Instructions to Swedish journalists: "Spice it up with fiction"

“Spice it up with fiction”
“Tell small lies”
“Make it up”
“Simple tricks for blending fact with fiction, telling half-lies and writing semi-literary works”

This is how Swedish journalism’s king of the Radical Left, Jan Guillou, describes the recipe for achieving success in journalism.

He goes on to state that today “most journalists (in Sweden) are better than in my day”.

He measures success by the degree to which the media succeeds in persuading the public of its agenda.

Using any means that make it difficult to separate hard fact from personal opinion.

This goes a long way to explaining the obsession of extreme-Left tabloids like Sweden’s Aftonbladet to defaming Israel and trampling on the sensibilities of Jews. It explains Aftonbladet’s recent unsubstantiated claim that Israel – and through tenuous implications Jews – engage in systematic organ trafficking. Claims that both the journalist behind the piece and the editor freely admit have no basis in fact.

Anyone wanting to find out what drives the extreme Left in Sweden – and the media in Sweden form a largely Left-wing stronghold – should take note of what Jan Guillou says. He is the Grand Old Man of Swedish journalism and has for decades set the tone for journalism in this country.

Sweden’s Constitution guarantees freedom of expression and freedom of the press. And quite rightly too, as in any self-respecting democracy. It is not the role of government to interfere in the workings of the press.

But it is the responsibility of the public to be aware of the agenda that drives many journalists and to be familiar with the tricks used.

With some thankfully excellent exceptions, Sweden does not have a free press. Sweden has a press free of critical thinking.

A press nurtured on deception as a means to a pre-determined political end.

The interview with Jan Guillou is in Swedish and can be viewed here.

For an example of the sort of journalism that Swedish journalists do NOT engage in and an example of the sort of story that most Swedish papers will NOT report on, read the following article.

It’s all about the terrorist training camps run by Gaza’s Hamas rulers for children as young as eight.

You won’t read about it in Sweden’s Aftonbladet.

TV4 (Swedish programme), IDF, NGO Monitor, NGO Monitor2, IlyaMeyer1, IlyaMeyer2,

Is Sweden anti-Semitic?

The answer is an emphatic “no”.

There is no institutional anti-Semitism in Sweden. Among the vast majority of Swedes anti-Semitism provokes the same revulsion as all other forms of racism do.

There are exceptions, however. One may safely discount the oddballs on the extreme Right – there are few people in Swedish society who would ever say a word in their defence.

The problem, instead, lies on the extreme Left, which is embracing ever-larger tracts of the mid-Left and huge swathes of this small country’s fast-growing Muslim minority. Of a total population of about 9 million, there are about 400,000 Muslims living in Sweden.

This Nordic country has traditionally had a very generous policy toward asylum-seekers and immigrants from the Muslim Middle East. The problem is that by and large, networking with immigrants or “New Swedes” as they are known is generally limited to throwing large sums of money at them and then proceeding to leave them to get on with life. Good-quality housing is provided, schooling – including Swedish classes for adults, job training, social benefits when needed (statistics suggest that 25 percent of the southern Swedish city of Malmö’s population is Muslim, and that 40 percent of them are unemployed).

And integration? Very little. It is little wonder then that Muslim immigrants increasingly group together in ethnic sub-communities, having little interaction with the host society in which they live and into which their children are born. It is no coincidence that Swedish local politician Adly Abu Hajal states (the article is in Swedish) that “the best Islamic state is Sweden”. He is talking about a state within the state.

The result is a sub-culture of outsiders who are permanent outsiders. It is here that the political and religious fanatics are harvesting followers. And it is here that Sweden is nurturing a generation of “New Swedes” who ought to be labelled “Old Swedes” – people either born in Sweden or living here for so long that they ought by now to be fully integrated with and aware of both the facilities available to them and the moral and legal obligations under which they live in their adopted country.

