Of course, when one actually looks at the Pew surveys, one discovers that the attitudes explored are of Asian or African Muslims in their own countries, (with the various limitations on news and other media that most of them share).
If one looks at the attitudes of European Muslims who have already (im)migrated and are living in the more open societies of Europe, one finds a different picture:
I don’t have explicit numbers for Sweden, but looking at other high immigration European nations, we find a number of interesting attitude polls.
One study found that 73% of Muslim immigrants with voting rights had participated in national elections, only a bit lower than the 81% of the general population. Muslim women voted at the same rate as Muslim men. 50% of Muslims were involved in “mixed organizations rather than organizations based on their own ethnicity or religion.”
Muslims in Europe: A Report on 11 EU Cities (New York: Open Society Institute, 2009)
62% of French Muslims claim that democracy is doing well in France, as opposed to only 58% of the general population. In the same poll, Muslims gave a 95% overall favorable rating to France and French institutions.
Sylvain Brouard and Vincent Tiberj, Francais comme les autres? Enquete sur les citoyen d’origine maghrebine, africaine et turque (Presses de Sciences Po, 2005)
Following the headscarf bans in schools, a U.S. State Department survey found that “large majorities of Muslims in France voice confidence in the country’s government, feel at least partly French, and support integrating into French society.”
French Muslims Favor Integration into French Society (Washington, DC: Department of State, Office of Research, Opinion Analysis M-58-05, 2005).
A poll from 2005 found that around 80% of Muslims were “comfortable with people of different religions dating or marrying” while 59% would not object to their daughter marrying a non-Muslim. (This is born out in the fact that 25% of French Muslim women have married non-Muslim men.)
Jonathan Laurence and Justin Vaisse, Integrating Islam: Political and Religious Changes in Contemporary Fance (Brookings Institution Pres, 2006), 43.
60% of French Muslims claim to have French friends and 45% to have Jewish friends.
A separate survey found that French Muslims felt comfortable with other French people at a rate of 85%, but felt comfortable with other Muslims at a rate of only 71% or with others of their immigrant nations at a rate of 77%. When the survey was narrowed to Muslims who self-identified as being Muslim before being French, the 85% figure jumped to 90%. (Among the French general population, this feeling of closeness for French people was only 84%.)
Sylvain Brouard and Vincent Tiberj, Francais comme les autres? Enquete sur les citoyen d’origine maghrebine, africaine et turque (Presses de Sciences Po, 2005)
In 2009, 77% of British Muslims identified “extremely strongly” or “very strongly” with Britain as their homeland, (vs only 50% of Britons in the general population). While lower, the numbers for French and German Muslims were 52% and 40%.
The Gallup Coexist Index 2009: A Global Study of Interfaith Relations, 21 - 24.
Jacob Vigdor created an “assimilation index” that was based, not on attitudes, but on participation. He measured male and female employment, home ownership, and naturalization. Canada and the U.S. demonstrated very high rates of “assimilation” on his scale with rates of 77% and 60%. Most European countries rated much lower–Spain was at 38%, for example. However, when he looked behind his numbers, he did not find that the Muslim immigrants were refusing to buy homes or become naturalized, but that their general poverty and national restrictions on ownership precluded home ownership and high barrier laws prevented naturalization.
Jacob L. Vigdor, Comparing Immigrant Assimilation in North America and Europe (New York: Center for State and Local Leadership, May 2011)
Much has been made of the minority of Muslims who “support violence.” In fact, in the U.S. 7% of Muslims reported that violence against civilian targets is “sometimes justified” while another 1% say it is “often justified.”
Muslim Americans: No Signs of Growth in Alienation or Support for Extremism
Of course, when similar questions were asked of the general American population, 24% said that bomb attacks aimed at civilians are “often or sometimes justified” while another 6% said they were “completely justified.”
John L. Esposito and Dalia Mogahed, Who Speaks for Islam? What a Billion Muslims Really Think New York: Gallup Press, 2008), 95.
In a similar poll in Europe, the question [are] “attacks on civilians morally justified?” received affirmative responses of 1%, 1%, and 3% among the general populations of France, Germany, and Britain, but 2%, 0.5%, and 2% among the Muslim populations of the same countries.
The Gallup Coexist Index 2009: A Global Study of Interfaith Relations, 40 - 41.
The “elephant in the room” is not fanatical Fundamentalist Islam, it is the willingness of people to make bad assumptions about other people without considering evidence–or even in the face of evidence as we saw during the French youth riots. In fact, I would venture that there is no “elephant in the room” in the sense of a large, smelly, messy, potentially dangerous beast about which no one dare speak. Rather, there appears to be a mouse in the room about which all sorts of people are willing to talk at length while they and others leap on chairs to avoid it.
Now, I have not been able to find serious numbers regarding Swedish Muslim immigrants, in particular. However, unless someone has actual data regarding the Swedish immigrants that is in direct conflict with the consistent data already provided regarding France, Britain, Germany, and the U.S., I see no reason to believe that speculation about the Swedish immigrants is anything more than the same fear-based nonsense that has been spread about regarding the maligned immigrants for whom I have shown data (that pretty much exactly parallels the same sort of phobias that were spread regarding the Irish, Italians, Chinese, and other immigrants to the U.S.)
There will certainly be conflicts–as there have always been conflicts between settled people and immigrants. (Malmö may have a specific problem if the city has a population with 41% recent Muslim immigrants, but Malmö is unique in having nearly half its population so identified. That is hardly a European-wide phenomenon.) But the conflicts we have seen across Europe in the last 20 years have been the typical problems associated with large migrations that are not specific to Islam and probably have no connection with the Muslim religion or culture.
