Monday 20 November 2023

I heard a podcast early this morning, in English, but from Sweden


Here it is:

Podcast: Sweden Burning? Really? a conversation Lars Åberg
Tallberg Foundation, 5 May 2022
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-8xVzW6K6Dc


"New Thinking for a New World - Podcast"


The topic is mainly Muslim immigrants into Sweden, partly refugees who didn't come to work, partly people who neither came as refugees nor to work.

Now, there were certainly riots in Malmö. And I am pretty certain the riots were ugly. But Lars Åberg perhaps uses a fifth or a quarter of the time to actually talk about the violence. His main complaint is that they didn't come to integrate.

While that can be a nuisance in some cases, and the riots in Malmö are obviously one, Mr. Åberg is basically saying Sweden cannot subsidise people who refuse to integrate, the village life from the Near East is not conducive to preserve the safety in Sweden.

If he had wanted to, he could have made it a point against Islam. The rioters were Muslims. I don't think any Christians were out burning cars because Paludan burnt a Coran.

But instead he made it a point for Secularism. That was part of the common project the last 100 years, a project he obviously celebrates. And when he even starts to exonerate Islam as such, throwing doubts on whether the rioters were practising Muslims, his words take on a somewhat ominous tone for some other non-secularist groups in Sweden.

First, what are we talking about?

The Swedish Church has 52,8 % of the population, or had back last year, and in 1972 it was 95,2 %. It is not really the topic here, its former status as state Church made it an easy target for secularisation efforts. If you feel a kind of belonging in "Christian TraditionS" and do not believe Christianity to be true, and don't want to be bothered about that when you apply for getting your children baptised, in Sweden, the Church of Sweden is your go to.

What about other groups?

Frikyrkliga samfund har exempelvis drygt 300 000 medlemmar, vilket motsvarar omkring 2,9 procent av befolkningen.


Non-conformists are for instance 300 000 members, which is about 2.9 % of the population.

Katolska kyrkan i Sverige räknar idag cirka 128 000 medlemmar men antalet troende katoliker i landet är avsevärt mycket större.


The Catholic Church in Sweden today counts c. 128 000 members, but the number of believing Catholics in the country is appreciably higher.

128 000 / 10 521 556 = 1.2 %

Ortodoxa och österländska kyrkors ekumeniska råd OÖKER med 18 olika grenar har år 2018 totalt 170 273


OÖKER—the Ecumenic Counsel (! not Council!) of Orthodox and Eastern Churches with 18 different branches in 2018 in total had 170 273 [members]

170 273 / 10 230 185 = 1.7 %

Antalet muslimer i Sverige som självidentifierade sig som muslimer var omkring 500 000 personer år 2016.


The number of self identified Muslims in Sweden was c. 500 000 persons in 2016.

500 000 / 9 995 153 = 5 % (but it might be as low as 3 % according to other sources?)

What do all of these, not just the Muslims, have in common? Having an attitude far less secularised than the typical Swede of the "common project"—and being marginal enough to persecute, if the secularists should so decide.

I was not rioting about the blasphemous theatre performance by Castellucci, but I tried to get to the FSSPX parishioners who were praying outside in protest. A police officer actually pointed a gun at me. The fact the performance was held is kind of proof France is less secularised than Sweden. In my country, no Christian group is seen as being there and now mighty enough to deserve being provoked. Don't get me wrong. Provocations against Christianity and Christian individuals are legion, but they don't take the heroic form of shaking a fist against heaven. They are often not seen as provocations by those providing them, just by those suffering them.

An anecdote from back when I was in Sweden can illustrate it by a pretty mild and to me non-traumatic provocation. A person who on MSN Groups took the screen name Meshugga (I think it was he) had specifically been invited to my MSN Group Antimodernism. The reason for my inviting him was, he had stated, "Christians are always eager to start debates, and pretty quickly withdraw when challenged for evidence" or perhaps "when refuted" or sth. Either way, this is a pretty common prejudice against Christians, can be kept up by a minority of Christians having situations in which hey can be manipulated out of discussions (like being "cared for" by shrinks), and to me at least (and probably to a lot of Catholics beside me too) this was a provocative statement. I invited him to my MSN Group to offer some Christian debate I did not intend to withdraw from. Once on the group, he never bothered to challenge me.

An Orthodox was not as lucky, in this world at least. In the phone directory, he registered under "profession" as "hobbit" ... a fun poke at his arms and legs being shorter due to Thalomide. When he died of a brain cancer, he tried to get treatment. The police of Malmö delayed this, putting his neurological symptoms and vomiting down to alcohol abuse. He was put into a "get sober" cell, and when he got out, it was too late to save his life. This life. He was the son of a friend of a friend. His father had gone over to the Orthodox over the to them scandalous New Liturgy.

Another friend, back then, was 100 % Swedish and also street smart. In Stockholm, he would have been a Söderkis, but he's from Scania. He used to say Sweden had three major disasters. He must have meant after we became Christians, I don't think he counted the previous to that Odinism as a blessing, neither do I. The three were : the Black Death, the Reformation* and Social Democracy.

Now, the "common project" mentioned by Lars Åberg has not exclusively, but very largely, insofar as it depended on politics, been voted by Social Democratic politicians. They are also responsible for secularising, to the point of largely dechristianising, the Swedish Church.

So, there are Swedes who don't want to adopt what Lars Åberg terms Swedish values. Not just immigrants. I am one of these. And I left Sweden. Some Swedes over here seem pretty eager to be close by, to observe, to discuss me, even while giving me the cold shoulder. Back when Breivik committed his atrocity, Norwegian police immediately (and dishonestly or incompetently or both) stamped him as a Christian Fundamentalist. Gefundenes fressen for some over here who wanted to denigrate me and my position. In fact Breivik totally agrees (or back then agreed) with Åberg on the major importance of preserving secularism. He was excluded from a Masonic lodge the day after the crime, which hardly substantiates the narrative of his being a Fundie. Nor does the Berwick Manifesto. But by sleight of hand, he was presented as a Fundie, and used as a stick to beat me with. That's how fanatic some secularists are against "religious fanaticism" ... especially in non-Muslim forms.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
St. Felix of Valois
20.XI.2023

PS, in this video, there are news of Christians perseucted by Nordic secularism, in this case in Finland, though the outcome was finally pretty good:

Scientists Just Predicted the End of Humanity: Christians Respond
Answers in Genesis, 20.XI.2023
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6jeHVPKTHA


* Sorry for misspelling it with R instead of D, but the misspelling is very common. Some would even say standard.

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