8 ms·

Placed in the perspective of the current political climate in Sweden I can not be but sceptic against research which tries to make islam part of Sweden's histor

Placed in the perspective of the current political climate in Sweden I can not be but sceptic against research which tries to make islam part of Sweden's history. While the article is published by the BBC, the research - for what it is - was done in Uppsala. That Vikings travelled to islamic countries is known. That they traded with them - willingly or unwillingly - is also known. They did the same with many other cultures and brought materials back to Scandinavia. There have been finds of Buddhist statues, swastikas, Christian ornaments from the time when the Vikings were still going the way of Odin and Thor, etc. There is, however, no research showing the Vikings were making Buddhism part of their culture even though they used some of their symbology (swastikas come to mind). Why not? Because there is no political drive to give Buddhism a part in Sweden's history while there is a strong drive to do this to islam, especially in parts of academia. Also, if these Vikings wanted to show allegiance to allah and Ali, why did they do so in mirror image? This belongs to the realm of Beatles covers showing mirror images of Paul McCartney being dead, backward satanic messages on rock albums and chemtrails: the conclusion was the starting point, all that was left was a search for 'evidence'.

MichaelMoser123 9y ago
What would be the purpose of in including Islam as part of Swedish culture? Does Sweden want to get into OPEC?
- coldtea 9y ago
  No, just wants to open an opposed part of the population into integrating an increasing number of muslim economic migration.
  - MichaelMoser123 9y ago
    I think other countries like Germany also have structural problems - a low birth rate will lead to a collapse of the pension system. They also need more people to keep it going in the long term.
    - Yetanfou 9y ago
      The Swedish pension authorities ("Pensionsmyndigheten") has now published a - belated - study which shows that migration to Sweden will double the pension costs by the year 2060 [1]. This studt is 'belated' because these numbers had already been calculated and made known by others but that news was labelled 'främlingsfientligt' (xenophobic) and 'racist' to quench any chance of a fact-based discussion on the subject. The problem with (current and recent) migration to Sweden is that most migrants come from places with low 'human development index' (Afghanistan and Syria are the top 2 countries at this moment) while the Swedish job market requires high levels of education compared to surrounding countries. This makes it hard for migrants to find jobs and to establish themselves, leading to a high dependence on government subsidies and state-subsidised pensions ('garantipension'). In other words, by allowing (until recently unlimited) economically-motivated migration of people from countries with a low HDI, Sweden has worsened any future pension problems dramatically and reduced the chance of the state pension system to survive in the long term. In 2014 Sweden had a birth rate of 1.88 per woman [2], the third best in Europe. While not at the 2.1 level required to keep the population at the current level there was no obvious need to import a large contingent of people from the Middle-East and Africa to avoid the "collapse of the pension system". [1] https://ledarsidorna.se/2017/10/pensionerna-migrationens-kostnader-tydliggjorda/ https://ledarsidorna.se/2017/10/pensionerna-migrationens-kos... [2] https://www.thelocal.se/20160316/swedes-are-europes-third-best-baby-makers https://www.thelocal.se/20160316/swedes-are-europes-third-be...
rusk 9y ago
That all sounds a bit far fetched if you ask me. A more likely explanation is trade and cultural exchange [EDIT] and expropriation. The Vikings roamed far and wide [0] [1], and Islam even made it as far as Spain at one stage [2] As far as they went though they probably never got as far as East Asia where they could have encountered Buddhism. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikings#Viking_Age https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikings#Viking_Age [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikings#/media/File:Vikings_exploration_and_territories-en.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikings#/media/File:Vikings_ex... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_Spain#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_Spain#History
- diminish 9y ago
  Does "cultural exchange" include looting and pillage? It may seem hard to accept nationalistically for Scandinavians but most Vikings stuff in tombs are the result of not a production economy.
  - rusk 9y ago
    Good point, I fixed it for you :)
  - Brakenshire 9y ago
    Bloody Scandinavian political correctness, trying to avoid offending the Vikings! I've read that Vikings were kind of half traders, half raiders. It was a culture of 'bringing back the spoils', I think the word was leader was actually something equivalent to 'ring-giver', and the bond of allegiance was made on that basis. So I suppose you could accomplish that goal in a variety of ways, depending on the circumstances, size of the group, access to weapons, or information, and so on.
    - dagw 9y ago
      I've read Vikings were kind of half traders, half raiders, Also worth remembering the "the vikings" where not some homogeneous society. The term covers a large number of different groups from different countries and different periods of history. Some traded, some looted, some went west, some went east etc.
KON_Air 9y ago
To be honest "Allah on mirror" sounds like "Jesus on toast".
