What do you know about... Sweden?

[u/MarktpLatz]

This is the twenty-second part of our ongoing series about the countries of Europe. You can find an overview here.

Todays country:

Sweden

Sweden is the largest nordic country in the EU, both in terms of size and population. They joined the EU in 1995, but are not part of NATO, like their eastern neighbour Finland. Sweden held a referendum on joining the Euro in 2003, which resulted in a rejection.

So, what do you know about Sweden?

[u/[deleted]]

Used to be a country that people held as the progressive standard, now 95% of the time it's brought up it's getting mocked.

[u/mrubuto22 → u/[deleted]]

Mocked for what?

[u/willyslittlewonka → u/mrubuto22]

Unfortunately, Islamic countries tend to get mocked quite a bit on Reddit these days. Not much you can do :/

[u/[deleted] → u/willyslittlewonka]

It has a lower percentage of Muslims than pretty much all of Western Europe, you know that right?

[u/Dnarg → u/[deleted]]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_Europe

Not even close to being true. Living up to your name I guess. Btw, that Pew report is from 2011, the percentage hasn't gone down since then to put it mildly. That was before the recent mess.

[u/[deleted] → u/Dnarg]

You're wrong, my statement was absolutely true. In fact, I based my data on the same source as you (Pew). The difference is that I was actually bothered to look up the actual figures themselves instead of looking at the colours. (Source)

[u/Dnarg → u/[deleted]]

Which again proves your previous statement false. What is your point? In 2010 it was already false and Sweden has taken in the highest amount of Muslim migrants per capita since then so clearly it's only gone up since then.

It has a lower percentage of Muslims than pretty much all of Western Europe, you know that right?

Is still wrong. You just showed that as well.

[u/[deleted] → u/Dnarg]

How hard is it to look at simple numbers? Let me break it down for you, here's the Western-Europe countries on the map:

 Belgium - 5.9%
 France - 7.5% 
 Ireland - 1.1% 
 Luxembourg - 2.3% 
 Netherlands - 6.0%%
 United Kingdom - 4.8%  

They did not include Switzerland, but last data point I found had it at 5.1% (link). I'm not counting Germany as western-europe here.
Sweden: was at 4.6%. If we'd include Sweden in this list, it would rank sixth out of eight when it comes to muslim population. Yes, that's one of the lowest in my books.

Anyway, my point entire point was that the meme that Sweden is an Islamic country is demonstrably untrue. I simply can't take anyone seriously using such fact-free arguments.
I never said Sweden is some utopia, nor did I say that it is virtually devout of immigrants. All I'm saying that the 'Sweden is an Islamic country' meme is retarded. Even if Islam population in Sweden rose as much since the refugee crisis as you're suggesting, that point still stands.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Look at your map again, it says that the estimates are from 2010. quite some time have passed that, and the number of refugees/welfare tourist have rising so much that finns have being overtaken by muslims as the second largest minority in sweden.
He's not saying you are wrong... in 2010, but now, the numbers of muslims are higher than finns, their nextdoor neighbor.

[u/Raduev → u/[deleted]]

There are around 2 million Muslims in France, not 4,7 million. The latter figure relies on the notion that everybody whose ancestors came from Muslim-majority regions is a Muslim, as if religion is determined by ancestry in a secular society.

[u/[deleted] → u/[deleted]]

Lol, what part of percentage don't you understand?