Islam’s growing influence causes problems

Helsingborg is to build a mosque on ten thousand square metres of land after the city council has approved the sale of the huge plot. None of the city’s political parties was opposed to the construction of the mosque, except for the right-wing, anti-immigration Sweden Democrats (SD).

V4NA has asked Pontus Andersson, the president of SD’s Helsingborg organisation, to comment on the issue.

A politician told V4NA that in his view, political parties in Helsingborg don’t see what is wrong with the growing influence of Islam. Moreover, the rise of Islam doesn’t seem to raise concerns in Sweden, or in Western Europe either. Figures from 2019 show that 34 per cent of the people living in Helsingborg have a foreign, and mostly Muslim background, Pontus Andersson pointed out.

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He said political parties were presumably afraid that they would fail to secure enough votes in the next election if they refused to give a green light to the mosque. Concerning votes, Andersson told V4NA that during the last election, 47 per cent of those who grew up outside Europe but currently live in Sweden voted for the leftist Social Democrats.

The same trend was observed in Helsingborg’s Drottninghog district, where most have a foreign background: 70 per cent voted either for the Social Democrats or the Left Party. Pontus Andersson also drew attention to the fact that before the last election, the Social Democrats had delivered a speech in the current mosque. “We don’t know what was promised and at what price, but we know for sure that the Social Democratic Party has now approved the building of a new, huge mosque in the city,” Andersson said.

In a recent interview Walid Hams, the head of the Muslim community at Helsinki’s Ahel Al-Sunnah Mosque said he thinks the only difference between Muslims and Swedes is that Muslims pray five times a day. The right-wing politician, however, thinks otherwise.

Pontus Andersson told V4NA that there had been problems around the mosque in the past, for instance when a Salafist preacher was invited. On another occasion, the mosque’s imams questioned and criticised people’s right to make any drawings depicting Muhammad. The afore-mentioned event – the speech delivered in the mosque by the Social Democratic Party – is also worth remembering, as one of the party’s female representatives was barred from sitting among her male colleagues. According to Andersson, these are all examples of Western values not being respected in the mosque.

The leader of the Swedish Democrats in Helsingborg also spoke about Swedish society in general, as well as the changes that have taken place in it. Andersson believes that immigration has significantly transformed Sweden. The situation is worse than ten years ago, and it would get even worse in the next ten years, he said. It’s quite simple, Andersson said: “If you take the Middle East to Sweden, you will get the Middle East in Sweden.”