- jpatokal 9y ago
  The images make it quite clear these are not random patterns, but intentional.
  - KON_Air 9y ago
    Which are just basic patterns that require a mirror and imagination to be read as Arabic. edit; I'm not ruling out interraction or even Muslim Vikings but reading Allah on that fabric is just absurd.
eponeponepon 9y ago
Why are you so swift to cast this as political? All this suggests - at most- is that individuals might have decided they wanted to be muslims, or more likely just liked the iconography. Whichever way you slice it, islam is a part, however small, of Sweden's history, on account of its symbolism being found on Swedish historical artifacts.
- jlebrech 9y ago
  it's by the BBC
  - jpatokal 9y ago
    While not perfect and generally on the "liberal" side of the spectrum, the BBC is remarkably apolitical by US standards and I very much doubt they have any (Viking) axes to grind when it comes to Swedish politics. Disclaimer: I used to work at a BBC company, although nowhere near the news department.
    - mentallimits 9y ago
      The BBC has a strong left wing bias. This doesn't come through so much in how they report mainstream political news but in the stories they choose to run on their website. A good example is the choice of stories for the "Society" section.
      - Brakenshire 9y ago
        The BBC is also accused of having a right wing bias by the left. The 'Society' section appears to just be a view on the homepage with a few articles at a time, one of the things you can add or remove from the customizable homepage, not a cohesive category. These are the three articles on there at the moment: http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/item/63ca22ff-b580-4fe7-8796-b44edb9bf245 http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/item/63ca22ff-b580-4fe7-8796-b... http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/item/5d33c36d-cd41-4351-97ed-4516962d5c44 http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/item/5d33c36d-cd41-4351-97ed-4... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41582874 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41582874
bsaul 9y ago
i've heard a lot of very very preocuppying things about sweden, but could you elaborate on what you think the current political climate is ?
eksemplar 9y ago
The article is based on research done by an archeologist at a university who wasn't looking for evidence of Arabic culture. The research hasn't yet concluded anything. What do you base your statement on? Your gut?
- demonshalo 9y ago
  As a Swede I can tell you that whatever research comes out of these institutions will be biased. These institutions suffer to a large degree of self-hatred due to some nasty shit that they've contributed to over the years. For that reason, they try to always publish crap like in order to champion diversity and deny their vicious history. It's basically like how Germans react to their history with Hitler. Merkel had no choice but to welcome Islam as a part of German Society and find post-facto justification for it in order for her not to be seen as "repeating the mistakes of the past". Douglas Murray called it "The True Legacy of Hitler" and it is present in Sweden as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statens_institut_f%C3%B6r_rasbiologi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statens_institut_f%C3%B6r_rasb... Edit: I am not saying that these findings are fake, but rather that these institutions are not as credible as you might think they are when it comes to think kind of topic. Politics drives the discourse in most of them, not science!
  - nostromo123 9y ago
    You are right, despite the downvotes. Ironically, Hitler's Germany had many common ties with Islam, an aspect that now is conveniently swept under the carpet. A grotesque side effect of this is that the "diverse" society Germany is getting with the increase in migration from Muslim countries comes with a sharp increase in antisemitism. The migrants are often very open about their opinions regarding Jews and admiration for Hitler.
  - Brakenshire 9y ago
    What is there to be credible or otherwise about? It's a geometric pattern which symbolizes Ali (of Shia) and the Islamic god, in a piece of fabric traded to the Vikings. The research even says it was likely an incorrect copy done by a second party of the original design from the Islamic world. That is interesting in the context of trade and cultural links, but is in itself exceptionally uncontroversial.
trollopTheJope 9y ago
The BBC has a similar mandate in the UK to the state broadcaster in Uppsala. It is more concerned with managing community relations by presenting a unified history than straight reportage, and so often rebroadcasts politically funded, highly speculative and poorly conducted research in "soft" fields, particularly archaeology.
whipoodle 9y ago
> Placed in the perspective of the current political climate in Sweden I can not be but sceptic against research which tries to make islam part of Sweden's history. Good grief.
Deestan 9y ago
> if these Vikings wanted to show allegiance to allah and Ali I call strawman. Both article and researcher make no claims further than "cultural influence".
Yetanfou 9y ago
https://twitter.com/stephenniem/status/919897406031978496/photo/1 https://twitter.com/stephenniem/status/919897406031978496/ph... Given that this is twitter the whole thing has been chopped into bite-sized chunks but if you add them together it reads something like the following: https://tttthreads.com/thread/919897406031978496 https://tttthreads.com/thread/919897406031978496 In other words, the "research" behind the BBC article is faulty and there is no mention of allah or ali on that Viking artifact.

