“The first amplified call to prayer in Sweden was not publicly broadcast until 2013, when it reverberated out from a minaret of the Fittja Mosque in southwestern Stockholm on a Friday morning. In the run-up to that historic moment, local Muslims faced a wide range of opposition, including accusations that the azan violated noise regulations and claims from the far right that broadcasting the call amounted to disseminating Islamic propaganda. While Sweden is deeply attached to its reputation as a democratic, secular, humanitarian superpower — having provided safe haven for refugees from Chile’s Pinochet regime, secular leftists fleeing Iran’s Islamic revolution and a massive influx of Syrians and Afghans escaping their present crises — historically speaking, Sweden’s experience of other cultures and religions is still in its infancy. In the 1970s and ’80s, Swedes spoke in terms of assimilation (a term they have since updated to ‘integration’) and its companion concept, mångfald, roughly equivalent to ‘diversity.’ Sweden’s dedication to mångfald is promoted in work and employment opportunities and lauded in the country’s daily papers. Yet while equal opportunity exists in theory, many of Sweden’s immigrants feel a pervasive sense of societal exclusion.”
Source: Sweden Struggles to Stop Radicalization at Home | Al Jazeera America
