De små stegens tyranni
En studie av Sverigedemokraternas förhållande till islam
The aim of this essay was to determine 1. How Muslims were described in the Sweden Democrats official magazine and 2. What the purpose with their descriptions could be. The material, the SD-Courier was chosen due to it being an official magazine that was easily accessible. A hermeneutic method was used where each article selected was read several times to create a greater understanding for the material and the phenomenon within. Several articles, nine out of 485, mentioned Islam and Muslims. The description of Muslims and Islam was exclusively negative in that most authors and articles tried to describe Muslims and Islam as a threat. The threat ranged between a local threat, threatening Sweden as a whole and finally threatening the entire Western civilization. The reasons for the descriptions can be several. By creating stereotypes of Muslims as evil the Sweden Democrats create a stereotype of themselves as the ?good guys?. By doing so they also create an opportunity for recruiting new members to the party. Another reason is the assignment of blame. Muslims become the scapegoat for problems in society which may lack obvious solutions.