Religion, State and Society

ISSN: 0963-7494 (Print) 1465-3974 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/crss20

Religion in the Public Space: Blue-and-Yellow

Islam in Sweden

Susanne Olsson

To cite this article: Susanne Olsson (2009) Religion in the Public Space: Blue-and-Yellow Islam
in Sweden , Religion, State and Society, 37:3, 277-289, DOI: 10.1080/09637490903056500

To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09637490903056500

Published online: 07 Aug 2009.

Submit your article to this journal

Article views: 381

View related articles

Citing articles: 1 View citing articles

Full Terms & Conditions of access and use can be found at

http://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?journalCode=crss20

Download by: [Gothenburg University Library] Date: 22 September 2016, At: 04:16
Religion, State & Society, Vol. 37, No. 3, September 2009

Religion in the Public Space: Blue-and-Yellow Islam in

Sweden*

SUSANNE OLSSON

ABSTRACT
This article looks at Islam in contemporary Sweden in relation to civil society and the public space.
Forms of Islam that advocate integration (Euroislam) are promoted and accepted more easily by
the majority population. The subject is set in the context of the decline of secularisation and of the
return of religion. In the long run, this return of religion to the public space leads to
reinterpretations of religious traditions and also aects the impact of religion and the space that
people can claim for it.

Religion and Culture

I would like to begin with a few words on the subject of the denition of religion in
order to make my own perspective explicit. Many would agree with Zygmunt Bauman
that most people have a fairly good idea about what religion is before they try to
dene it (Otterbeck, 2000, p. 23; Bauman, 1997, p. 223). A denition is not identical
with reality, in the same way that a map is not territory (Smith, 1978). Rather, a
denition is useful for various specic purposes. In this article I interpret religion in a
functional manner, which means that I speak about what religion does for people and
how it is used. In western research, religion has most frequently been dened in terms
of beliefs and interior states. This approach has been criticised in recent years, and the
need to focus also on activity and behaviour as part of what we usually term religion is
emphasised ever more frequently (Asad, 1993; McCutcheon, 1997). An ontological
approach to religion is not my concern. For my purposes it does not matter if religion
is true or false in the common meaning of these words. I am viewing religions as social
constructions which exist within the sphere of culture in dialectical relationships.
The terms religion and culture are perhaps best seen as analytical categories.
They are not equivalents; but it is not clear where the limits of either should be xed,
and this is especially so in the contemporary globalised era. How they are understood
depends in part on politics and power structures, both local and national. This is
shown, for example, in what limits are set to religion by law and in the overall

*A version of this paper was rst presented at the conference Muslim Diasporas: Religious and
National Identity, Gender, Cultural Resistance at the University of Toronto, Canada, 13 June
2007.

ISSN 0963-7494 print; ISSN 1465-3974 online/09/030277-13 2009 Taylor & Francis
DOI: 10.1080/09637490903056500
278 Susanne Olsson

climate: how the majority talk about or perceive religion or culture, and how these
views are reected in the media. Both culture and religion, like languages, are in the
process of constant change. Hence any traditions, religious or otherwise, have to be
explained and interpreted in their various contexts, both local and global. Thus
culture has, for example, been regarded a pool of resources (Eickelman and Piscatori,
1996) and religious traditions have been compared to religious baskets (Hjarpe, 1997)
where people can nd what they need when facing new circumstances.

Against the Secularisation Thesis

The secularisation thesis assumed that modern societies would become secularised;
but religion did not decline (Herbert, 2003, p. 4). Research on new religious
movements shows that religion is present in societies regarded as highly modern, on
both a private and a public level (Herbert, 2003, p. 4; Beyer, 1994; Woodhead and
Heelas, 2002, Woodhead et al., 2002; Casanova, 1994; Janssen, 1999, p. 89). Religion
thus still has public signicance in many countries and civil society has been
important for this religious resurgence.
In this article I follow the denition of civil society produced by the London
School of Economics and Political Science (LSE, 2004): civil society refers to
nongovernmental organisations, networks and voluntary associations which are not
prot-making. Shared interests or values are the foundation of an organisation in civil
society. Civil society is not the same as state, family or market, even though the
boundaries between them are complex. Civil society consists of charities,
NGOs, community groups, womens organisations, faith-based organisations,
professional associations, trade unions, self-help groups, social movements, business
associations, coalitions and advocacy groups. Religion holds a place in and aects
civil society.

It may be argued that religious activity in civil society has played an

important role in this resurgence, understanding civil society initially as a
realm of social life situated beyond the immediate reach of the state in which
networks, organizations and other associations form. Religions have been
particularly active in two kinds of situations: rst, where the state has
retreated or been unable to full basic education and welfare functions,
whether through Islamic private voluntary organizations (PVOs) in Egypt
(Sullivan 1999), or base ecclesial communities in Brazil (Nagel [sic] 1997)
and second, where the state has repressed or undermined the credibility of
more overtly political institutions. But even in democracies with eective
state structures, where modernization has been associated with religious
decline, religions have continued and even extended their activities in civil
society. This is evidenced by examples as diverse as the political mobilization
of Evangelical Christianity in the US (Casanova 1994), the increasing self-
organization of Muslim groups across Western Europe (Shadid and van
Koningsveld 1996) and the continuing association of religious practice with
participation in voluntary work in Britain (Gill 1992). (Herbert, 2003,
pp. 45).

