Keywords

Introduction

The narrative of Islamic takeover and selling out Sweden was heavily centered on national conservative values and the threats posed to the Swedish way of life. It focused on the downgrading of Swedish traditional values, symbols, and images for the benefit of Islamic traditions and culture. The Muslim community featured in coverage of all kinds of topics and it was most frequently assigned the role of villain, responsible for social ills. Until 2015, Sweden had been known as a state with a generous immigration policy. However, armed conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa led to a large increase in the number of migrants to and people seeking asylum in Europe, and Sweden in particular. The government took unprecedent measures, closing the borders and drastically limiting immigration. Events leading up to this policy turn were most often referred to in the public discourse as a migration crisis.

RT and Sputnik repeatedly made references to the situation in 2015 as “mass immigration”. Many of the plots were set against this backdrop, and the Islamic takeover was described as the result not only of Muslim efforts spurred on by the “mass immigration” of 2015, but also as a result of actions taken by Swedish companies and public institutions that facilitated Islamic inroads into Swedish society. Through ignorance, laziness or fear of being dragged into sensitive and controversial debates, the authorities had neglected to defend Swedish values and culture when these had been challenged and threatened. News reports showed how the government and state agencies were incapable or unwilling to defend core Swedish values, even in cases where churches were attacked and vandalized (Sputnik, November 19, 2020p; Sputnik, November 16, 2020o), or where crimes were committed and abuse took place (Sputnik October 8, 2020m; Sputnik February 14, 2020f). Four sub-narratives are analyzed that together made up the narrative of “Islamic takeover and the selling out of Sweden”: Muslims, a vulnerable group to be protected or the enemy within?; Threats to Swedish traditional values; Attacks against Christians and Jews; and Swedish celebrities and national icons cave in. I present and explain the narrative below, demonstrating how these sub-narratives came to expression in the various questions and topics covered during the time period.

Muslims: A Vulnerable Group to Be Protected or the Enemy Within?

The first sub-narrative posed the rhetorical question whether Muslims were a vulnerable group to be protected, which was most commonly reported view of the government, or an enemy within. This tended to represent the view of RT and Sputnik that the Muslim community was a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

The plots portrayed how the authorities treated Muslims in Sweden as a vulnerable, exposed group, and therefore found it unacceptable for anyone to criticize Muslims or their way of life. This position was held by actors identified as leftist and center-leftist. The Sputnik narrative told how the Swedish government and government agencies, often represented by actors such as parliamentarians or government ministers, allowed negative and potentially threatening tendencies and incidents to pass, out of concern for the welfare of Muslims and to protect their rights.

In one news item, Sputnik reported about the founding of a Muslim LGBTQ+ organization that planned to participate in the Pride festival under the banner “We are needed”. The plot contrasted the Muslim LGBTQ group, which was described as exposed and vulnerable, with allegations that the group and its demonstrations sought to provoke homophobic responses from the Muslim community and to create an image of Muslims and foreigners as people smearing Sweden. The plot concluded that clashes between islamic groups had happened before in Sweden, and that one of the organizers of a similar LGBTQ demonstration had been accused of “trying to incite tensions among various population groups”. The problem was thus an old one, and Swedish politicians seemed to be aware of this—a fact that further added to their irrationality and naïvité in deciding not to take action: “In the past, the traditional Muslim worldview has clashed with Sweden’s secularism championing LGBT rights. In 2015, a gay pride parade in Järva, a predominantly Muslim area of Stockholm, stoked a lot of controversy” (Sputnik, August 1, 2019a).

In another story a photograph depicts prayer during the Eid al-Fitr holiday from the balcony of a large Mosque, in which hundreds of men are leaning forward, under the headline: “Iraqi Christians Warn Sweden of ‘Islamist Rule’”. Iraqi Christians served as the narrators of the plot, arguing in a number of quotes that Sweden was naive to have taken in such a great number of Muslims from the Middle East, that it was failing to see the strong islamization forces at work and the extent to which this threatened human rights, and that radical Muslims were hiding their extremism from public view and biding their time. Swedish academics reported as disagreeing and were said to have “brushed aside the idea of an Islamic takeover despite dramatic demographic change”, even if “they admitted the rise of Islamist indoctrination and increasing tensions” (Sputnik, December 2, 2019i).

