing it dor reasons that are within their hateful ideology. Calling it bizarre is trivializing it.
As someone who isn't terribly versed in European politics, is this a modern invention or something that's been around for a while? Because in hindsight I can see where you're coming from. I'm just trying to contextualize a highly conservative group co-opting liberalism to such a degree, coming from an American background.
Sorry, I didn't mean to ask about conservatism bending with liberalism to appeal to bases. I understand that's a pretty universal thing. I was just wondering if the current anti-Muslim sentiment was a post-9/11 creation or if it is something that's persisted in Europe for a long time, or if other events might've contributed to exacerbating it.
I'd never heard of the Law of Jante, or of Sandemose's writings, and this seems so utterly interesting and simultaneously bizarre. Were I to have to identify myself, I'd probably end up somewhere more leaning towards collectivism that individualism from the perspective of someone who has a sour taste for capitalism's particular spin on "individual" success and value. What shocks me about those ten laws is how they're all rooted in viewpoints that I'd tend to carry as grounding mechanisms in my day-to-day life: "Do not assume I am inherently better than my peers, do not assume I possess more knowledge than those in my field, my viewpoints are not as deserving of being aired as those with greater experience than me." What shocks me is the use of these not as a means to guard against hubris when you're just starting a career (see: me), but as commands imposing collectivism over any degree of individualism. That such writings could serve as commentary to hundreds of years of Scandanavian culture... I'll have to pick up "A Fugitive Crosses His Tracks" and get a better sense of the author's history. This seems almost startlingly jarring compared to how I'd perceived Scandanavian multiculturalism.
swedishbadgergirl, could you help us out? :) I find it funny that the article is by Haaretz, which is an Israeli left wing paper. I forgot they also write about non-Israeli subjects. Are you a frequent Haaretz reader? From what I can tell after living 18 years in an arabic city, the muslim society is very homophobic. It is a huge problem and gay rights is something that every arabic politician keeps quite about until about a month ago, which lead to internal stress in the United Arabic Party in Israel. I expect this protest do have a doubles effect. First its the right-wing protesting against immigration and second its provocation of a know issue in the islamic society. Whoever thought of this in the right wing is actually pretty clever and could lead to huge problems for the arabic minority, if they reacts poorly.
Yes, muslim societies are but the kind of muslims that come to Sweden are those who do not feel/are not safe in that kind of society. And this is also awful becuase children of arabic immigrants who would be in HUGE danger if it was openly known they are gay are common. REALLY common. And this is not okay. And this is horrible. This is done by the same people who set fire to places of worship and NOT by the community that stands and holds hand around jewish places of worship when that is in danger and islamic places of worship when those are. And just NO. This isn't okay.
Thank you. I get so tired when people expect absolute tolerance of everything from everyone all the fuckin' time.
See, the problem I have with this sort of thing is the usage of the terms 'Islamic' or 'Muslim' society and the like. To me (as a Muslim) that label doesn't really make much sense, in that you have various 'Islamic' societies (really, just societies where the majority of the populace is Muslim) that differ very radically in terms of basic politics and the like. It is definitely true that in traditional (particularly Arab) society, homophobia is a huge, huge problem but this sort of march doesn't have anything to do with that inherently - it is more about striking out at a minority community. I'm not sure what the broader Muslim community in Sweden is like, but I know that 40% of American Muslims support marriage equality and LGBT rights in general - not a majority by any means but very close. European Muslims tend to skew slightly more conservative (not inherently because of any flaw there but all sorts of xenophobic reasons that push them into being incredibly insular, tight-knit communities) so it may very well be that the community in Stockholm has conservative elements... But then the question is would this right-wing group be hosting a LGBT Pride March through a Swedish conservative neighborhood and city, just to rile them up? I highly doubt it. Either way, a very, very contentious issue.