Even though it is clear that religion has had an impact on society, religion has not
traditionally been a major factor in research concerning migration or minorities
(Andersson and Sander, 2005, p. 15). This may be because it was generally believed
 Religion in the Public Space 279

that religion would disappear, or at least be privatised. In order to understand how

and why people think and act in a certain way, however, it is important to consider
religion as well as such aspects as ethnicity, gender and class, and this is increasingly
the case in most research today. Identity is also moulded within larger cultural
discursive processes (Parekh, 2000; Engler, 2003; Mitchell, 2003; Safran, 2003), and
religion is very important for, indeed foundational to, many peoples identity.
The Swedish philosopher Michael Azar proposes the concept imaginary
identication instead of identity, arguing that an individuals identity is upheld
through constructing (or imagining) borders and dierences from others (Azar, 2006,
p. 31). He is critical of views that can be described as culturalist, which see the
behaviour of people as determined, for example, by ethnicity or culture: that people
do what they do because they are, for example, Muslim or Arab. He argues that this is
not the case when discussing what motivates ones own behaviour: then it is more
common to use voluntaristic or rationalistic arguments instead of regarding behaviour
as determined by culture or religion, for example. In my view we need a combination
of these perspectives (Andersson and Sander, 2005, pp. 3839). Religion can therefore
not be ignored when one is trying to understand and predict the behaviour of
minorities; but it is also necessary to discuss not Islam in Europe, but rather Islam in
each particular European country, because local political and social situations dier
widely (see Karlsson, 1999; Eickelman and Piscatori, 1996).

Islamisation and McDonaldisation

Islamisation in Europe has been studied in various ways, for example, through
looking at issues of immigration and multiculturalism. The dierences in national
policies on immigration produce dierent contexts, and dierent approaches to and
interpretations of Islam (see, for example, Buijs and Rath, 2002). The range of
possibilities or lack thereof to practise Islam is an issue for Muslims and non-
Muslims alike. Womens clothing and the practice of religion in religious and ocial
space, for example, are subjects frequently discussed in the media by non-Muslims. In
Sweden there is an increasingly visible and audible presence of Islam and Muslims,
and a corresponding increase in the articulation of fears about the islamisation of
Swedish society and the Muslim presence in the public space (see, for example,
Karaveli, 2003). In the early 1990s, to take just one extreme example, the leader of the
nationalist party New Democracy (Ny Demokrati), Vivianne Franzen, warned that all
schoolchildren would soon have to turn towards Mecca (see Karlsson, 1999). There is
a clear islamophobic image of the other in Swedish society.
Minorities such as the Muslim minority in Sweden are trying to preserve their
identity in the context of modernity and globalisation. Globalisation does not
necessarily mean convergence, but it is perceived by many as a threat in just this sense.
Ritzer (2004) describes the threat of McDonaldization. Herbert argues that it is on
the level of culture and religion that resistance to global integration has been most
erce (Herbert, 2003, p. 103). Integration is here generally understood as comprising
the processes through which minorities become part of the surrounding society. Hence
integration can be studied at various levels local and national as well as global.
In one aspect, islamisation concerns issues relating to the problematic area of how
to live in western, often secularised societies, and still regard oneself as an authentic
Muslim. The question of how to be a European Muslim is solved in many dierent
ways (see Ramadan, 1999). This is one reason why today we often speak of Islams
(Kingston, 2001): Islam is not one, but many. A Muslim with religious conviction may
280 Susanne Olsson

argue that there is indeed one true Islam, but that many Muslims believe and practise
the wrong thing.
Most agree that Sweden is a secular country but what does this in fact mean?
Bryan Wilsons denition of secularisation is that process by which religious
institutions, actions and consciousness, lose their social signicance (Wilson, 1982,
p. 49; see also, for example, Karlsson, 1999). We can speak of an ocial secularisation
in Sweden on the sociopolitical level, although this does not of course mean that
people have stopped entertaining religious beliefs in the private sphere. Sweden can
also be characterised as a plural society. In 2000, 20 per cent of the population was
born abroad or had parents who were born abroad. Many of them are of a Nordic or
Northern European, and hence mainly Protestant Christian, background, but there
are many with a Muslim background as well, with a wide variety of ethnic
backgrounds. Many Muslims are of Bosnian descent, but Turks, Arabs and Iranians
also constitute large minorities. This has led to an increase in dierent traditions
(Andersson and Sander, 2005, p. 9).
The pluralistic environment in Sweden means that people have to make lifestyle
choices (see, for example, Berger, 1970, 1980; Giddens, 1999). It seems to me to be a
fruitful approach to speak of hybridities and of creolising cultures, religions and
ethnicities in Sweden today (Anthias, 2001; Barker, 2000; Bhabha, 1990). This
pluralism is accepted by most Swedes at least as long as people do not choose
anything regarded as fundamentalist or extremist. Thus those who are not in favour
of integration, those who do not want to be like the majority us, are regarded with
suspicion. A citizen is expected to choose a lifestyle which does not conict with the
majority opinion, which is in favour of privatisation of religion in the sense of not
letting religion aect the public space but rather conning it to the private sphere.
One solution for people with religious convictions seems indeed to be secularisation
in the sense of privatising ones religion, or perhaps of leaving it altogether. Another
tendency, however, promotes protectionism and isolation. Some Muslims draw clear
boundaries from other Muslims, in theological or ideological terms, and also raise
barriers against integration into Swedish society (Larsson, 2005, p. 461). In Sweden,
this latter tendency is often associated with the Sala version of Islam, which is
regarded as a fundamentalist interpretation hostile to globalisation and westernisa-
tion. In spring 2006 Swedish television aired a documentary on Islam and integration
in the series Mission: Examination (Uppdrag granskning) which featured Swedish
Sala Muslims hostile to integration. The documentary provoked considerable debate
and contributed to the formation of a negative image of Sala Islam among the
general public.
There is a spectrum of response among religious communities. Those hostile to
integration and those in favour of it represent the two extremes, and between these
two are a multitude of attitudes. In this article I am focusing on those Muslims in
Sweden who are in favour of integration.