Other stories reported anti-Islamist voices trying to convince the Swedish government of the threats posed to Swedish society by the Muslim community and Islam, and how all efforts proved unsuccessful. The government was presented as adamant in its refusal to acknowledge such threats, and instead maintained its attention on the vulnerable position of Muslims. According to the preamble to a critical news article the government was said to be pushing for increased support for Muslims by teaching Swedes about the islamophobic hate crimes and prioritizing to work to counter radical nationalism: “Critics of Sweden’s priority to stop ‘Islamophobia’ have suggested that the government inadvertently runs Islamists’ errands, effectively providing them with a shield from criticism” (Sputnik, October 18, 2019c).

Sputnik argued that the Swedish security services linked radical nationalism to hate crimes aimed at vulnerable groups, including the Muslims. Connecting the different segments of the plot, the view was reinforced of a Sweden led by a government ignorant of the problems it was creating for itself or what liberal democratic pillars it was effectively erasing in the process. The idea of banning anti-Islamic expression was reported as having raised severe criticism and spurred strong opposition from the Centre for Secular Education.

The end paragraph is a typical feature of Sputnik articles. It contains a standard set of formulations, depending on the topic, to provide context to the news. This one provided facts and figures about Sweden and its approach to Muslims. Like most of the plots with Muslims as the leading part, it ended with this information:

Sweden has over 800,000 Muslims (about 8 percent of the country’s population) and has consistently been ranked among the best countries for Muslims by the Islamicity Foundation, a US-based non-profit organization, topping all European nations in the recent edition and trailing only New Zealand.

Recently, a pro-Islam party was formed to secure Muslims’ status as an official minority.

In recent years, however, Sweden has been embroiled in a number of scandals involving radical Islam, involving, among others, Daesh* terrorists and extremist organisations such as the Muslim Brotherhood*.

* The Islamic State Group (IS), also known as ISIS, ISIL or Daesh, and the Muslim Brotherhood are terrorist organizations banned in Russia and numerous other countries. (Sputnik, October 18, 2019c)

This plot shared with most others in this sub-narrative a clear and concrete message that Islam causes numerous types of problems for Sweden and challenges its key foundational principles. While citizens and some civil society organizations protest against the Muslim open door policy, the Swedish government appears oblivious to negative developments the impact of Islam and the Muslim community bring to bear on society. It is depicted as ignorant of the forces it is up against (Sputnik, October 18, 2019c). The problem according to the plot was thus not primarily that the large Muslim community gave rise to social tensions, but that the Swedish government, in contrast to the Swedish public, was oblivious to the negative developments. All the plots instead tell how the Swedish authorities identify Muslims as being in a disadvantageous position, and therefore justify prioritizing Muslim rights at the expense of others (see e.g. Sputnik, December 30, 2019n; Sputnik, January 15, 2020a; Sputnik, February 26, 2020g; Sputnik, October 30, 2019d; Sputnik, December 11, 2019j; Sputnik, December 2, 2019i; Sputnik, March 6, 2020h; Sputnik, March 13, 2020i).

Sputnik also provides plots with the tables turned, where Muslims attack Swedes. One such example was referred to as a “dominance crime” and described a growing type of crime performed by immigrants and with the aim to humiliating Swedes or “locals”. With reference to a video published in Samhällsnytt, a Swedish far-right news media, Sputnik published an article headlined “Sweden in uproar over video of immigrant gang abusing, urinating on Swedish boy” (Sputnik, December 18, 2019). The events were presented in the attached video while the article drew attention to the strong reactions the video had generated from Swedes. One of the people quoted was Mia Aksoy, a journalist, who responded strongly and emotionally to the abuse shown in the video. “I’m boiling with rage. I suffer so immensely with the Swedish boy in the clip. Do you politicians even understand what you have done? These damn lowlifes must get out of this country. Age does not matter. They are going out!”

Others talked about this kind of crime as characterized by racism and defined it as unprovoked violence. This contrasted sharply with the attitude of the authorities and the judiciary in the sub-narrative who were depicted as distant and unmoved. They were absent from this plot but there was mention of similar problems in Norway, which was equally sensitive about law enforcement and where the judiciary gave reduced sentences because the perpetrators were from foreign cultures. Quotes from ordinary Swedes argued critically that the courts were helpless because immigrants and immigration were treated by the authorities as such sensitive issues and this prevented them from taking proper action. The voices argued that the criminals in acts such as those shown in the video represented a group that was treated and identified as a victim and not the perpetrators. While Swedish boys were the victims of assault, their attackers, defined as vulnerable, were untouchable.

