Sweden’s two worlds
We’ve heard a lot about Germany and its immigration woes, but of all the countries of Europe that are having trouble with their unassimilated newcomers, Sweden just might lead the way:
While much attention was focused on Germany during the 2015 refugee crisis, in which more than a million migrants from the Middle East and Africa entered the continent at the behest of Angela Merkel, the country that admitted the most migrants per capita was Sweden. In one year alone, the northern European nation of 10 million added nearly 2 percent to its population. Most of those arrivals were young men. Tens of thousands more have continued to arrive since then…
…Rosengård, Seved, and Nydala, [are] immigrant neighborhoods in the southern city of Malmö and among the 23 “especially vulnerable” areas across Sweden. At times, ambulances and fire trucks will enter only with police protection. Desperate police have appealed to imams and clan leaders for help when they cannot contain the violence…
The on-the-ground reality I witnessed in some parts of Sweden stood in stark contrast to the egalitarian utopia I had been sold by American progressives. How did Sweden, on the whole a prosperous and peaceful nation, also develop parallel, segregated societies afflicted by criminality and violence? The starkest reminder of this reality are the numerous grenade explosions and gun murders that have become a regular occurrence across some sections of society. In fact, Sweden’s homicide rate is now above the Western European average…
University West sociologist Göran Adamson blames, in addition to poor urban planning, Sweden’s state-sponsored multiculturalism for financing separatism through various ethno-religious institutions…
Sweden’s institutionalization of multiculturalism began in 1975, when a parliament led by Social Democrat Olof Palme rejected assimilation in favor of policies that encouraged minorities to keep their separate identities. “Of course, if you say these things [critically] in Sweden, you’ll be ferociously attacked by social workers and the dominating left-wing academia for being inhumane,” Adamson says.
Sounds familiar, although somewhat more extreme than what’s been happening elsewhere in Europe—and to a certain extent in the US, although America has never embraced multiculturalism to the same degree and has at least retained a small residue of devotion to assimilation.
Multiculturalism was thought to be a way to respect other cultures, and I suppose it is, but its dangers are obvious if those cultures are not compatible with (or are in fact openly hostile to) that of the host country. This is a fact that is often ignored by those who are dedicated to multiculturalism.
{NOTE: The article also mentions that the problem with immigrants in Sweden is not necessarily just with those who practice Islam:
Although Sweden’s jihadist problem intersects with immigration, evidence doesn’t support the myopic focus on Muslims in immigration discourses, according to Stockholm School of Economics researcher Tino Sanandaji. “Among migrants from the Middle East” to Sweden, most “are not Muslim but instead are Christian, atheist, agnostic, and members of other religious minorities,” he tells me. Sanandaji, a Kurdish immigrant from Iran who has written a best-selling book on Swedish immigration, says that people often confuse Middle Eastern culture with Islam. His research, he says, indicates that second-generation immigrant gangs are influenced more by gangster-rap subculture than by any religion.
There are probably many contributors to the situation, but the combination of Muslim immigrants, Middle Eastern culture as a whole, and modern trends such as gangster-rap has a lot of toxic potential.]
It was a Kurdish immigrant in Sweden who killed his daughter a few years ago because of her western dress. She was a beautiful girl.
The Swedish government and establishment ferociously deny any immigrant problems and lashed out at Trump when he mentioned it.
The Gov’t in Sweden tells young Swedish women to cover their heads in case they might offend some sweet “immigrants”. If anyone opposes these new non Swedes who will never assimilate they are called racist and “right wing” and Nazis”. This as it has been said “will not end well”.
One of the built advantages these northern European countries have had is that they have been almost entirely of one race and background. This has made it much easier for them to have their welfare states without issues like we have here with illegal immigrants and efforts to game the system.
But now let’s see how they do with their new citizens.
I have little sympathy for the trials and tribulations of those hoisted by their own foolishness. Inviting a culture that despises you as infidels and your women as whores was insanely foolish.
“are the numerous grenade explosions and gun murders that have become a regular occurrence”
When I lived in Berlin in the early 1980s the Kreuzburg district was mainly Turkish and the crime problem there was well known. Germany invited the Turks in as guest workers and the guests decided to stay.