None of which is happening. That is why a popular TV debate programme bringing together Jews and Palestinian Arabs results in the Arabs refusing even to look at the Jews. That is why people demonstrating their support for the Palestinians march under the flags of Hamas and Hizbollah – both classified as terrorist organisations by Sweden and the rest of the EU, as well as the USA. That is why marches to support the Palestinians can bring together thousands of Swedish Muslims shouting “Khaiber, Khaiber ya yahud, ya’ish Muhammad saufa ya‘ud” (which translates as "Khaiber, Khaiber, Oh Jews, Mohammed’s army will return to finish you off") – a blood-curdling racist battle-cry recalling the Muslim slaughter of Jews about 1300 years ago in the oasis of Khaiber in the Arabian peninsula. And it is why these racist marchers are led by leaders and other prominent figures in the Socialist (nee Communist) Party, the Labour Party and the Green Party.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMP0_DMaIjU

With some notable exceptions, Swedish journalism is of the “tell me who to feel sorry for” variety – nothing sells like a good sob story and most mainstream Swedish journalists would not recognise terms like “fact-finding” and “background check” if they so jumped up and bit them in the nose. Swedish journalists – again with some notable exceptions such as Per Gudmundsson (http://gudmundson.blogspot.com/) and Dilsa Demirbag-Sten (kulturen@expressen.se), among others, enjoy a quiet life. Nothing is simpler to handle than black-and-white concepts. Like an electric switch, either on or off. Nothing in between.

Sweden has quite rightly traditionally prided itself on its cultural, religious and ethnic diversity. And has made the cardinal mistake of assuming that it is sufficient to feel sorry for a bunch of people, bring them here, shower them with all the physical trappings of a safe life and a decent living standard, and then convince themselves that in order to make their new citizens feel at home in their new culture, they need to efface their own culture.

Immigration is all about integration. It is not about the physical relocation of the human body, but about the adjustment of the mind to a new cultural setting. It most emphatically does not mean discarding or in any way demeaning one’s original culture, but it does require a desire to live alongside the new culture, not supplanting but enriching it.

Which is where Sweden falls flat on its face. Leaving 400,000 immigrants from a very different culture and sometimes very difficult origins to fend for themselves is the first step toward failure.

Giving people the impression that nothing they do, however reprehensibly racist, anti-Semitic or anti-democratic, will ever result in a severe reprimand, is the second step. That is simply praying on the altar of Political Correctness.

And allowing extremist political parties who refuse to distance themselves from racist stances to work their poison into the very fabric of the immigrant society is the third and final step. It creates the only functioning interface between New and Old Swedes. Greens Party figurehead Per Gahrton said on national TV on March 12, 2009 that thousands of Arabs calling for the slaughter of Jews in Sweden was simply a matter of “a few enthusiastic people letting of steam”.

So is Sweden anti-Semitic? Definitely not. Are political correctness, lame-duck journalism and opportunistic political extremists creating a cesspool of anti-Semitism among a huge section of the population left to their own devices? Definitely.

Is anything being done to counteract this trend? Not a thing.

Are leaders of Left-wing political parties continuing to march under terrorist banners, wearing terrorist symbols and leading demonstrations where thousands chant their desire to slaughter Jews? Yes. Prominent Socialist Party figure Muhammad Omar openly supports his party leader (this article is in Swedish).

Lars Ohly, leader of the Socialist (nee Communist) Party wearing a scarf showing the obliteration of Israel and its replacement by an Islamist Palestinian state. Party leader Ohly has said that his favourite blogger is reviled anti-Semite Jinge whose work is considered so extremist that even many far-right-wingers will not associate with him.

So is Sweden anti-Semitic? Ask me the same question in a year’s time.

Articles in English on this subject:
WeeklyStandard, IM, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, TundraTabloids, TundraTabloids

Newspaper articles in Swedish:
SvD, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, DN, 2, Dag, 2, 3, Hd, Ab, 2, 3, 4, 5, Debatt, 2, Hd, B, 2, Smp, 2, 3, Kri, 2, 3, Y, Tra, ST, SVT

More in mixed Swedish and English:
Johan Ingerö om SvD-skribenten Paulina Neudings artikel ‘Welcome to Ramallmö‘ i Weekly Standard
Johan Ingerö om debatten inom vänstern
Jonathan Leman om gårdagens SVT Debatt
MXp om Hamasledarens son som tar avstånd från faderns terrorgrupp

More in Swedish:
Gudmundson, 2, Svansbo, Expressens sportblogg, MXp2, ‘Som jag ser det’ med bild på Ohly, IiS, Kamferdroppar om ett vänsterupprop mot antisemitism, 2, FiM, 2

Swedish independence in jeopardy

Who sets the political agenda in Sweden?