The plots depicting the ways in which the Swedish government facilitated Islamic inroads into Swedish society were followed up with pieces showing the policies bearing fruit. Sputnik reported that a pro-Islamic party was on its way into the parliament with a political agenda pushing for increased adaption to Islamic customs, such as giving parents the right to decide when children should be wearing the hijab, and a prohibition on criticism of Islam (Sputnik, January 23, 2020b). Reports of instances where the authorities had chosen not to reveal the identity of a perpetrator or categorize Muslims or non-European migrants in statistical reports added to this picture.

While the overall sub-narrative spoke about the Muslim community as victim and in need of support, politicians were depicted as ignoring or paying less attention to Swedish groups, such as the working classes or the rural population, which also faced hardships (see e.g. Sputnik, December 20, 2019k). Plots in the sub-narrative tended to demonstrate a polarization between Swedes and Muslims, and often took the form of a zero sum game where increased benefits or sympathies for one group meant increased costs and antipathy for the other. What made matters worse, according to Sputnik, was the position of the Swedish government and the public authorities which did not acknowledge the threat, but on the contrary lent support to the Muslims and showed a readiness to meet their needs. By structuring the plots as confrontations between “us and them”, and positioning the Muslim group as a hostile other against “ordinary” Swedes, Muslims were defined as a serious threat to Sweden and the Swedish way of life, while the government most often sided with the Muslims.

With few exceptions—of which the riots in connection with the burning of the Quran was the most prominent example—these plots rarely told about actors and groups fighting one another openly over opposing and irreconcilable values. Instead, the narrative described how foreign values and cultures—ways of thinking and being which went against everything Sweden professed to stand for—were creeping into Swedish society while the government did nothing to stop it, or even assisted in the process.

Irregularities in connection with the Muslim community were reported in several pieces to have been revealed by non-governmental groups and individuals in Sweden. In one story, Sputnik (October 30, 2019d) told how Swedish researchers were warning that government grants were being used to create a parallel Islamic society. The Swedish government was reported to be using millions of taxpayers’ money to finance a student organization called Ibn Rusdh, the work of which led to the isolation of Muslim immigrants from Swedish society. Two academics and known experts in the field were given the role of narrator. They told how the organization in question received large amounts of public money even though it was known to be racist, antisemitic, and close to the Muslim Brotherhood (Sputnik, October 30, 2019d). The government was absent from the story.

The contrast between the lax authorities and upset and engaged citizens came to the fore in a plot telling how Muslims were exposing Swedish schoolchildren to Islam. In a school in Emmaboda, fifth graders were asked to pretend for one lesson that they were in a quran school. They had to kneel on prayer mats facing Mecca and worship Allah in Arabic. The girls had to sit at the back of the classroom. Parents saw this as unacceptable and had urged the principal to “take time out”, or temporary leave of absence, from his post. The principal was at odds with the parents and the public and did not see why role play during a class on religion was either indoctrination or even a serious incident. It had been for play, he had argued. A father to one of the pupils was quoted saying that: “kneeling in the face of a ‘hostile’ religion that ‘oppresses and marginalises girls’ contradicts the very idea of school education and sends the wrong kind of message, as is the idea that one gender is somehow more important than the other” (Sputnik, December 24, 2019l).

Reactions on social media were also shown. One user was quoted as saying: “Imagine the reverse… Muslim children had been made to participate in Christian or Jewish ‘role play’. Then heads would have rolled and the outrage milieus would have been jangling” (Sputnik, December 24, 2019l). In an almost identical story from the small town of Tierp, “Forced Islamization at Swedish School as 9-Year Olds Confess to Allah in Religious Studies”, Sputnik made an explicit connection with the growing Muslim population in Sweden and the declining number of Christians. Setting Islamic role play in a wider perspective, Sputnik concluded that “a hot debate on the place and the role of Islam in Swedish society has erupted”, a comment reinforced by the fact that here too the municipality defended the role play and stated that there was no Islamicization going on at the school (Sputnik, March 6, 2020h). Both these school events were reported in the Swedish rightist conservative papers Samhällsnytt and Fria Tider; the latter also in the Christian papers Dagen and Världen Idag. None of them were referenced as sources.