MichaelMoser123 9y ago

What would be the purpose of in including Islam as part of Swedish culture? Does Sweden want to get into OPEC?

coldtea 9y ago
No, just wants to open an opposed part of the population into integrating an increasing number of muslim economic migration.
- MichaelMoser123 9y ago
  I think other countries like Germany also have structural problems - a low birth rate will lead to a collapse of the pension system. They also need more people to keep it going in the long term.
  - Yetanfou 9y ago
    The Swedish pension authorities ("Pensionsmyndigheten") has now published a - belated - study which shows that migration to Sweden will double the pension costs by the year 2060 [1]. This studt is 'belated' because these numbers had already been calculated and made known by others but that news was labelled 'främlingsfientligt' (xenophobic) and 'racist' to quench any chance of a fact-based discussion on the subject. The problem with (current and recent) migration to Sweden is that most migrants come from places with low 'human development index' (Afghanistan and Syria are the top 2 countries at this moment) while the Swedish job market requires high levels of education compared to surrounding countries. This makes it hard for migrants to find jobs and to establish themselves, leading to a high dependence on government subsidies and state-subsidised pensions ('garantipension'). In other words, by allowing (until recently unlimited) economically-motivated migration of people from countries with a low HDI, Sweden has worsened any future pension problems dramatically and reduced the chance of the state pension system to survive in the long term. In 2014 Sweden had a birth rate of 1.88 per woman [2], the third best in Europe. While not at the 2.1 level required to keep the population at the current level there was no obvious need to import a large contingent of people from the Middle-East and Africa to avoid the "collapse of the pension system". [1] https://ledarsidorna.se/2017/10/pensionerna-migrationens-kostnader-tydliggjorda/ https://ledarsidorna.se/2017/10/pensionerna-migrationens-kos... [2] https://www.thelocal.se/20160316/swedes-are-europes-third-best-baby-makers https://www.thelocal.se/20160316/swedes-are-europes-third-be...

rusk 9y ago

That all sounds a bit far fetched if you ask me. A more likely explanation is trade and cultural exchange [EDIT] and expropriation. The Vikings roamed far and wide [0] [1], and Islam even made it as far as Spain at one stage [2] As far as they went though they probably never got as far as East Asia where they could have encountered Buddhism. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikings#Viking_Age https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikings#Viking_Age [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikings#/media/File:Vikings_exploration_and_territories-en.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikings#/media/File:Vikings_ex... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_Spain#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_Spain#History

diminish 9y ago
Does "cultural exchange" include looting and pillage? It may seem hard to accept nationalistically for Scandinavians but most Vikings stuff in tombs are the result of not a production economy.
- rusk 9y ago
  Good point, I fixed it for you :)
- Brakenshire 9y ago
  Bloody Scandinavian political correctness, trying to avoid offending the Vikings! I've read that Vikings were kind of half traders, half raiders. It was a culture of 'bringing back the spoils', I think the word was leader was actually something equivalent to 'ring-giver', and the bond of allegiance was made on that basis. So I suppose you could accomplish that goal in a variety of ways, depending on the circumstances, size of the group, access to weapons, or information, and so on.
  - dagw 9y ago
    I've read Vikings were kind of half traders, half raiders, Also worth remembering the "the vikings" where not some homogeneous society. The term covers a large number of different groups from different countries and different periods of history. Some traded, some looted, some went west, some went east etc.