It should also be noted that the historic “tolerance” of the Scandinavian countries truly is of the “repressive tolerance” variety: we won’t force you to do anything, but if you aren’t exactly like us, we will completely ignore you, which obviously means that you can have no access to power and money in our society. People who are completely ignored–sometimes children do it to be mean to a pariah child–tend to become angry and violent.
Denmark is no better, but at least they have the wit not to admit Mideastern refugees.
More and more the most fascinating aspect of the post WWII (maybe more specifically post Cold War) west has been the incredible self loathing that has led large parts of western Europe and to a lesser extent the US/Canada, maybe Australia(?) to purposefully destroy the best parts of their societies.
Cultural death wish I think.
I think the number of hand grenade attacks was about 76 when I looked it up. One was bounced off the hardened window of a police department. The grenades themselves are apparently all of Yugoslavian (or Bosnian?) origin.
My impression is that the media is tightly regulated/censored there. When non-Swedish reporters began to report on police no-go zones in Sweden, the media and gov. officials gave hostile denials. Then months later, the no-go zones were confirmed.
Loss of faith, self-loathing, and a cultural death wish about sums it up.
“Inviting a culture that despises you as infidels and your women as whores was insanely foolish.” Ken
Not if your subconscious imperative is to commit cultural suicide.
To a shocking degree, Europe is being led by spinsters.
As in high government officials.
Merkel is not alone.
Their’s is a weird world view.
To a shocking degree, Europe is being led by spinsters.
Yes, childless women, plus Macron whose wife is menopausal.
The American left is not reproducing itself, hence Paul Gigot’s quip. “The Roe Effect.” Maybe that is why they want open borders. Import children.
The image that comes to mind is from “Lord of the Rings,” as King Theoden of Rohan is sitting motionless, pale, disheveled, and weak on his throne–bespelled and staring out into space–as Grima Wormtongue whispers into his ear.
My impression was that the Swedes wanted to show the world, particularly the US, how it was done. Hubris led to failure, because Sweden and most (all?) of Europe is much more closely tied to blood and homogeneous communities that the US is. I don’t think any other country in the world is really a competitor to the US for successful assimilation, even in its current sorry form.
The American left is not reproducing itself, hence Paul Gigot’s quip. “The Roe Effect.” Maybe that is why they want open borders. Import children.
Mike K: John Hinderaker said directly in PowerLine the other day:
The Democrats have staked their future on importing voters in violation of the law, since the voters they already have mostly prefer not to have many children.
https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/12/schumer-digs-in.php
That thought occurred to me long ago, but I was surprised to read Hinderaker stating so without hedging.
I wonder how conscious Democrats are of such motivation. Without a doubt Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama have crunched those numbers, as well as being transnationalists at their core. But what about Jane Soccer Mom or Hot Cocoa Pajama Boy?
It’s been so long since I switched sides I’m not really in touch with their thinking anymore, if indeed thinking is the word. My impression is it’s more a conflation of feelings from the sixties civil rights movement, John Lennon’s “Imagine” anthem, and the moral certainty they are superior to conservatives.
The purpose of multiculturalism, as pushed by academics, is the death of the nation state. Academics, and progressives, are globalists. To them, the ethnographic nation state is a reactionary artifact, responsible for wars (true enough) and bigotry (also true).
Get rid of it and the bad goes away. At least in theory.
In the annals of history, few ‘multicultural’ nations have survived. Ask Rome. Until recently, America was the one national exception to this rule. Now we have identity politics, which is another word for tribalism. See how long we last.
Sweden is a tiny, irrelevant nation of fewer than 10 million souls. When it goes, it will hardly be missed. I never liked Volvos. I am, though, looking forward to the movies of Mohammed Bergman.
My impression was that the Swedes wanted to show the world, particularly the US, how it was done.
Chuck. Sounds right to me.
Something similar with Merkel in Germany, though the German case is complicated by the … er … Nazi episode.
We, here in the U.S., are in trouble, but it’s a lot worse in Europe.
So, how did things get so bad, how did we in the West—in particular in Western Europe—come to this pass?
How did the nations and peoples of Western Europe become ensorcelled—immune to the lessons of history, common sense, and reality—sleepwalking to their doom?
Unable to see—angrily refusing to see—denying what is happening right before their eyes.