And who actually holds the reins of power?

A large number of Swedish Muslims, backed up by extremist supporters flooding in from Denmark, marched through the streets of Malmö in southern Sweden shouting the notorious Muslim battle-cry ”Khaiber, Khaiber ya yahud, ya’ish Muhammad saufa ya‘ud" (Khaiber, Khaiber, Oh Jews, Mohammed’s army will return to finish you off). This racist call to arms refers to the Muslim slaughter of Jews about 1300 years ago in the oasis of Khaiber in what is now Saudi Arabia. The problem is that this racist battle-cry is echoing through the streets of Malmö in March 2009 – and nobody is being arrested for racial incitement.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qMP0_DMaIjU

This is one picture of how some Muslims choose to profile their social mores, political beliefs and religious affiliations.

A totally different picture of Muslim-Jewish relations is obtained when reading an article written by an objective observer of Israel from the inside.

The writer is an Arab. And a Muslim.Ishmael Khaldi holds is Israel’s deputy consul general for the Pacific Northwest in the United States. He writes as follows.

Other Muslims with insight into both the Muslim and the Jewish Israeli worlds also provide a different view. Their perceptions are based on their flight from Muslim Sudan through Muslim Egypt and past a whole raft of Muslim states in order to seek and receive asylum in the world’s only Jewish nation, Israel.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGa2_8tgsKw&eurl

There thus appears to be a worrying disconnect between how Swedish Muslims view Jews on the one hand, and the way Israeli Muslims and Muslim refugees from countries formally at war with Israel view Jews.

How is it that perceptions in Sweden are so radically and frighteningly different?

Could it be because of Sweden’s infatuation with political correctness, no matter what that costs Swedish society? Or because the Left has so totally infiltrated the media that there is no longer any room for an alternative discourse other than the radically pro-Islamist and anti-Semitic narrative pursued among an increasingly vociferous Muslim population? It should be noted that about one-quarter of the population of Malmö is Muslim and the Left-wing parties are currently in opposition, with the government being headed by a centrist coalition. With Sweden’s Muslims numbering about 400,000 (out of a total population of 9 million) the next election could be decided on the streets of Malmö. One TV report among many others that poses interesting questions can be seen here.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wRnP-XzB_U0

Irrespective of whether one’s political affiliations are aligned towards the Left or the Right or anywhere in between, these contrasting snapshots undoubtedly pose some interesting questions.

Perhaps foremost among these questions is: how is it that the Swedish Left consistently refuses to strongly, openly and unequivocally distance itself from the extremist Islamist forces that always seem to figure so prominently in Left-wing gatherings? The demonstration against Israel’s participation in the Davis Cup tennis tournament in Malmö on March 7 turned into an outright anti-Semitic hate-fest, yet Socialist Party (formerly known as the Communist Party) leader Lars Ohly was proudly wearing a keffiyeh which showed all of Israel erased and replaced by the single Islamistic Arab state of Palestine. A policy entirely in line with what prominent – and highly vocal – Socialist Party figure Muhammad Omar openly supports (this article is in Swedish).

A Swedish Member of Parliament wearing a keffiyeh that clearly shows the whole of Israel eradicated and replaced by a single Islamist Palestine. Democracy in Sweden in 2009 has a distinctly worrying future.

If Swedish domestic security is not to continue to be shaped by cruel events from Middle Ages Khaiber in the Arabian Peninsula, and if Swedish foreign policy is not to continue to be dictated by political demagogues sowing seeds of racist hatred in order to reap a political harvest in the next elections, then Swedish politicians, the media, the police and judiciary, the nation’s schools – in short, Swedish society – is going to have to think very carefully about where the nation is headed.

Towards democracy, or towards democracy’s destruction.