If 40% of American Muslims support marriage equality and LGBT rights, wouldn't that mean that a whopping 60% of American Muslims either oppose or simply don't care about LGBT rights? That sounds like exactly the opposite of the picture you're trying to paint with that statistic. I'd say that this march must have something to do with that or no one would consider it controversial. It may be that they're using the march as a sort of argument against Muslim immigrants, but if the argument didn't have any legitimacy there wouldn't be a story here. I mean either this neighborhood isn't a particularly homophobic community, in which case the result is no different from having a pride march anywhere else, or it is a particularly homophobic community, in which case there's legitimately an issue to be addressed here. It seems to me that for the counter-protestors to take issue with this they must think it will paint the community in a bad light, right? The truth of the matter, I'd say, is that while what it's about may reflect poorly on its organizers, how it's dealt with will reflect on that neighborhood. If I lived in that neighborhood and I didn't want to be portrayed as homophobic I think I'd be more likely to try to organize a show of solidarity in support of LGBT rights rather than a protest insisting that it's racist to give my neighbors the opportunity to demonstrate how homophobic they are. At any rate, it's weird to see people on the left deciding which group of social conservatives they want to align themselves with. Let's call them all out.
Considering, what, only 60% of all Americans support LGBT rights, 40% isn't too bad for a community that is, yes, a little socially conservative. The 'picture' I was trying to paint was that the community isn't very homogenous in the way many people think, not that some Muslims are not homophobic - they clearly do have those tendencies but not in as huge a way as people think. My point is that the rightist activists wouldn't stage this in a community that is Swedish and homophobic. There is very clearly a racist and xenophobic component to this march - yes, I would say that it would reflect very poorly on the neighborhood if it reacts in a homophobic manner, but, to be blunt, you can't magically transform what might be a culturally conservative society into a progressive one by 'calling them out'. A lot of these immigrants come from cultures that haven't very often even recognized that the LGBT community exists - and let's not forget that Western culture wasn't very different fifty or so years ago. Hell, Western culture wasn't very different twenty years ago in some places. I'm not saying give them amnesty, but I'm saying they need to be educated and integrated into Western values, if that makes sense. And xenophobes are definitely -not- people who have the right to do that, as far as I see it. Engage with the community and do not allow them to discriminate, definitely, but I don't think an aggressive approach is a good idea at all. (As a bit of a disclaimer, I obviously hugely support the LGBT movement and I really do wish more people in my community felt the same way - but I do think the tides are shifting and eventually the sizable minority of people that do think like me on this matter will become a majority - just as was the case with various other communities in the world)
This situation is so ugly and so infected. My 2 cents, anyway. I doubt any potential unrest will be caused because of muslims in these areas being opposed to the HBTQ movement, if it does it will be because the organiser is associated with publications who are openly against islam and immigration and a party who wants to limit immigration (this party also has a history of nazism and has many sympathisers who are openly racist, nationalist, etc.). I think the idea to hold a pride parade in an area where HBTQ-people may experience oppression is great and should of course be supported in itself, but this organiser comes with a lot of other baggage. He's in a party who are at best hesitantly supportive of some HBTQ rights, and this parade will have many of their sympathisers participating. Personally this is the biggest issue for me and makes me really upset. If you don't support /all/ of my rights and want to /limit/ part of them, then what actually is this "pride" parade? Because it's not one meant for me. The more I think about it the more emotional it makes me. Anyway, as I said. Infected.
Important update! I think we will all be happy to hear this facist organizations attempt at pinkwashing didn't work. Like 20 people showed up.
Obviously this is intentionally provocative, I get that claim. But I don't think you can quite fairly complain that it's pitting two oppressed groups against each other. They were already pitted against each other by the fact that one group regularly discriminates against the other. What do you think life is like for a homosexual who grows up in an Arab community in Sweden? Do you think they're allowed to express themself? Of course, from the little I've heard of the far-right in Sweden, there are some other reasons to just be displeased with the people doing this, but I don't know if the march itself is an entirely bad idea. It needs to be made clear to more insular groups of society that they can't get away with engaging in their own discrimination.