One Global Umma or Many Local Islams?

A question often debated is whether there is a European Islam or if there are only
European Muslims (Roy, 2004; Eickelman and Piscatori, 1996). Underlying this
question is the concept of the Islamic global umma, community or nation, a concept
which gives rise to a certain anxiety in the majority Swedish view of Muslims. When
Muslim questions, such as the situation in Bosnia or Palestine, are discussed
transnationally, this may contribute to a sense of a global group identity, in line with
 Religion in the Public Space 281

Benedict Andersons concept of imagined communities (Anderson, 1991), whereby

people imagine that they share some things which makes them a unity for example, a
shared ethnicity or geographical area which makes them a we as opposed to the
other. The process can also involve those who do not live in a shared geographical
area or a nation-state, for example, groups and individuals in diaspora (Cohen, 1997;
Marienstras, 1989; Scheer, 2002); and of course it aects transnational communities
as well (Andersson and Sander, 2005, p. 39; Al-Ali and Koser, 2001; Glick Schiller
et al., 1999). There is also the question of transnational assistance among Muslims,
which can lead to closer global cooperation. It may also have political signicance at
the local level, in the context of issues such as bringing in imams from abroad. In
Sweden there has been increasing discussion about training imams in Sweden; this is
an option favoured by many non-Muslims since it promises to promote integration
and what is generally understood as democracy in Sweden, including privatisation of
religion, and the creation of (good) Swedish Muslims. So far, however, these
proposals have had no practical outcome (see Larsson, 2005, pp. 48384).
The history of Muslims in Sweden goes back to the middle of the twentieth century
when the rst Muslim organisation was formed in Stockholm in 1949, the Turkish
Islamic Society in Sweden for Religion and Culture (Turkislamforeningen i Sverige
for religion och kultur), which consisted of Muslims coming from the Soviet Union via
Finland. Since then the number of Muslims has grown steadily, and more
organisations have been formed and mosques have been built.
The national organisation United Islamic Congregations (Riksorganisationen
Forenade Islamiska Forsamlingar i Sverige) was founded in 1974, and the national
organisation the Swedish Muslim Association (Riksorganisationen Sveriges Muslimska
Forbund) was founded in 1982. Both are members of the umbrella organisations the
Swedish Muslim Council (Sveriges Muslimska Rad) and the Islamic Information
Association (Islamiska Informationsformedlingen). During the 1980s more organisa-
tions were set up, for example, the national Islamic Cultural Union in Sweden
(Islamiska Kulturcenterunionen i Sverige) following the ideals of the Turkish
Suleymanl movement which seeks to islamise Turkey as well as Turks in diaspora.
These nation-wide organisations are part of the Islamic Cooperation Council
(Islamiska Samarbetsradet) and receive funding from the Swedish government. There
are also other Muslim groups which do not receive government funding (Stenberg,
1998, pp. 8082; Svanberg and Westerlund, 1999, pp. 1517; Larsson, 2005, p. 459). A
group that is perceived as undemocratic is not likely to get funding.
Muslims in Sweden used to organise themselves along ethnic lines, but now they
tend not to do so. In general data on religious aliation or ethnic background are
lacking in Sweden since it is forbidden by law to register such information. The last
time this was done was in 1930 when 15 people registered as Muslim. The estimated
Muslim population today is between 250,000 and 400,000 out of a total of 9 million.
In Sweden acknowledged religious associations achieve funding from the government
and the board responsible estimates that there are around 100,000 Muslims who are
members of such associations. The Muslim population is mainly urban. It is
heterogeneous and diverse as regards ethnicity and language as well as cultural and
religious orientation.

The Swedish Political Climate

The Swedish political climate promotes integration in a multiculturalist sense,
meaning that particularities of groups and individuals are allowed, but that all citizens
282 Susanne Olsson

