Öppna era hjärtan med Simon Sorgenfrei

Welcome to a discussion about the book "Öppna era hjärtan": The story of how Islam became Sweden’s second-largest religion and Sverigedemokraterna the country’s second-largest party, with the author Simon Sorgenfrei.

About the book:

In what is often called the world’s most modern country, more and more people look back nostalgically to a bygone Folkhemssverige, but interpretations of what has been lost differ. Is it ethnic homogeneity, or the strong welfare state?

Through encounters with refugees as well as Sverigedemokraterna supporters, and with both secular and fundamentalist Muslims, the scholar of religion Simon Sorgenfrei portrays the past fifty years in Sweden. The book spans the period from 1975, when Swedish immigration policy took a new direction, to the Tidöavtalet of 2022. Its aim is to portray Islam in contemporary Sweden and to continue the account of Swedish integration policy that he began with ”De kommer att vara annorlunda svenskar” (2022). Simon Sorgenfrei travels through the country, from Bjuv to Kiruna, and examines a politically charged landscape, both as a researcher and as a fairly ordinary Swede.

Through the people and situations the author encounters along the way, we see Sweden’s recent history from unexpected angles. It is about the oil crisis and the end of Sweden’s record years, Palme’s internationalism and changing migration patterns, the Rushdie affair, the birth and development of Sverigedemokraterna, the war in Bosnia, skinheads, free school choice and privatisations, 11 September and the war on terror, the refugee crisis and the Tidöavtalet. But it is also about ordinary Swedes who, despite all their differences, often share dreams and hopes for themselves, their loved ones and the places where they live. The result is a sweeping and continually surprising story about our country.

Participants:

Simon Sorgenfrei, author, professor of religious studies and director of IMS - Institutet för forskning om mångreligiositet och sekularitet at Södertörn University.

Simon Sorgenfrei is in conversation with Mohammad Muslim Eneborg, an imam and Sufi sheikh active in Sweden and England.

In collaboration with föreningen svenska Istanbulinstitutets vänner.