Kenan Habul, a reporter at Aftonbladet, the biggest newspaper in Sweden and Scandinavia, just interviewed me in tangential connection to our Freedom March and the First Worldwide Counter-Jihad Action in Stockholm on August 4. He did so in a manner strongly reminiscent of Eigil Söderin's prosecutorial interview of Pamela Geller, consistent with the mainstream media's ongoing program to demonize those who are fighting for freedom. I have no confidence that Aftonbladet's report will be fair or accurate in the slightest degree, so here is the full interview:
You are very popular among readers of some swedish [sic] internet-sites, like Avpixlat, and you were invited to the country by Sweden Democrats.1. Can you tell me what do you know about Sweden and what relationships, if any, do you have with Swedish parties och [sic] prominent figures?
I have no relationships with any Swedish parties but I admire much of the work of the Sweden Democrats.
Breivik has cited you in his manifesto. Without suggesting that your writing is to be blamed for Breivik's actions, my question is:
2. Do you believe that you, and other prominent authors within counter-jihad movement, bear any responsibility for inspiring Breivik?
None whatsoever. Breivik cited many, many people, including Barack Obama, John F. Kennedy, and Thomas Jefferson -- who are just three of the many who are never blamed for his murders. Also swept under the rug is the fact that whether he is sane or not, Breivik's manifesto is actually quite ideologically incoherent -- so far was he from being a doctrinaire counter-jihadist that he wanted to aid Hamas and ally with jihad groups. I am no more responsible for Breivik than the Beatles are for Charles Manson.
3. You claim that you are against violence, but do you see any risk that your writings about Islam and Muslims as a threat can inspire some people to commit violent acts against these groups?
Your question is an exercise in moral inversion, typical among propagandistic pseudo-journalists of your ilk. I don't just "claim" that I am against violence; I am against violence, and have never advocated anything but peaceful, legal defense of human rights. The people who are inciting to violence are Islamic imams in Europe and elsewhere, but you never focus any attention upon them.
4. What would be your response to those who are claim that Muslims today are the victims of the same kind of prejudice that the Jews were the victims of before -- i.e., that islamophobia is the new antisemitism?
The late Christopher Hitchens ably took apart this claim when writing about the proposed Islamic supremacist mega-mosque at Ground Zero: "'Some of what people are saying in this mosque controversy is very similar to what German media was saying about Jews in the 1920s and 1930s,' Imam Abdullah Antepli, Muslim chaplain at Duke University, told the New York Times. Yes, we all recall the Jewish suicide bombers of that period, as we recall the Jewish yells for holy war, the Jewish demands for the veiling of women and the stoning of homosexuals, and the Jewish burning of newspapers that published cartoons they did not like."
Your aim by asking this question (and the aim of all the others who have repeated this) is to intimidate people into thinking that criticism of Islamic supremacism leads to the gas chambers, and thus there must be no criticism of Islamic supremacism. The unstated assumption is that if one group was unjustly accused of plotting subversion and violence, and was viciously persecuted and massacred on the basis of those false accusations, then any group accused of plotting subversion and violence must be innocent, and any such accusation must be in service of preparing for their subversion and massacre.
The difference is not only that Muslim leaders worldwide have made their intention to conquer and subjugate non-Muslims very clear, in a way that Jews never did in the run-up to the Holocaust; it is also that anti-jihadists nowhere advocate a "final solution" for Muslims, and never will -- we are merely calling upon them to drop the authoritarian and repressive aspects of Sharia and obey the laws of the Western societies in which they live. This is a movement in defense of freedom and equality of rights before the law.
5. What is your reply to people who call you "hate monger"?
It is not "hatemongering" to defend the freedom of speech, the freedom of conscience, and equality of rights for women and non-Muslims. To label it as such betrays an attempt to demonize and marginalize those who are fighting for freedom.
6. What is your reply to those who call you conspiracy theorist?
It was not I, but the Muslim Brotherhood, that stated in a captured internal document its strategic goal for the U.S.: "eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within and sabotaging its miserable house…so that God's religion [i.e., Islam] is victorious over other religions."
7. What do you say to those who are saying that muslims [sic] today are being the victims of the same kind of prejudice that the jews [sic] were victims of before, i.a that islamophfobia [sic] is the new antisemitism?
I have nothing to add on this to what I wrote above for #4.
8. What is the reason for your constant criticism of President Obama?
"Constant criticism"? 49 posts out of 371 at Jihad Watch in July mention him, and most of those 49 do so only peripherally. I have criticized Obama for enabling the establishment of a Muslim Brotherhood regime in Egypt that will deprive women and non-Muslims of basic rights, and for favoring Islamic supremacist regimes elsewhere as well. I also find the indications that he is interested in working with the OIC to criminalize criticism of Islam (which would mean the end of anti-terror efforts) to be troubling.
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Some typical 'Aftonbladet' headlines describing Mr Spencer: "Islam-hater Robert Spencer", "islamophobe Robert Spencer".