Threats Against Swedish Traditional Values

While Sputnik talked about the selling out of Sweden, and a decline of Swedishness and the legitimacy of Swedish culture and traditions spurred by the growing Muslim community, the government was simultaneously said to be engaged in the deconstruction of the national heritage. The sub-narrative of threats against traditional Swedish values gathered plots articulating these threats and the defenses put up by citizens. The leadership of Sweden was depicted as proactively dismantling the nation. National symbols, which often overlapped with Christian symbols, were depicted as potential provocations for a multi-ethnic population that must either be explained or removed (Sputnik, September 25, 2019b; Sputnik, November 11, 2019g).

The narrative revealed an uncertainty in Swedish society about what was the correct and appropriate way to express, name, or signify ethnic groups and nations, including the Swedish nation. The famous hockey team Frölunda Indians was reported to be considering a name change because it might connote discrimination against indigenous populations (Sputnik, July 10, 2020j). The political correctness of the Swedish flag was questioned as it is was said to represent a Christian heritage and to signal religious oppression (see e.g. Sputnik, July 15, 2020k). By connecting the Swedish flag to a murky national past, the plot underlined the depth of the trouble that Swedish society experienced because it suggested that even one of its strongest national symbols generated division and conflict rather than cohesion and national unity. An academic scholar representing the Humanist Society argued that the cross on the flag should be removed since it “represented the nation’s Christian heritage and the oppression it allegedly stands for”. The cross was also said to be too closely associated with slavery. Tweets from Swedes were quoted that expressed disagreements. One Twitter user dismissed the claims, arguing that the scholar had revealed himself to be a “university leftist” while another commented that “symbols tend to exceed their historical origin. A yellow cross on a blue background means Sweden, full stop”.

In a similar vein, and based on a story picked up from the two national dailies, Aftonbladet and Expressen, Sputnik reported that the Swedish National Agency for Education had proposed removal of the national anthem, some hymns, and some historical epochs from the primary school syllabus (see also Chap. 6 on the liberal left narrative). These sensationalist ambitions appeared to be the main driving force of the plot, since it was also reported from the start that the Agency had had to back down “after a public uproar”. The message was thus two-sided: the government was trying to deconstruct Swedish national heritage but citizens were strongly opposed and forceful in their protests. The plot was thus simple in structure; it was introduced with a presentation of the proposition followed by reactions—“massive public outrage”—from both right-wing politicians and the Swedish public, whose comments opposed certain aspects of the history curriculum or the national anthem being erased from curriculums and eventually from the national collective memory. Once again, the authorities and decision makers were positioned as actors attempting to break-up the nation, remove its symbolism, and tear up its historical roots, while the citizens struggled to defend traditional values.

Two Swedish politicians—Ebba Busch, the leader of the Christian Democratic party, and Jan Björklund, a former Education Minister and leader of the Liberal party—demanded that the proposal to remove the national anthem be withdrawn. Busch gave “a passionate speech slamming the authorities for plans to erase ancient history, the Bible, the national anthem and hymns from the school curriculum”. She was reported to have compared the proposition to the politics of East Germany while the Liberal Party’s current spokesperson on education policy, Roger Haddad, was quoted as telling Aftonbladet: “We can’t have an authority that butchers key historical elements, that proposes strange changes for our national minorities and now has recently proposed that the children should not learn our national anthem in primary school” (Sputnik, November 11, 2019g).

The article ended with quotes from peoples reacting on social media. One user tweeted: “Don’t touch our national anthem”. The short plot could be said to represent in a nutshell how Sputnik in particular narrates the threats that a leftist government poses to Swedish customs, traditions, and ways of life. The way in which the short story was told is typical of a group of plots that claim that major efforts are required from the citizens of Sweden in order to safeguard their national traditions and heritage. The opposition had joined forces, the citizens had responded and together had they succeeded in preserving national traditions and culture (Sputnik, November 11, 2019g).