are expected to accept the ocial Swedish view on, for example, the role and scope of
politics and of religion in society. 2006 was even designated a year of multi-
culturalism with activities to promote this in various spheres. By law, equal rights are
to be promoted, as are mutual respect and tolerance. At the same time, however, it is
common to discuss culture in Sweden today and to speak of cultural dierences in a
way which demarcates the us from the other, for example, Muslims. This is a kind
of cultural racism, maintaining the idea of collective identities (Azar, 2006, p. 90). In
his interesting analysis of this subject Azar quotes Mona Sahlin, then minister of
integration, now the leader of the Social Democrats, speaking about immigrants in a
televised debate in January 2002: In Sweden, there is a bunch of values which you
simply have to support. Like it or not, you simply have to accept this. If people
withdraw from society in order to avoid adapting to it then we must nd a way to
force Swedish values on them (quoted in Azar, 2006, p. 88; my translation).
Segregation is thus nevertheless a reality in Sweden and Muslims are often perceived
and treated as the other. People from non-Swedish ethnic backgrounds often
experience problems getting jobs, and they are noticeably under-represented in the
military and police. Since there are no statistical data about ethnic or religious identity
it is dicult to say how extensive the problem is, but there have been a number of
studies of this kind of structural discrimination in Sweden (see, for example,
Neergard, 2006; Dahlstedt and Hertzberg, 2005).
There have been problems regarding clothing as well. In 2003 two Somali
schoolgirls, 18 and 19 years old, wore the niqab in school; it covers the face leaving
only the eyes visible. This generated nation-wide discussion on questions such as
whether Islam is intrinsically oppressive and to what extent freedom of religion and
individual choice should be permitted. The question of appropriate clothing in schools
was of course a lively topic in other parts of Europe at that time, illustrating the kind
of cross-border inuence mentioned above (Larsson, 2005, pp. 46875). It must be
said that there are many examples in Sweden of pragmatic solutions regarding
clothing. The bus company Swebus and the hotel chain Scandic are two examples of
companies which have included a head cover as a voluntary garment as part of their
uniforms.
There have been some demands from Muslims that they should be allowed to
implement sharia law, in matters concerning the family, for example. These have been
highly controversial and have generated instant media coverage. To take one example,
Mahmoud Aldebe, chair of the Swedish Muslim Association (Sveriges Muslimska
Forbund) made such demands in letters to the political parties in April 2006, but
withdrew them after extensive criticism from both non-Muslims and Muslims.
As noted above, recording peoples religious aliation is against the law in Sweden.
This means that ones religion cannot be foundational for civic status. The majority
view is that religion should be privatised, separated from politics and kept out of the
public space. For many, visible expressions of religion are provocative, which is
shown, for example, in studies on mosque building in Sweden (Karlsson, 1999).
In some areas, people have been hostile to the very idea of Muslims moving in, as
illustrated in a letter from a Swedish family: Bunkeostrand is one of the last places
close to Malmo to escape to if you want to avoid having Arabs around the corner
(Azar, 2006, p. 95; my translation).
In some areas of activity related to religion it is dicult for Muslims to press their
claims on religious freedom grounds. Ritual slaughter, for example, is forbidden in
Sweden since it is an issue regarded as belonging to the secular sphere and covered by
animal rights law rather then freedom of religion (Andersson and Sander, 2005, p. 77;
 Religion in the Public Space 283

Karlsson and Svanberg, 1997; Gunner, 1999). Another example is independent

confessional schools. There are some in Sweden, but all must follow the national
curriculum, which means that all schools must teach World Religions as a compulsory
subject in a non-confessional manner (Berglund, 2007).

Versions of Blue-and-Yellow Islam

What, then, are the options available to a Muslim in Sweden? There are those
Muslims who are aware of the fact that Muslims are a minority and there is an
attempt to create what is often called Blue-and-Yellow Islam (blagul islam), alluding
to the colours of the Swedish ag, a term coined by the Swedish historian of religion
Mattias Gardell (Svanberg and Westerlund, 1999). Many Muslims and non-Muslims
seem to be promoting a true Islam which they perceive as a universal form of Islam
not inuenced by local or traditional forms, such as Turkish or Somali traditions,
capable of adapting to any society and open to new interpretations in the context of
democracy.
As such, Blue-and-Yellow Islam is part of Euroislam, which encourages Muslims to
accommodate themselves to a European context. It strives to conform to national
laws, following Islamic law only when there are no contradictions.1 There seem to be a
lot of younger Muslims involved in developing this type of Islam, for example, in the
organisation Young Muslims of Sweden (Sveriges Unga Muslimer) (Larsson, 2005,
p. 461).

Some Muslims feel discriminated against by an unsympathetic or hostile

environment. Others think that Sweden, with its democratic traditions,
social welfare policies and ideals of freedom, corresponds in many ways with
an Islamic pattern. More Muslims are being born in Sweden. Together with
converts, this rst generation of Muslims born in Sweden are taking part
in forming a Swedish Islam that is moulded in a Swedish social culture
and against a Swedish sounding-board, an Islam that therefore could be
called Blue-and-Yellow. (Svanberg and Westerlund, 1999, pp. 1011; my
translation)

I shall now give some examples of Blue-and-Yellow Islam. The Young Muslims
organisation was founded in 1990 and it now has around 70008000 members between
12 and 25 years of age. The most vocal member has been Mehmet Kaplan, a member
of parliament for the Green Party (Miljopartiet). It arranges local activities and camps
and holds a national meeting in the spring (Larsson, 2005, p. 479). Its explicit aim is to
work to establish a religious and cultural identity among Muslim young people while
achieving integration into society. It works to avoid segregation and to bridge the gap
between Muslim generations, for example, between immigrant parents and their
children born in Sweden. Let me quote from the homepage of a convert to Islam,
Pierre Durrani, who was formerly active in the Young Muslims:

A calm and balanced Islam rooted in, and respectful of, the Swedish cultural
heritage. That lifts up classical multifaceted Islamic culture as a beautiful
heritage to further spread it in the Swedish language. That represents a
meaningful deep spirituality rooted in Islamic orthodoxy as well as the
mystic way of Susm. A Swedish Muslim identity liberated from profane
ambitions of political power, that so blinds . . . Islamist Muslims across the
284 Susanne Olsson

world, but with an engagement in the society of which you see yourselves
being a natural part. Swedish Islam will hopefully get its own writers,
thinkers, artists as well as institutions of various kinds, established Swedish
education for imams, high schools and mosque buildings with Swedish
architecture. Perhaps Falu red2 mosques with white corners. (Durrani, 2004;
my translation)

In a society like that of Sweden it is perhaps not surprising that a rational kind of
Islam is being developed. It has been persuasively argued that when ones faith is
constantly questioned by ones environment one tries to explain that ones faith is
rational (see Herbert, 2003, pp. 4042). Part of this endeavour involves tafsir ilmi, a
kind of commentary on the Quran which attempts to see it in the light of
contemporary natural science (see, for example, Stenberg, 1996, 1998). Several
Swedish Muslim websites, for example, www.islamska.org and www.islamguiden.
com, carry the results of this kind of exegesis. A growing number of Muslims in
Sweden seem to be involved in the environmentalist movement, interpreting their faith
in an ecological sense (Beyer, 1994; Herbert, 2003, p. 56; Ouis, 1999).
Studies show that islamophobia has been increasing in Sweden since 2001, and a
Committee against Islamophobia (Kommitten mot islamofobi) was created in 2005
(Larsson, 2006, 2007; Otterbeck, 2006). The Swedish Islamic Literature and Media
Watch (Svensk Islamisk Litteratur- och Mediebevakning (SILOM)) is a Muslim
network which has been formed to work against stereotyped and negative images of
Islam and Muslims in the media and thus promote integration. There is also a recently
established network called FRID (peace in Swedish, www.frid-net.se) which has been
engaged in monitoring islamophobia in media and has, for example, reported cases to
the ombudsman on ethnic discrimination. FRID consists of around 20 local groups
and websites and about 50 individuals; their aim is to unite Swedish Muslims in
working towards common goals and integration by helping to distribute information
among the Muslims. They want to promote the true image of Islam, by which they
mean Blue-and-Yellow Islam. They identify various areas where work on specic
projects can improve the situation for Muslims in Sweden. At the moment there are
six such areas: dawa; the media, lobbying; schools; social services; and discrimination
and employment (arbetsmarknad). Most members choose dawa, which means call
or mission. One of the aims of FRID is to explain how various concepts and issues of
current concern in Swedish public debate should be understood, not only by other
Muslims, but by the majority society. One such is honour culture, a term which
usually relates to honour killings, whereby mainly young women are attacked or
killed by male relatives for not conforming to traditional views on relationships and,
for example, date before marriage. FRID admits that honour culture is a problem
among Muslims, but claims that it has nothing to do with true Islam; it sees it as part
of its mission to explain what the Quran and the Sunna say on subjects like this, in
order to inform and enlighten.
Another issue is conversion to Islam. FRID uses the term revert instead of
convert since it regards all people as born Muslim, so from its perspective to revert is
to return to the natural state of humanity. FRID has a gift for Swedish converts, a
reverters portfolio, including: a Swedish version of the Quran; a DVD with
information about ritual cleansing, prayer and texts on theology and the main pillars
of faith; a CD-ROM with recitation of the entire Quran in Mp3 format; practical tools
such as a compass, a prayer mat, a veil and other surprises; the last part of the Quran
(juz amma) in Arabic but with Latin script; a small book answering frequently asked
 Religion in the Public Space 285

questions; contact information with addresses and phone numbers of so-called

ambassadors of FRID, which consist of individuals and organisations working for
the same goals as FRID; and a paper bag containing all these objects, specially
designed with ecological paper with the FRID logo. One member of FRID is the
Hikma Institute (Hikmainstitutet) which spreads information about Islam through
distance education and publishing lectures on its website (www.hikma.se). Other
members of FRID include, for example, a food guide supplying halal recipes
(www.matguiden.net), a childrens school which gives information to children with the
help of games and puzzles (www.barnskolan.com), and other kinds of dawa activity
such as a service sending subscribers daily verses from the Quran or texts from the
Sunna (www.islam.se). All the members of FRID work towards the goal of integrating
Muslims into Swedish society without their having to renounce Islam, and indeed
making it easier to be a practising Muslim in Sweden in various ways, including trying
to formulate an Islam which is not in contradiction with the majority Swedish view of
religion. They also try to change public non-Muslim opinion by disseminating
information about Islam.

Concluding Remarks
The emergence of Blue-and-Yellow Islam in Sweden seems to be an example of the
process of deprivatisation, of which Jose Casanova speaks, whereby religion
reemerges in civil society. Casanova speaks of a dual interrelated process of
repoliticization of the private religious and moral spheres and renormativization of
the public economic and political spheres (Casanova, 1994, p. 359, quoted in Herbert,
2003, p. 25). By renormativization he means that religion reappears as a normative
code in spheres where religion has not been prevalent in societies as a result of its being
conned to the private sphere. In this process religion does not necessarily inuence
public policy directly, but acts in civil society on public debate through inuencing the
way people think. Casanova thinks that religion will best maintain credibility in
democratic societies today by mobilising universalistic discourses, on topics such as
human rights, in civil society; and this is indeed happening. Religion is again playing a
role in various spheres which used to be regarded as dierentiated (Herbert, 2003,
p. 27), and inuencing spheres other than the private. In the words of Talal Asad:

[Religion] is not indierent to debates about how the economy should be

run, which scientic projects should be publicly funded, or what the broader
aims of [a] national education system should be. The legitimate entry of
religion into these debates results in the creation of modern hybrids: the
principle of structural dierentiation, according to which religion, economy,
education and science are located in autonomous social spaces, no longer
holds. (Asad, 1999, p. 179, quoted in Herbert, 2003, p. 55)

I have also tried to show that the deprivatisation of Islam in Sweden and the
construction of Blue-and-Yellow Islam needs to proceed carefully in order to be
acceptable to society at large. It is a fact that the Swedish majority culture includes
multicultural and pluralist ideals, but in practice the reality is frequently dierent. In
the Swedish majority discourse the majority we are right and they are not, or at
least they do not completely conform to our standards. However, we tolerate
their dierences to a certain extent. The fragility of multicultural and pluralist ideals
in Sweden is evident whenever the other attempts to claim more space than the
286 Susanne Olsson

majority views acceptable, for example, the right to ritual slaughter of animals or to
follow religious laws on divorce. Azar shows that when the other moves beyond its
place, in territory or norms, it will commonly instantly be attacked and accused (Azar,
2006, p. 69). The title of Azars book, The Colonial Boomerang, illustrates how the
other will always be an other, because when the other becomes like us, we will
nd other things which make them dierent from us. Or perhaps we will say that
we have now developed further, or simply doubt the sincerity and reality of the
others development.
There is a second issue arising out of the reemergence of religion into civil society.
Any discussion of the place that religion should occupy in society needs to take
account of the view that civil society functions on a democratic basis whereas any
religion is essentially absolutist and that this is the cause of conicts between the two
(see Herbert, 2003, p. 55). As religion returns to the public space in Sweden we see it
trying in various ways to conform to the democratic standards of civil society. In the
light of this, we need to ask ourselves a question: should religion be restricted, or
restrict itself, to civil society? I believe that the majority of Swedes would argue that it
is necessary to restrict the sphere of religion. We must consider this when we analyse
the Islams, or other religious traditions, developing within Swedish society and
elsewhere. Muslims who want to lead a religious life in Sweden must appear as rather
ordinary Swedes, or at least as Blue-and-Yellow Muslims, and work within civil
society and promote integration in order to be accepted by the majority.
Views on religion and religious practice will always alter as the cultures in which the
people belonging to the religions in question alter. Blue-and-Yellow Islam is a
particular version of Islam formed in a specic national context where cultural
conformity rather than cultural resistance is the predominating attitude or strategy
chosen by Muslims. This is the kind of Islam most non-Muslim Swedes seem to prefer
as well.

Notes
1 There arises some ambiguity as a result of the use of terms such as universal and local. It
could be argued that Blue-and Yellow Islam is as local as Turkish or Somali Islam, and
that universal Islam is that variety espoused by fundamentalists who seek the establishment
of a world-wide caliphate. The fact remains, however, that the proponents of Blue-and-
Yellow Islam speak of it as universal in the sense that it is adaptable to the conditions of the
modern world. An example of such a universal view of Islam is that of Tariq Ramadan who
discusses the possibilities of using Islamic jurisprudence in Europe. He argues that an
essential juridical principle is that we are all responsible and that this makes it clear that
Islam allows us to consider its intrinsic possibilities for adaptation to space and time; that is
to say, to accept and make ours what, within every civilisation or culture, does not contradict
a clearly stipulated juridical prescription (Ramadan, 2004, p. 65).
2 The colour Falu red, widely used for painting houses, is regarded as typically Swedish.

References
Al-Ali, N. and Koser, K. (eds) (2001) New Approaches to Migration? Transnational Communities
and the Transformation of Home (London, Routledge).
Anderson, B. (1991) Imagined Communities: Reections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism
(London, Verso).
Andersson, D. and Sander, A. (eds) (2005) Det mangreligiosa Sverige: ett landskap i forandring
(Multireligious Sweden: a Transforming Landscape) (Lund, Studentlitteratur).
 Religion in the Public Space 287