KON_Air 9y ago

To be honest "Allah on mirror" sounds like "Jesus on toast".

jpatokal 9y ago
The images make it quite clear these are not random patterns, but intentional.
- KON_Air 9y ago
  Which are just basic patterns that require a mirror and imagination to be read as Arabic. edit; I'm not ruling out interraction or even Muslim Vikings but reading Allah on that fabric is just absurd.

eponeponepon 9y ago

Why are you so swift to cast this as political? All this suggests - at most- is that individuals might have decided they wanted to be muslims, or more likely just liked the iconography. Whichever way you slice it, islam is a part, however small, of Sweden's history, on account of its symbolism being found on Swedish historical artifacts.

jlebrech 9y ago
it's by the BBC
- jpatokal 9y ago
  While not perfect and generally on the "liberal" side of the spectrum, the BBC is remarkably apolitical by US standards and I very much doubt they have any (Viking) axes to grind when it comes to Swedish politics. Disclaimer: I used to work at a BBC company, although nowhere near the news department.
  - mentallimits 9y ago
    The BBC has a strong left wing bias. This doesn't come through so much in how they report mainstream political news but in the stories they choose to run on their website. A good example is the choice of stories for the "Society" section.
    - Brakenshire 9y ago
      The BBC is also accused of having a right wing bias by the left. The 'Society' section appears to just be a view on the homepage with a few articles at a time, one of the things you can add or remove from the customizable homepage, not a cohesive category. These are the three articles on there at the moment: http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/item/63ca22ff-b580-4fe7-8796-b44edb9bf245 http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/item/63ca22ff-b580-4fe7-8796-b... http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/item/5d33c36d-cd41-4351-97ed-4516962d5c44 http://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/item/5d33c36d-cd41-4351-97ed-4... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41582874 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41582874

bsaul 9y ago

i've heard a lot of very very preocuppying things about sweden, but could you elaborate on what you think the current political climate is ?

eksemplar 9y ago

The article is based on research done by an archeologist at a university who wasn't looking for evidence of Arabic culture. The research hasn't yet concluded anything. What do you base your statement on? Your gut?

demonshalo 9y ago
As a Swede I can tell you that whatever research comes out of these institutions will be biased. These institutions suffer to a large degree of self-hatred due to some nasty shit that they've contributed to over the years. For that reason, they try to always publish crap like in order to champion diversity and deny their vicious history. It's basically like how Germans react to their history with Hitler. Merkel had no choice but to welcome Islam as a part of German Society and find post-facto justification for it in order for her not to be seen as "repeating the mistakes of the past". Douglas Murray called it "The True Legacy of Hitler" and it is present in Sweden as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statens_institut_f%C3%B6r_rasbiologi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statens_institut_f%C3%B6r_rasb... Edit: I am not saying that these findings are fake, but rather that these institutions are not as credible as you might think they are when it comes to think kind of topic. Politics drives the discourse in most of them, not science!
- nostromo123 9y ago
  You are right, despite the downvotes. Ironically, Hitler's Germany had many common ties with Islam, an aspect that now is conveniently swept under the carpet. A grotesque side effect of this is that the "diverse" society Germany is getting with the increase in migration from Muslim countries comes with a sharp increase in antisemitism. The migrants are often very open about their opinions regarding Jews and admiration for Hitler.
- Brakenshire 9y ago
  What is there to be credible or otherwise about? It's a geometric pattern which symbolizes Ali (of Shia) and the Islamic god, in a piece of fabric traded to the Vikings. The research even says it was likely an incorrect copy done by a second party of the original design from the Islamic world. That is interesting in the context of trade and cultural links, but is in itself exceptionally uncontroversial.

trollopTheJope 9y ago

The BBC has a similar mandate in the UK to the state broadcaster in Uppsala. It is more concerned with managing community relations by presenting a unified history than straight reportage, and so often rebroadcasts politically funded, highly speculative and poorly conducted research in "soft" fields, particularly archaeology.

whipoodle 9y ago

> Placed in the perspective of the current political climate in Sweden I can not be but sceptic against research which tries to make islam part of Sweden's history. Good grief.

Deestan 9y ago

> if these Vikings wanted to show allegiance to allah and Ali I call strawman. Both article and researcher make no claims further than "cultural influence".

Yetanfou 9y ago

https://twitter.com/stephenniem/status/919897406031978496/photo/1 https://twitter.com/stephenniem/status/919897406031978496/ph... Given that this is twitter the whole thing has been chopped into bite-sized chunks but if you add them together it reads something like the following: https://tttthreads.com/thread/919897406031978496 https://tttthreads.com/thread/919897406031978496 In other words, the "research" behind the BBC article is faulty and there is no mention of allah or ali on that Viking artifact.