I can understand how Germany, with its war guilt, could get into this position.
The leaders there and, apparently, a lot of Germans, inviting in hundreds of thousands of hostile Muslims—many of whom refuse to integrate, creating hostile (and increasingly disruptive and violent) Muslim enclaves within German society—as a way to somehow—consciously or unconsciously—atone for the rise of the Nazis and for WWII; as a punishment they deserved.
But how about all the countries of Western Europe that were on the winning side in WWII, who (often we) have rebuilt, and seemingly had it made?
What about them?
Some of the trends below seem to have been in operation.
The violence, death, and destruction of WWII—on their home grounds, among their families, in their towns and neighborhoods, and on their streets—was extremely and deeply traumatic.
Its echoes are still reverberating today, and have had a profound effect on each of the countries of Europe, their view of history, and their peoples.
As one reaction, pacifism seems to have blossomed.
Then, there is the fact that the society of Western Europe is increasingly Post-Christian.
Loss of faith in God—especially in Western as opposed to Eastern Europe—is another major effect.
And with the loss of that faith also came the abandonment of religion’s long, theological view of history, and man’s place in it, and with generally improving economies, the rise of hedonism, and a taste for consumerism and immediate gratification.
Since there is no end goal to work towards and to aspire to, no real point to History—human beings just the result of random collisions and combinations of molecules in a meaningless Universe—the heedless, short term thinking, “Eat, Drink, and Be Merry, for Tomorrow we Die” brigade seems to be pretty strong in Western Europe.
Loss of faith in God, it appears, was also coupled with the loss of faith by many in their nations and, apparently in their cultures, their institutions, and in themselves.
Of course, the Left’s Gramscian attack against all the foundation blocks and supporting pillars of the bourgeois societies of the West just helped along, accelerated, broadened, and deepened these developments.
The Left’s domination of each country’s Educational establishment has also apparently led to deliberate, large scale ignorance of History, ignorance, especially, of the violent, destructive, and bloody history of Islam—at one time or the other, over the course of almost 1,400 years—warring against, raiding (and sometimes occupying all or parts of) virtually each and every one of the nations of Western and Eastern Europe, and the Mediterranean.
Had this ignorance not been widely prevalent, I doubt that many Europeans would have been so naively and eagerly—look up, some time, pictures on the Internet of excited, naive Europeans, virtually jumping up and down, holding up signs of “Welcome” at ports of entry as Muslims debark from their planes and ships—welcoming hundreds of thousands of Muslims into their individual countries.
We here in the United States have also played our part in this tragedy, by pouring hundreds of billions—cumulatively probably trillions of dollars—into Western Europe—first to rebuild it, then to defend it.
By paying for and providing the security umbrella of our military forces as the backbone of NATO, we have enabled Western European governments (most of whom have never consistently made their pledged annual percentage of their GDP contributions of money, and military forces, to NATO) to divert the massive amounts of money (and attention) that they should have been paying towards their own security and national defense into massive social welfare programs which have weakened their societies, not strengthened them.
Our aid has made it possible for them to forget.
To pretend to themselves that the Wolf is not always potentially at their door, even to pretend that there is no Wolf.
Moreover, by providing our military insurance for their security, we have also enabled these countries to allow each one of their own national military forces to grow weaker and less capable by the year.
In trying to help them we have, instead, been a major factor in enabling them to become soft, weak, less able to defend themselves, and naive to boot.
Can the situation in Western Europe be reversed? Honestly, I don’t think so.
Dennis Prager has a quote about the left and more specifically Europe that says
‘the left has learned instead of fighting evil it is evil to fight’
That sums up the thinking of a large part of European elites/
And then there’s the completely irreverent PewDiePie, Swedish comedian and YouTube sensation. I learned about him yesterday reading an essay on Quillette and watched his shows all day in bed with the flu.
Seems he’s being smeared as an alt right Nazi in certain quarters, possibly because he behaves like a lunatic boy laughing maniacally at society’s sacred cows instead of sternly moralizing.
To a shocking degree, Europe is being led by spinsters.
A spinster is a woman who has never been married. Angela Merkel and Theresa May are not spinsters, they have husbands. And May has said she tried very hard to conceive, but was unable to, which she described as the great sorrow of her life.