In a story headlined “Bah, Humbug! Swedish Party Lobbies to Do Away With Christian Holidays in ‘Multicultural Country’” (Sputnik, September 25, 2019b) Sputnik reported on a proposal by a local Center Party member in the town of Filipstad that Sundays and Saturdays should no longer be mandatory days of rest. The politician argued that this was a “religiously-conditioned anachronism that is ‘untimely’ and ‘uneconomic’”. It was noted that this had been suggested by the Social Democrats in 2011. The plot was structured around a solution to a problem that was never explicitly formulated: that the Swedish economy would benefit from becoming more efficient, and that employees choosing which of two days in a week to have for their days off would enhance economic efficiency. It was hinted at with phrases such as “our way of living is out of step with the current work week” and references to weekends being “untimely” and “uneconomical”—terms written with quotation marks. More importantly, the proposition showed that Swedish society was too heavily based on the Christian way of life, given the composition of its population. Given its multicultural and increasingly secular nature, it would make more sense for society to become more secular in its organization, and have holidays and celebrations that mirror its citizens’ interests and identities. The typical fact and figure paragraph at the end of the article made the point that 25% of Swedes had a foreign background. The plot should be understood in the context of the sub-narrative as it served as yet another example of how the Swedish political elite was supposedly ignoring or refusing to defend the Swedish nation, as the national culture had lost its legitimacy and must not be given priority or serve as the norm.

The narrative of an Islamic takeover took its cue not only from depictions of threats to Swedish traditions and its way of life, but also from threats of increased segregation between people and insoluble conflicts between groups. Suggested reforms by various spokespersons, leaders, and elites, such as those exemplified above, caused conflict with ordinary Swedes who at times were depicted as irreconcilable, and in that sense were expressions of polarization. While the authorities on the left and center left were depicted as the representatives most often in favor of a multicultural society, which was said to imply the removal of Swedish cultural, religious, traditions, national symbolism, and national heritage, the public—mainly represented through tweets and Instagram posts—tended to express very different opinions. Like the other narratives in Sputnik, the heavily contested views on whether or how traditions and Christian values should be defended and promoted were shown as bringing about deep divisions in society and in the government. In one plot, the well-known and outspoken Social Democrat Nalin Pekgul expressed her criticism of, disappointment in, and incomprehension of her party’s views on the integration of Islamists. She was reported not to understand: “how the left could have been deluded by the Islamists’ message of its alleged ‘anti-racist struggle’, as the Islamists themselves sow misogyny, antisemitism, and hate toward sexual minorities” (Sputnik, September 4, 2020l).

Pekgul asserted that the Green Party was to blame for indulgent views towards Islamists, and that her own party had sold its soul to the Islamists and allowed the Green Party too much influence on questions about the integration of Islamic values into Swedish politics and society. She had left politics and gone back to work as a nurse, disappointed in her party which, she said, had betrayed its values and sided with Islamists in exchange for votes: “They pursued their policies through the Green Party. Just look at the bills in parliament and opinion pieces they wrote. When Säpo wanted to map extremists, they said that Säpo was being racist”.

In this sub-narrative, there was a strong emphasis on the divisions between progressive and conservative forces, and the former were said to pose threats to the Swedish way of life either by their extreme ideas about justice and equality, or because they considered Swedish national heritage and culture to be indefensible in light of the cosmopolitan composition of the population. The defenders of traditional Swedish values were positioned as sound and confident people and groups that dared to criticize not only the left progressive forces set on tearing down national Christian symbols to promote secularism, but also the leftist view of Islamists as harmless victims. The experts in this sub-narrative came mainly from the progressive side, and made clear the lengths to which progressive forces were prepared to go, using their expertise to argue their extreme views. In contrast, arguments of conservative proponents were concrete, and this was often referred to as a head-on struggle to defend the national heritage, because this was what Sweden stood for and should continue to stand for.

Attacks Against Christians

The sub-narrative attacks against Christians and Jews placed the Swedish church at the center of attention, and claimed that Christians were suffering and their church was under pressure. It might seem strange that Russian state media paid so much attention to Christianity and the Church of Sweden, since Sweden is known to be a highly secular country. However, the point of departure for these plots was that the role assigned to the church was primarily that of an institution in defense of nationalism, tradition, and conservative values. As the church was said to be deviating from its role in preserving Christian values and tradition, and instead engaging in climate change and LGBTQ+ activism and the promotion of Muslim rights, it therefore featured in the sub-narrative as a troubled national institution with declining membership.

In almost every final paragraph of news articles related to the Church of Sweden, Sputnik noted both that the church was losing members and that it had taken a liberal position on homosexuality, migration, and climate change. These two facts were not connected but juxtaposed in closing the plots:

While remaining Europe’s largest Lutheran denomination with over 5 million followers, the Church of Sweden has long been leaking members at a rapid pace of about 2 per cent a year. As of 2018, 57 per cent of the Swedish population were members of the Swedish Church, a marked drop from 95 per cent in 1972, in a matter of only a few decades.

