Sweden’s baptism of fire

Sweden's Islamophobia problem: inserting ‘freedom of speech’ under the guise of ‘hate speech’ is disingenuous

The toxic mélange of far-right über-nationalists and PKK terror sympathisers plants the seeds of racist religious hatred in Europe against Muslims. Stockholm is especially engulfed in a seemingly neo-crusade, a flammable tinderbox of bigotry and raging Islamophobia.

A few months ago, Sweden allowed Rasmus Paludan, an anti-Muslim bigot, a detestable extremist of the Danish-Swedish über-right political party, Hard Line, to carry out the desecration of the Holy Quran outside the Turkish embassy in Stockholm on 21 January, 2023, under the protection of local police. In subsequent rulings, other Holy Books such as the Torah were not allowed to be burnt.

More recently, on June 28, 2023, again Sweden permitted another Quran burning session. The inflammatory incident won’t assist Sweden’s NATO bid in lieu of Türkiye’s opposition. Morocco withdrew their ambassador in protest. Pakistani politicians voiced their condemnation.

To salt the religious wounds further, during the Eid-ul-Adha religious festival, two men stood outside Stockholm’s central mosque and burnt a copy of the Quran, following the green-light given by a Swedish court. The men who wanted permission for the act are desperate for the Quran to be banned. NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg defended the action under the guise of “freedom of speech”.

Inserting ‘freedom of speech’ under the guise of ‘hate speech’ is disingenuous. Burning books is a misguided backward medieval barbarism that the ‘West’ abandoned in the name of Renaissance and civilisation.

The world’s 2.1 billion Muslims, 24% of the earth’s population, take the Quran not merely as a book but as divine revelation, a guide for life. Willfully stoking the sentiments of 2.1 billion humans is not just callous disrespect but deleterious politicking.

However, a large majority of Europeans, especially vocal right-wingers inside Sweden and across Europe, defended the indefensible vile act under the “façade” of freedom of speech. This point bears repeating time and again: freedom of speech is not equal to freedom of spreading hatred against minorities.

Most of Europe is in the throes of Neo-Nazi, right-wing, anti-Muslim hysteria as a vote-winning formula, from Meloni’s Brothers of Italy (Fratelli d’Italia) with far-right fascist roots to Mussolini to the rising tide of AfD in Germany, to Hungary’s (Christians only) Viktor Orbán’s Fidesz to Poland where since 2005 right-wing parties have dominated the political scene to the UK’s far-right “Brexiteers” and the Tories planning to ship “migrants off to Rwanda”. Europe is convulsing by a hatred for “the other”. The situation will get worse before it gets any better, if at all.

The Swedish government conjured up a last-minute face-saving media release, disapproving the defilement of Islam’s holiest book and labelling it as an attempt to sabotage the country’s NATO bid, yet its verdict to green-light this provocation sent an unequivocal message to Muslims globally, that the Nordic state has no respect for Islam’s adherents.

Such incidents far from being “isolated” are the tip of a sharp spear in a long list of disconcerting events in Sweden for decades. Sweden is now a safe-sanctuary for the PKK, categorised by the EU Council of Europe, the US State Department and Türkiye as a terrorist organisation. Any country that allows itself to become a mouthpiece for the PKK hangs itself under a Damoclean sword — expect future militants to exploit the nation’s unmonitored social vacuum, as the Swedish Democrats Sverigedemokraterna has already fanned the flames, pouring petrol on depraved incendiary acts under the mask of free speech. Weaving together Sweden’s far-right with the YPG/PKK’s lethally unsavoury support base multiplying hydra-headed monsters.

As a protracted Russia-Ukraine war compelled Stockholm to accept injudicious policies emboldening the PKK and the far-right on Swedish soil, Stockholm promised to Ankara last in 2022 that it would mitigate Türkiye’s security concerns and thereby win Ankara’s seal of approval for a NATO bid.

A trilateral memorandum between Türkiye, Sweden and Finland was inked at the NATO summit in Madrid in 2022 which flustered the PKK. But since then Sweden finds herself in a state of militant extremism, emboldening both YPG/PKK supporters and far-right extremists to promote lethally toxic agendas.

Russia’s incursion into Ukraine shook Sweden out of years of lethargy, exposing its defence susceptibilities and nudging it to pursue NATO’s protection. Given Türkiye’s strategic role in NATO, Sweden has to bridge the divide with Türkiye. So in autumn 2022, when Sweden promised to control and monitor PKK supporters, it lacked the political capital to follow through.

However, extensive anti-Türkiye demonstrations characterised by pejorative sloganeering followed by sacrilegious Quran-burning profanities weakened Sweden’s NATO swagger. As Sweden swiftly loses credibility and respect in Muslim-majority countries, its pledge to Türkiye has fallen apart at the seams.

It is naïveté to label Paludan’s and subsequent heretical acts and PKK’s anti-Türkiye protests a “coincidence”. Both Paludan and the PKK are dancing to the tune of Sweden’s hostility vis-à-vis Muslims and Türkiye, thereby imperils its inroads into NATO.

Sweden must carefully mitigate its mounting extremism. Here Sweden’s Security Service (Säkerhetspolisen) can level-headedly curb the perilous militancy of both their rabid right-wingers in Sverigedemokraterna and PKK militants.

All fair-minded Europeans must acknowledge, not just in letter but in spirit, the perils of normalising acts of hatred under the deceptive banner of safeguarding free speech and be accountable. Or else, European governments will increasingly jeopardise pluralism, diversity, multi-ethnic communities but also lose well-intentioned allies.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 4^th, 2023.

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