Yes, the current leaders of Germany, France, and Britain are childless. Whether any or all wanted children is missing the point in that it is pretty unheard of and it has to affect your thinking as a leader to some degree because it affects your thinking on lots of other things also. The only question is how much.
I think PewDiePie’s something a bit different than simply a “lunatic boy laughing maniacally at society’s sacred cows instead of sternly moralizing”:
“incredible self loathing ”
I don’t think it’s self-loathing.
There’s a lot of PC individualist “moral & intellectual superiority” over others. There is the herd mentality, and the desire to be mean to others. Aren’t PC Dems today trying to treat pro-life Christians a lot like the Nazis treated Jews? Not letting them speak, trying to get them fired from any public or even high private job?
The US professors, and post-Christian Capitalist professors, they hate their Christian and Capitalist forbears. They often seem to hate the real compromises that must be made for a happy marriage. They are seldom genuinely “family friendly”, altho they seem happy to make all kinds of laws requiring ever more responsibility and work by parents.
It might be already too late for Western Europe. Three of the “Visegrad 4” (Poland, Slovakia, Hungary; not Czechia) are mostly against the Gender Ideology which is anti-family, and anti-Christian, and being promoted by the EU elite.
Things will get worse before they get better in Europe; also in Venezuela.
Does that stunt show he believes “death to all Jews,” or is it possible he wanted to show the inane depths people would stoop for 5 dollars?
Meanwhile we have American democratic politicans and liberal political movements kissing up to someone who, in all sincerity, calls Jews termites. And never mind the UN, The NY Times and college campus’s war on Israel.
But let’s deplatform PewDiePie, and Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro and Dennis Prager….
Twelve years ago, Eric Raymond wrote a piece called “Gramscian Damage” at his website:
https://esr.ibiblio.org ?p=260
Here is an excerpt:
At his posting entitled “Suicidalism” (which he mentions above), at
http://esr.ibiblio.org/?p=218 ,
Mr. Raymond presents the list above, and then writes:
He blames our vulnerability to these ideas on our acceptance of what he believes to be Christianity:
(It is certainly a common enough idea among us moderns to take this as “THE” doctrine of Christian morality, and as far as I know this line of thinking has always been accepted by some Christians, but I don’t think it’s anything like the bottom line of Christian moral teaching over the past two millenia. I could write a lot more about this, but this is not the time or place, and besides it would be tl;dr — if it isn’t already.)
Nevertheless, gradually it seems that the West has come largely to accept this explanation. And regardless of the roots of our vulnerability to Soviet propaganda, it surely seems to me that Mr. Raymond’s list of the attack points of what we tend to call “cultural Marxism” really does get at the beliefs that are destroying our moral self-confidence — as individuals, and as the societies of “Western Civilization” in general.
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Hope Edit is with us today.
It’s not.
The first and last paragraphs in the first quote are bookends around the individual points. At the source, the points are indented.
I’m not sure, Snow on Pine, that the Swedes are as irreligious as you portray them. They are virulently anti-Semitic, which, at least in part, must be rooted in Lutheranism, which was, until 2000, the state religion. Luther, as you know, was virulently anti-Semitic.
There is a Congressional Report–published, some 20-30 years ago–that documents some of the memes that Soviet’s KGB disinformation specialists were very successful in putting into world-wide circulation.
One of the Soviet’s most successful disinformation memes–still in circulation and believed by many to this day–was the idea, injected into the world’s consciousness in the 1980s, that AIDS was a virus that accidentally escaped from a secret U.S. government biological warfare laboratory.
It was quite simple really.
The Soviets controlled a newspaper in India. They had that Indian newspaper float a story about this possibly happening. Then, Soviet propaganda sources picked up the article, and the meme, saying that it wasn’t the Soviets who were alleging this happened, it was a source from a democratic, Western nation.
And, the rest is history.
One of the Soviet’s most successful disinformation memes
The fear of nuclear power and weapons is still the most successful KGB op. Decades after they became the FSB. They used it in the 1950s to stir up European fear of America and it exists in the minds of the young to this day, passed down by Baby Boomer parents.
Had lunch today with a daughter who was a Bernie voter. We talked about Margaret Mead and Rachel Carson, both of whom are responsible for millions of lives.