The Church of Sweden is known for its liberal position on issues such as homosexuality, mass immigration, and climate change and is often criticized for its perceived “activist” position. Archbishop Antje Jackelén has sparked controversy by attacking the “patriarchy” and “destructive masculinity”, most recently in her Christmas message. (Sputnik, December 25, 2019m)

The Swedish Church was portrayed as an accomplice in the selling out of Sweden; and as bowing to other religions in the name of ecumenical understanding, disregarding the dilution of its own standing as it aimed more for radical political change than preservation of the continuity of the Christian church and faith across time and space.

Sputnik reported that the political activism of the Swedish Church in support of migrants was causing resentment among Swedes. Reporting of the turn towards migrants was combined with a turn away from its responsibility to preserve the national Christian heritage. Engagement with migrants by the church gave rise to conflict and the church was accused of refusing to see how it was being used by immigrants who were trying to cheat the system (Sputnik, January 28a, 2020c). The plot took on a mocking tone, ridiculing the church for believing prayers would make a difference to migrants applying for asylum, and introduced the story by saying: “Earlier this month, the Church held prayers throughout the country for migrants who are in the midst of the asylum process in the hope that God would stop the expulsions, sparking accusations of political activism and ‘left-wing liberal propaganda’” (Sputnik, January 28a, 2020c).

The underlying problem in the plot, however, was not the prayer in itself but the Church’s political activism. This was not for the first time, Sputnik reported, as the Church of Sweden had previously been found to be “providing illegal immigrants with refuge”. This activism was criticized, in particular since it was alleged that the Church was naive to give support to immigrants who were trying to cheat the system. It was the Church of Sweden in the region of Norrbotten that had launched a campaign to influence the authorities to give unaccompanied children the right to stay in Sweden, and to grant residence permits to people who had spent longer than a year in the country. The campaign, named “Keep Sweden Together”, was symbolized by a crocheted doll “with a veil and a backpack”. Marking the divisions between proponents of the progressive campaign and other Swedes with a stressed “however”, the plot made clear that not only there were people strongly opposed to the campaign, but the man behind it was a minister and a local politician for the Center party. Social media users commented critically that the Church of Sweden had become politicized and been infiltrated. One Twitter user was quoted by Sputnik as saying: “This is left-wing liberal propaganda, with no root in reality, from the church itself”. The plot concluded by declaring that the Church of Sweden was rapidly losing members and that dozens of churches had closed down (Sputnik, January 28a, 2020c).

The sub-narrative added depictions of the difficulties that practicing Christians experienced in Sweden. Besides their increased disapproval of the church’s political engagement and its financial difficulties, there were reports of attacks against Christians and Christianity. These plots served as illustrations of how several sometimes contradictory efforts to denigrate Swedishness were projected side by side by Sputnik and to some extent also by RT. On the one hand, Swedish actors talked self-critically about national heritage and Christian traditions being offensive to the immigrant population and to foreign cultures present in Sweden. On the other hand, these very traditions, including the church, were reported to be under attack from immigrants, Satanists, and left-wing extremists (Sputnik, November 16, 2020o; Sputnik, November 19, 2020p). This showed not only that Sweden was ridden with conflicts between Swedes defending their national heritage against Muslims who sought to subsume it, but that a number of other groups were attacking each other to gain leverage and cultural influence in Sweden.

In a story on November 16, 2019, Sputnik reported vandalism at a Catholic church in a Gothenburg suburb. The priest, positioned as a victim, was reported to be in shock and unable to comprehend what had happened to his church. Items placed on the altar had been thrown away—an especially serious violation as only the priest can touch the altar in Catholic churches. The priest was quoted in a quote taken from the national daily Aftonbladet:

It was nasty. The sheer scope makes you feel some kind of shock. There are various indications that that there is an anger directed at us. Everything that was on the altar was thrown away… This makes a deep impression on us believers. (Tobias Unnestål in Aftonbladet, quoted in Sputnik, November 19, 2020p)

The statement by the priest was followed by a quote taken from the far right newspaper Fria Tider. Max Skalenius, a youth leader, was quoted speculating on who the perpetrators might be: “We have had problems with Satanists and left wing extremists, then it could be Islamists, or someone mentally ill”. Skalenius’ tweet was accompanied by photographs he had taken of the destruction. He argued that the incident showed that Sweden and Christianity were under attack.

