Islamisters politiska avancemang i Sverige

LL: So you decide to eventually travel to Sweden, because you want to fill up Michael Skramos’ story now that you know who he is. And amazingly you get an in-person interview with Umhamza, who is Sara's recruiter and Skramos’ mother-in-law. And she had actually returned from Syria. I don't think you knew that when you were first going there.

MARTIN HIMEL: When we went there, the thing that you realize really is to how effective ISIS. Well, we wanted to find old friends of his, we wanted to find family. We wanted to do that. Nobody would talk. They were terrified of him, absolutely terrified of him. One person said they were going to talk, somebody who went to chef school. He was a chef apparently. And he was a juggler and he was a few other things. Said he would talk, but he never showed up. It was really really hard. So we went through the police and we went through other sources to get information. Thank God he left a big trail of video, so we used that too. We sort of browsed around and wondered what they knew about Michael and Amanda, his wife, and the mother-in-law. Where are, you know, what's happening in Syria? And then somebody popped up. Hey we just heard the mother-in-law came back and is in Gothenberg, where we were. And so, look, we had to do something, we didn't know what, we had to do something. And then basically, we found out where she lived and that's how we came to it. But to tell you the truth. I never thought she was going to talk to us.

LL: And there you are, and you get led into the apartment. And she starts talking. I want to play a clip from that interview, and you are actually using a hidden camera in this.

MARTIN HIMEL: Yes.

LL: So, it's not perfect audio but you can certainly understand her. This is Umhamza talking about life under ISIS.


LL: Now, she says she felt more free under ISIS in Syria, than at home in Sweden. Did that surprise you?

MARTIN HIMEL: Well, first of all, you have to understand the conditions this was happening in. And the most important thing I wanted to do when I walked in, is I wanted to prove that it was her. I could not conclusively prove that that woman was Umhamza until I actually met her and then everything was proven. The voice was the same, and those birds you hear, on all her tweets, she has lots of things about birds and parrots. It made perfect sense. But basically, she is dressed in full niqab. You know, which I’ll just explain, full black and her face is covered. just the eyes are evident. And she is a very very very strict Islamic woman in the Wahabi ISIS way. And so she says that she's hassled a lot in Sweden. And there, following those very very strict rules of Islam, she said she felt more comfortable and she's comfortable with their ideology.

LL: Then why did she leave?

MARTIN HIMEL: She left because, while she was very active in social media and advocating for ISIS and everything in 2015, the game changed in 2016. The allies, the Americans, NATO started to really bomb Raqqa and the other areas really hard. It became very dangerous, since even our interview, the route to Turkey is cut off, the route to Mosul is under siege. It's not fun being there anymore. It's very dangerous. And she has four children, one always stayed in Sweden, one was married to Michael Skramo, and two were preteens, and they were there. And I think that she felt a tremendous threat to herself and them, and it got to be too dangerous and she wanted out. She didn't announce to ISIS I'm going, you can't leave. She escaped.

LL: Yeah, because I understand it's very very hard to--

MARTIN HIMEL: [interposing] It’s death, you’re caught, it’s death.

LL: So that does that mean that she has renounced ISIS?

MARTIN HIMEL: No, she hasn't renounced, the way she put it, ISIS is great, ISIS treats a Muslim person the way it should be. There's only one thing wrong with them. They don't let you leave, and that's not very Islamic. That's all she had to say about that.

LL: Well, then what's her legal status in Sweden if she's an avowed ISIS supporter?

MARTIN HIMEL: Now it's very tenuous, because we're coming out with this documentary. But you see, part of the problem with Europe that's changing, and Sweden has not changed very much, and this is the issue, is that they were not very vigilant about this. In Sweden, the law until 2016 was if you went to Syria and there was something called ISIS there, and you came back and there was no eyewitness or concrete visual proof that you were involved in killing people, there's no reason to convict you of anything. And the result of that is there are 100 active jihadis walking around Sweden today, active, people who fought and killed people, only two were convicted because they were stupid enough to film themselves executing people, because they thought it was cool and they are in jail. Then in 2016, April, May, the way was told me from the police, after the Brussels bombings and the Paris bombings, they changed the law. That if you went there you're going to be arrested, but not retroactively. So she came in before 2016 and she came in probably as, oh, you know, my son-in-law brought me there and it wasn't my idea and all that. But I think when this film comes out, that's all going to change very fast, because she's now shown as actively advocating for ISIS.

LL: Now that will be interesting to see what happens to her next. I'm also wondering though, in the interview, why you didn't confront her? You had an opportunity to actually say we know what you were doing, you were a recruiter, why?

MARTIN HIMEL: Yes. I must tell you, maybe that was a mistake on my part. I had three things going through my mind at that time. One was first of all, I was extremely surprised I was sitting there too. Am I even getting any of this, because I really wanted to express her support for ISIS more than anything else. That was very very important for me. And three, I developed a very strong bond with Theo and Sara, and somehow and I probably was mistaken, but somehow I felt that if I raised that there, I was threatening them in some way at that particular minute. And I just didn't want to do it. In retrospect, I probably should have raised it but I didn't.

LL: So she doesn't know and she won't find out until this airs about what happened in your deception?

MARTIN HIMEL: I think the full impact will come out this weekend.

Ser vi historien evolutionistiskt har den europeiska upplysningstidens idéer ännu inte helt nått den muslimska världen. Enligt en opinionsundersökning som genomfördes av Pew Research Center år 2015 anser en majoritet av världens muslimer att sharia ska vara officiell lag.

I undersökningen av IZA, hade färre muslimer anställning, färre ledande positioner än icke-muslimer. Muslimer hade dessutom lägre genomsnittslön än icke-muslimer.
En muslim som föds i Storbritannien och bott i landet i 50 år har samma starka religiösa identitet som en första generationens icke-muslimsk invandrare, som bott i Storbritannien i mindre än 20 år. Andra generationens muslimer uppnår heller aldrig någonsin den lägre nivå av ”stark religiös identitet” som den första generationens icke-muslimska invandrare med tiden uppvisar. Med andra ord, för Englands muslimer har religionen med tiden kommit att betyda mer, inte mindre.

Om resultatet av denna undersökning stämmer också för Sveriges del kan vi i framtiden förvänta oss en utveckling där muslimer i Sverige, istället för att sakta men ohejdbart integreras i det svenska samhället. blir en växande grupp, på grund av fortsatt invandring och högre nativitet. Klyftan mellan majoriteten och muslimerna med avseende på livsstil kommer dessutom att öka. Eftersom den sekulära trenden i Europa fortsätter kan en bibehållen stark religiös identitet bli en väsentlig faktor som påverkar integrationen av muslimerna negativt. Dessutom, när etniska och religiösa minoriteter blir tillräckligt stora, startar en process motsatt integrationen: självsegregation. Det betyder att muslimerna använder majoritetskulturen som ett varnande exempel I sina identitetsbyggen.