Chuck on December 23, 2018 at 12:57 pm at 12:57 pm said:
My impression was that the Swedes wanted to show the world, particularly the US, how it was done.
* * *
Old Texas joke:
Why does the chicken cross the road?
To show the armadillo how it’s done.
It’s not propelled by simple self-loathing. To the best of my ability to understand why people who I know personally were – at least at some point – decent, intelligent, well-educated and acquainted with the proper use of the scientific method have become hate-filled, illogical and intolerant hard lefties in recent years, the best I can do is see it as a sort of loathing of one’s “unimproved” natural self. They loathe not themselves – not one of them sees themselves as being the problem – but others “like” them, who have not transcended to the higher plane on which they now reside. This makes it possible to hate siblings (something I have had the sad experience of watching play out among relatives), as well as former friends, classmates and co-workers.
There is a sense of absolution: the lily-white, straight, well-to-do lefties in my life (as, almost without exception, that’s what they all are) seem to operate under the belief that they may continue to enjoy their 1%-er lives because they are the Good People and prove it by constantly proclaiming their political beliefs (and pretending that an undue percentage of their kids are transgender). Part of that quasi-religious activity involves the same sort of demonization and increasingly vicious and violent attacks on unbelievers that across history, so many believers do to nonbelievers in their midst.
As someone who is consciously aware that centuries ago, I would’ve been one of the first to be hanged, drowned or burned, it sickens me that people I know, people who I know should know better, have not learned the basic lesson to be learned from dark chapters like witch-hunts and concentration camps and the Inquisition. An enlightened person understands that the simple act of being or believing something different is not a threat, much less something that should be punished. Tolerance involves tolerating the fact that there are people who are different than you or believe differently than you do – something that the hard left is pretty much incapable of grasping, as much as they blather about “tolerance.” Instead, the best that these devolved knuckle-draggers, who used to be fully human before they turned into lefty zombies, can muster is revenge. They think that if they even the score, by inflicting harm on “those” people, who share something with some group that did wrong in the past, while giving preferential treatment to “these” people, who share something with some group that was victimized in the past, makes things right – and absolves them of their personal guilt for having a lot more in common with “those” people than “these” people.
Yes, they want to take it out on you Christians that you’re Christian. And they’re equally happy it take it out on me, an actual person of alternate beliefs who is tolerant of others, because I would defend your right to believe as you wish. I don’t care that hundreds of years ago some other Christians would not have granted me the same privilege – there’s nothing you or I can do about that now. What fully evolved human beings can do is learn lessons from the past, so as not to repeat those same mistakes over and over. The lessons to be learned are to live in peace but be ready to respond with as much force as necessary to deal with those that won’t. It’s basic stuff that lefties will never get.
My former friends, co-workers and classmates would be perfectly glad to shun and hate me if I dared to open my mouth and let them know that I actually believe in crazy concepts like free speech and due process for everyone. The only one among us who is self-loathing is me, for not having the courage to say what is right.
KyndyllG – well said.
It is sad to see hundreds of years of progress in civililty thrown away so quickly.
linked KyndyllG’s comment here
https://www.thenewneo.com/2018/12/22/to-life-and-to-cultural-appropriation/#comment-2416719
Julie in Chicago: That’s one of my favorite blog posts ever. I quote or link to it all the time.
I just finished Douglas Murray’s The Strange Death of Europe. At one point he raises the question (paraphrasing) “why is Western Europe so much more affected by these suicidalist ideas than Eastern Europe?” He doesn’t really answer the question, but it immediately occurred to me that Western Europe was subject to Soviet agitprop/memetic warfare/subversion while Eastern Europe was just subject to the awfulness of state socialism.
On a tour of Eastern Europe a few years ago we made a couple hour stop in Poland, at Czestochowa, to see the Black Madonna of Jasna Gora.
In the church there, you can walk behind the altar, around the back of the Madonna, and we did so while a church service–the worshipers focused on the image of the Madonna–was taking place, and I could feel the intensity, the spiritual force of the worshipers.
I have participated in church services, but I never before (or since) have felt any such spiritual force.
Met the Dalai Lama once, looked into his eyes, shook his hand, and I detected no aura of spiritual force.
Here at Czestochowa, I did.