Archbishop Antje Jackelén tweeted about the seriousness of the crime: “when nothing is sacred, anything can happen”. The police defined the incident as vandalism rather than a hate crime, and it was reported that they had no suspects and had made no arrests. As was often the case when the police featured in Sputnik reports, they were depicted as passive, playing down crimes and incidents, and unable to provide protection of safety. Furthermore, the passivity of the police added to the impression that the protection of Swedish churches and of Christianity was not seen as important.

A few days later, a similar incident took place when another church, located in what was described as a district on the police list of “vulnerable areas”, was attacked (Sputnik, November 19, 2020p). The preamble set the scene for the plot by stating, with reference to the police, that “the attack could have been carried out by ‘someone frustrated with Christian doctrine’ or ‘angered by society at large’”. There had been extensive vandalism but a stolen cross was later returned damaged as the figure of Christ had been removed. An assistant in the parish commented that there might be a message in this act. There was no mention of an Islamist group being behind the attacks but this was implied in both plots.

Antisemitism was similarly attributed to the increasing Islamization of Sweden, and this was more explicitly expressed than when it concerned Christians. Muslims and people from the Middle East were reported as being overrepresented in antisemitic crimes, allegedly having brought the Middle East conflict to Sweden. Sputnik referred to a study that showed that 51% of antisemitic incidents could be traced to Muslim extremists. More importantly, however, the plot’s cue was the Swedish prime minister, Stefan Löfven, who was quoted as saying that the cause was “mass immigration from the Middle East”. The plot stressed this position by opening with a photograph of Löfven and the headline: “Swedish PM pins rise of antisemitism on immigration from the Middle East”. The quotes were taken from a television interview in which Löfven spoke about migrants from the Middle East who had been exposed to state propaganda and took a different view on Israel’s right to exist. A Jewish representative underlined the situation in Sweden by similalrly describing antisemitism as having been imported from the Middle East. A facts and figures section added in the middle of the plot sought to provide a fact-based context. It told of the high number of migrants from the Middle East who came to Sweden in 2015 and in the following years. The plot ended with a critique of Löfven for assigning blame of antisemitism to right-wing politicians and by recalling an incident where his own youth party had expressed antisemitic sentiments. It added that antisemitic incidents were most frequent among Muslim extremists, less frequent among left-wing extremists, and almost non-existent among right-wing extremists (Sputnik, January 28b, 2020d).

Swedish Celebrities and National Icons Caving In

The final sub-narrative, on Swedish celebrities and national icons caving in, contributed to the narrative by showing how plots in Sputnik and RT drew attention to national brands, businesses, and well-known people closely associated with Sweden’s nation, and how their actions were contributing to Sweden’s decline. The sub-narrative was tied in with efforts by the Russian state media to damage Sweden’s international reputation, even if this was not explicitly mentioned in the news. Swedish companies and celebrities known all over the world were featured in the coverage and the plots, and were commonly defined as contributing to the destruction of the notion of Swedishness.

One such national icon was the furniture company IKEA, which a report declared was not promoting their sales in December as Christmas sales, but choosing instead using the term “Winter Celebration” in order to avoid offending non-Christian Swedes (Sputnik, October 31, 2019e). The company was reported as being ridiculed by its Nordic neighbors and by Swedes, but also as causing anger and resentment for not having the courage and stamina to use the word Christmas. The narrator began the plot by referring to the campaign as a “marketing trick” or “marketing ploy”, which gave the impression that it might be a humorous gesture or a smart strategy. However, as it turned out, it was not smart at all. The greater part of the plot was a collection of comments cut from various individual social media posts, including a screen shot from Ikea’s own webpage of glasses decorated with Santas using candy canes as snorkels and with a caption in Danish: “Winterparty—clear glass, Santa—IKEA” (“Vinterfest, glas klart glas, julemand, IKEA”). One Danish social media user was quoted as calling the ad: “a genuflection for the cause of Islam” and pledging to “boycott the company”. Swedes were also reported to have responded negatively. One Twitter user asked: “Hi IKEA. What will you call Ramadan? April celebration? Or is it just Christian celebrations to be renamed?” The plot contained only one sentence on IKEA’s view in which it was reported as claiming that “Winter Celebration” had been used for commercial reasons (Sputnik, October 31, 2019e). The plot presented the different actors and voices as highly emotional in their expressions. The comments seemed to extend beyond those of angry customers dissatisfied with a product, and instead reflected disagreement with the values thought to be ascribed to IKEA, and on which the customers in Sweden, Denmark, and Norway felt the company had capitulated.