Anthias, F. (2001) New hybridities, old concepts: the limits of culture, Ethnic and Racial
Studies, 24, 4.
Asad, T. (1993) Genealogies of Religion: Discipline and Reasons of Power in Christianity and
Islam (Baltimore, MD, Johns Hopkins University Press).
Asad, T. (1999) Religion, nation-state and secularism, in P. van der Veer and H. Lehmann
(eds), Nation and Religion: Perspectives on Europe and Asia (Princeton, NJ, Princeton
University Press).
Azar, M. (2006) Den koloniala bumerangen: fran Schibbolet till korkort i svenskhet (The Colonial
Boomerang: from Shibboleth to a Driving Licence in Swedishness) (Stockholm, Symposion).
Barker, C. (2000) Cultural Studies: Theory and Practice (London, Sage).
Bauman, Z. (1997) Vi vantrivs i det postmoderna (Postmodernity and its Discontents) (Goteborg,
Daidalos).
Berger, P. (1970) A Rumor of Angels: Modern Society and the Rediscovery of the Supernatural
(Garden City, NY, Anchor Books).
Berger, P. (1980) The Heretical Imperative: Contemporary Possibilities of Religious Armation
(Garden City, NY, Anchor Books).
Berglund, J. (2007) Muslimska friskolor i Norden (Muslim free schools in the Nordic
countries), in J. Berglund and G. Larsson (eds), Religiosa friskolor i Sverige (Religious Free
Schools in Sweden) (Lund, Studentlitteratur), pp. 81102.
Beyer, P. (1994) Religion and Globalisation (London, Sage).
Bhabha, H. (ed.) (1990) Nation and Narration (London, Routledge).
Bhabha, H. (1994) The Location of Culture (London, Routledge).
Bruce, S. (ed.) (1998) Religion and Modernisation: Sociologists and Historians Debate the
Secularization Thesis (Oxford, Clarendon Press).
Buijs, F. J. and Rath, J. (2002) Muslims in Europe: the State of Research, IMISCOE working
paper, October, www.imiscoe.org/publications/workingpapers/documents/MuslimsinEurope-
Thestateofresearch.pdf (last accessed 10 April 2009).
Bunt, G. (2003) Islam in the Digital Age: E-Jihad, Online Fatwas and Cyber Islamic
Environments (London, Pluto Press).
Casanova, J. (1994) Public Religions in the Modern World (Chicago, University of Chicago
Press).
Cohen, R. (1997) Global Diasporas: an Introduction (London, UCL Press).
Dahlstedt, M. and Hertzberg F. (eds) (2005) Demokrati pa svenska: om strukturell diskriminering
och politiskt deltagande, SOU 2005, 112 (Democracy in Swedish: Structural Discrimination
and Political Participations, Governmental Public Inquiry, 2005, 112) (Stockholm, Fritze).
Durrani, P. (2004) www.algonet.se/*durrani/kroni3.html (last accessed 2004; no longer
accessible).
Eickelman, D. and Piscatori, J. (1996) Muslim Politics (Princeton, NJ, Princeton University
Press).
Eickelman, D. and Andersson, J. (eds) (2003) New Media in the Muslim World: the Emerging
Public Sphere (Bloomington, IN, Indiana University Press).
Engler, J. (2003) Being somebody and being nobody: a reexamination of the understanding of
self in psychoanalysis and Buddhism, in J. D. Safran (ed.), Psychoanalysis and Buddhism:
an Unfolding Dialogue (Boston, MA, Wisdom), pp. 3580.
Giddens, A. (1999) The Consequences of Modernity (Cambridge, Polity Press).
Gill, R. (1992) Moral Communities (Exeter, University of Exeter Press).
Glick Schiller, N., Basch, L. and Blanc-Szanton, C. (1999) From immigrant to transmigrant:
theorizing transnational migration, in L. Pries (ed.), Migration and Transnational Spaces
(Aldershot, Ashgate), pp. 73105.
Gunner, G. (1999) Att slakta ett far i Guds namn: om religionsfrihet och demokrati, SOU 1999, 9
(Slaughtering a Sheep in the Name of God: Freedom of Religion and Democracy,
Governmental Public Inquiry, 1999, 9) (Stockholm, Elander Gotab).
Herbert, D. (2003) Religion and Civil Society: Rethinking Public Religion in the Contemporary
World (Aldershot, Ashgate).
288 Susanne Olsson