It was quite impressive.
It is my belief that the intense religious belief that I witnessed–the presence of that belief and the spiritual force it generates–is one of the great differences between Eastern and Western Europe; parts of the East still posses it, to a very great extent it has faded in the West.
It strikes me that Multiculturalism and Diversity are just new labels for Balkanization. And the new labels were necessary because the original idea had a stigma. Of course the original idea had a stigma because it was destructive. *** Another example is the use of Home Equity Loan to replace Second Mortgage. The action is still risky, and that risk was why that original label had a stigma. *** It is hard enough to learn from our past mistakes without the additional challenge of having the mistakes renamed. *** I’d be interested to know if you or your readers have identified other concepts that have been re-labeled to make them “appear” different – and now acceptable – while doing nothing to change the inherent negative consequences.
That Guy–“Democratic” Socialism for Communism springs immediately to mind.
Then there is the Marxist’s “democratic centralism.”
That old “democratic” sure covers up a lot of things.
that guy on December 25, 2018 at 11:52 am at 11:52 am said:
*** It is hard enough to learn from our past mistakes without the additional challenge of having the mistakes renamed. ***
* * *
“There’s glory for you!” – Humpty Dumpty
rational fear of terrorist attack = “Islamophobia”
pointing out individual or group characteristics that are less than optimal for productive living = “othering”
noting that biological differences have psychological ramifications = “sexism”
Bryan,
Yes, I think Mr. Raymond gets it right there.
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I wonder what people think of Cleon Skousen’s “45 Communist goals,” which seem to be largely trashed, even by mostly-Right-thinking pundits. These, as read into the Congressional Record in 1963, are listed for instance at
http://www.restoring-america.com/Documents/THE%20NAKED%20COMMUNIST%20GOALS%20WITH%20NOTES.pdf .
They’ve seemed to me perfectly likely. But I may misunderstand, and besides I was never under any illusions about the Communists. Is his list dismissed because he was (apparently) a bit nutty about Mormonism? (Quoting Elaine May, “I never actually dated” Cleon. *g*)
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I have the three volumes of Leszek Kolakowski’s magnum opus, the trilogy Main Currents of Marxism, which deals with the history of ideas. I’ve read somewhat less than half of the first volume, and I did find it a bit of a slog, but that’s partly because I’m really unfamiliar with the history of philosophy (I can spell “Aristotle” and “Plato,” however; also, “Rousseau” and “John Locke). So although I’ve heard of people like Meister Eckhardt, I’ve never really travelled in their circles….
But it seems to me well worth reading. The evil ideas that grew out of Marxism certainly had their beginnings long before Marx arrived among us. And our U.S. version of Progressivism was carried here by Americans who studied German philosophy in Germany, and brought it back here. Richard Ely seems to have been one of the earliest main progenitors of this school of thought.
Of Main Currents, one Amazon reviewer, R. Albion, writes:
The whole review is worth reading.
https://www.amazon.com/Main-Currents-Marxism-Dissolution-Paperbacks/dp/0192851071/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1545788200&sr=1-3&keywords=Communism
That remark about John Lennon and “Imagine” strikes an unsettling but not too surprising chord with me.
Modern progressives with their “evolutionary progress” crypto-religion, often refer to imagination, which they credit themselves with having in superabundance, as the engine of moral advancement; i.e., the forced-on-them by-us plan of change and social culling that is judged in retrospect [tautologically and by them] as advancement.
The depth of their emotional commitment to this what – theme? paradigm? philosophy? – was revealed to me only after I had made a slighting and I thought minor and possibly tenuous aside to John Lennon’s song “Imagine” and its connection with the mentality of progressives.
The vitriolic and bitterly passionate response I got, along with an apparently seriously delivered defense of its ideals as a template for humanity, showed me that I had inadvertently poked at a holy scripture without quite realizing it.
“Hell, man it’s just a dopey song.”
No, not for the true believer. When they hear it, the clouds part, the heavens buzz, and they begin to build toward a polymorphous perverse collectivist climax.
I’ve seen nothing like it since, apart from remarks by certain persons who I figured were outright mentally disturbed and who had attached themselves, and proclaimed themselves devoted to, the movie “Avatar” with an absolutely unashamed religious intensity.