A month earlier, IKEA had experienced similar problems, although at the time it was reported to be in good company with many other businesses which had made the same mistake by using the phrase “to each his own” as a slogan, without realizing that these words had been on a sign at the entrance to the Nazi concentration camp, Buchenwald (September 30, 2019).

Another iconic Swedish company to make detrimental marketing choices was SAS, which was reported to have gone overboard in a campaign to convince the market of its cosmopolitan rather than Scandinavian origin. The company was reported to have been forced to back down following massive criticism (Sputnik, February 13, 2020e). The campaign was referred to as having “sparked a hullabaloo” with its multiculturalist message that Scandinavian culture was copied from elsewhere. The problem as it was defined in the plot was that the advertisement had argued that cherished symbolic Nordic artifacts such as wienerbrød (Danish pastries, literally Viennese bread) and Swedish meatballs actually emanated from elsewhere, and had been imported to Scandinavia or could be considered borrowed, all of which were arguments customers had rejected or disliked. This gave the impression that the company and its customers were at odds with each other. However, a revised advertisement was also met with fierce criticism. The company was said to be holding on to its connections to global values while launching a revised version of the advert. The nationalist viewpoint was represented by Soren Espersen, a right-wing Danish politician who said he would not fly with SAS if the company maintained this profile. SAS defended its revised advert by arguing that it stood behind the cosmopolitan values, but that the first version generated comments and discussion that it did not want to be associated with. The Danish right-wing party continued its opposition to the ad and demanded that the Danish government “sharply reprimand” SAS because “SAS spits on everything that is genuinely Danish, genuinely Swedish, and genuinely Norwegian”. In the Swedish media, the widespread criticism of the commercial, with its unapologetically globalist and pro-immigration message, was dismissed as a conspiracy linked to “Russian trolls” and “right-wing extremists” (Sputnik, February 13, 2020e). The story created genuine confusion about what the problem was and who was to blame for what. What was clear, however, was that the SAS ad, because it refrained from depicting Scandinavian and national values, touched a sensitive nerve about threats to Scandinavian identity (Sputnik, February 13, 2020e).

Like the denigration of iconic Swedish and Scandinavian businesses, there were plots that smeared, humiliated, or slandered Swedish celebrities, often known to and appreciated by Swedes for their sincerity and genuine goodheartedness. There was a story about PewDiePie (PDP), the world famous YouTuber, who had stirred up netizens by addressing a transwoman as if she were a man. This led Sputnik to publish a report on the YouTuber and his controversial past, alleging antisemitic and Nazi sympathies (Sputnik, November 22, 2019h; see also Sputnik, November 9, 2019f). Other Swedish personalities were depicted in the coverage as having made blunders or unintentionally revealed their true selves. The influencer Bianca Ingrosso talked about menstrual blood, Princess Victoria, contrary to all her talk of Swedish feminism, wore a veil when representing Sweden in Bosnia and Herzegovina, sparking “strong republican feelings” among Swedes (see also Chap. 7). Greta’s activism was repeatedly reported as having dark undertones concealed from the public gaze, be they her association with Nazis or her position as a victim of career-minded parents. Taken together, featuring famous Swedes in Sputnik (and occasionally RT) tended to add to the notion that things were not what they seemed and that “you should not be deceived by appearances”.

Conclusion

The narrative analysis identified four sub-narratives: Muslims: A vulnerable group to be protected or the enemy within?; Threats against Swedish traditional values; Attacks against Christians; and Swedish celebrities and national icons caving in. Taken together the sub-narratives made manifest different articulations of the threat of Islamism and the Islamization of Sweden and depicted how the Swedish authorities responded. In contrast to the public, whose views were represented mainly through Tweets, the authorities be they the Church of Sweden, the government, or major Swedish companies were reported to disregard the threat against Swedish values, heritage, and traditions and even occasionally unwilling to defend them. By using story telling techniques such as polarization, misuse of and the stirring of controversies around concepts, and mockery by way of citations the news narrative can be said to deviate from liberal journalism and be referred to as disinformation.