Hjarpe, J. (1997) What will be chosen from the Islamic basket?, European Review, 5,
pp. 26774.
Hvitfelt, H. (1998) Den muslimska faran: om mediebilden av islam (The Muslim danger: the
media image of Islam), in Y. Brune (ed.), Mork magi i vita medier: svensk nyhetsjournalistik
om invandrare, yktingar och rasism (Dark Magic in White Media: Swedish News Journalism
about Immigration, Refugees and Racism) (Stockholm, Carlssons Forlag).
Janssen, J. (1999) The abstract image of God: the case of Dutch youth, in L. Thomasi,
Alternative Religions Among European Youth (Aldershot, Ashgate), pp. 5782.
Karaveli, M. (2003) Islam ar pa vag att pragla Sverige (Islam is about to characterise
Sweden), Dagens Nyheter, 26 November.
Karlsson, P. and Svanberg, I. (eds) (1997) Religionsfrihet i Sverige: om mojligheten att leva som
troende (Freedom of Religion in Sweden: Possibilities to Live as a Believer) (Lund,
Studentlitteratur).
Karlsson, P. (1999) Islam tar plats: moskeer och deras funktion (Islam takes its place:
mosques and their function), in I. Svanberg and D. Westerlund (eds), Blagul islam?
Muslimer i Sverige (Blue-and Yellow Islam? Muslims in Sweden) (Nora, Nya Doxa),
pp. 195212.
Kingston, P. (2001) Reections on religion, modernization, and violence in the Islamic Middle
East, Method and Theory in the Study of Religion, 13, 3, pp. 293309.
Larsson, G. (2005) Muslimer i Sverige (Muslims in Sweden), in A. Sander and D. Andersson
(eds), Det mangreligiosa Sverige: ett landskap i forandring (Multireligious Sweden: a
Transforming Landscape) (Lund, Studentlitteratur), pp. 44790.
Larsson, G. (2006) Muslimerna kommer: tankar om islamofobi (The Muslims are Coming:
Thoughts about Islamophobia) (Goteborg, Makadam).
Larsson, G. (2007) Muslims in the EU: Cities Report: Sweden: Preliminary Research Report
and Literary Survey (Open Society Institute, EU Monitoring and Advocacy Program),
http://www.eumap.org/topics/minority/reports/eumuslims/background_reports/download/
sweden/sweden.pdf (last accessed 15 April 2009).
LSE (2004) What is civil society?, 1 March, www.lse.ac.uk/collections/CCS/what_is_civil_
society.htm (last accessed 28 February 2009).
Marienstras, R. (1989) On the notion of diasporas, in G. Chaliand (ed.), Minority People in the
Age of Nation States (London, Pluto Press).
Mandaville, P. (2001) Transnational Muslim Politics: Reimagining the Ummah (London,
Routledge).
Mandaville, P. (2002) Muslim youth in Europe, in S. T. Hunter (ed.), Islam, Europes Second
Religion: the New Social, Cultural, and Political Landscape (Westport, CT, Praeger).
McCutcheon, R. T. (1997) Manufacturing Religion: the Discourse on Sui Generis Religion and the
Politics of Nostalgia (Oxford, Oxford University Press).
Mitchell, S. A. (2003) Commentary: somebodies and nobodies, in J. D. Safran (ed.),
Psychoanalysis and Buddhism: an Unfolding Dialogue (Boston, MA, Wisdom), pp. 8086.
Nagle, R. (1997) Claiming the Virgin: the Broken Promise of Liberation Theology in Brazil
(London, Routledge).
Neergard, A. (ed.) (2006) Pa troskeln till lonearbete: diskriminering, exkludering och
underordning av personer med utlandsk bakgrund, SOU 2006, 60 (On the Threshold of Paid
Work: Discrimination, Exclusion and Subordination of People with a Foreign Background,
Governmental Public Inquiry, 2006, 60) (Stockholm, Fritze).
Otterbeck, J. (2000) Islam, muslimer och den svenska skolan (Islam, Muslims and the Swedish
School) (Lund, Studentlitteratur).
Otterbeck, J. (2006) Islamofobi: en studie av begreppet, ungdommars attityder och unga muslimers
utsatthet (Islamophobia: a Study of the Concept, Attitudes among Young People and
Exposure of Young Muslims) (Stockholm, Forum for levande historia).
Ouis, P. (1999) Islamisk ekoteologi: en ny gron rorelse? (Islamic eco-theology: a new green
movement?), in I. Svanberg and D. Westerlund (eds), Blagul islam? Muslimer i Sverige
(Blue-and Yellow Islam? Muslims in Sweden) (Nora, Nya Doxa), pp. 23548.
 Religion in the Public Space 289

Parekh, B. (2000) Rethinking Multiculturalism: Cultural Diversity and Political Theory

(Cambridge, MA, Harvard University Press).
Ramadan, T. (1999/2004) To be a European Muslim: a Study of Islamic Sources in the European
Context (Leicester, Islamic Foundation).
Ritzer, G. (2004) The McDonaldization of Society (Thousand Oaks, CA, Pine Forge Press).
Roy, O. (2004) Globalised Islam: the Search for a New Ummah (London, Hurst).
Safran, J. D. (2003) Psychoanalysis and Buddhism as cultural institutions, in J. D. Safran (ed.),
Psychoanalysis and Buddhism: an Unfolding Dialogue (Boston, MA, Wisdom), pp. 131.
Scheer, G. (2002) Dening ethno-national diasporas, Migration, 33/34/35, pp. 6991.
Shadid, W. A. R. and van Koningsveld, S. P. (eds) (1996) Muslims in the Margin: Political
Responses to the Presence of Islam in Western Europe (Kampen, Kok Pharos).
Sommerville, C. J. (1992) The Secularization of Early Modern England: from Religious Culture to
Religious Faith (New York, Oxford University Press).
Smith, J. Z. (1978) Map is not Territory: Studies in the History of Religions (Leiden, Brill).
Starrett, G. (1998) Putting Islam to Work: Education, Politics, and Religious Transformation in
Egypt (Berkeley, University of California Press).
Stenberg, L. (1996) The Islamization of Science: Four Muslim Positions Developing an Islamic
Modernity (Stockholm, Almquist & Wiksell International).
Stenberg, L. (1998) Atomer i Guds tjanst (Atoms in the service of God), in F. Miegel and
F. Schoug (eds), Dikotomier: Vetenskapsteoretiska Reektioner (Dichotomies: Theoretical
and Scientic Reections) (Lund, Studentlitteratur), pp. 6287.
Sullivan, D. J. (1999) Islam in Contemporary Egypt: Civil Society vs. the State (Boulder, CO,
Lynne Rienner).
Svanberg, I. and Westerlund, D. (eds) (1999) Blagul islam? Muslimer i Sverige (Blue-and Yellow
Islam? Muslims in Sweden) (Nora, Nya Doxa).
Tossavainen, M. (2003) Det fornekade hatet: Antisemitism bland araber och muslimer i Sverige
(Denied Hatred: Antisemitism among Arabs and Muslims in Sweden) (Stockholm, Svenska
kommitten mot anti-Semitism).
Wilson, B. (1982) Religion in Sociological Perspective (Oxford, Oxford University Press).
Woodhead, L. and Heelas, P. (eds) (2002a) Religion in Modern Times: an Interpretive Anthology
(Malden, MA, Blackwell).
Woodhead, L., Fletcher, P., Kawaniami, H. and Smith, D. (eds) (2002b) Religions in the Modern
World: Traditions and Transformations (London, Routledge).