Sweden’s baptism of fire…Ozer Khalid
The toxic mlange of far-right ber-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 ber-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 wont assist Swedens NATO bid in lieu of Trkiyes 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 Stockholms 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 worlds 2.1 billion Muslims, 24% of the earths 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 faade 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 Melonis Brothers of Italy (Fratelli dItalia) with far-right fascist roots to Mussolini to the rising tide of AfD in Germany, to Hungarys (Christians only) Viktor Orbns Fidesz to Poland where since 2005 right-wing parties have dominated the political scene to the UKs 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 Islams holiest book and labelling it as an attempt to sabotage the countrys 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 Islams 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 Trkiye 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 nations 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 Swedens far-right with the YPG/PKKs 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 Trkiyes security concerns and thereby win Ankaras seal of approval for a NATO bid.
A trilateral memorandum between Trkiye, 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.
Russias incursion into Ukraine shook Sweden out of years of lethargy, exposing its defence susceptibilities and nudging it to pursue NATOs protection. Given Trkiyes strategic role in NATO, Sweden has to bridge the divide with Trkiye. So in autumn 2022, when Sweden promised to control and monitor PKK supporters, it lacked the political capital to follow through.
However, extensive anti-Trkiye demonstrations characterised by pejorative sloganeering followed by sacrilegious Quran-burning profanities weakened Swedens NATO swagger. As Sweden swiftly loses credibility and respect in Muslim-majority countries, its pledge to Trkiye has fallen apart at the seams.
It is navet to label Paludans and subsequent heretical acts and PKKs anti-Trkiye protests a coincidence. Both Paludan and the PKK are dancing to the tune of Swedens hostility vis–vis Muslims and Trkiye, thereby imperils its inroads into NATO.
Sweden must carefully mitigate its mounting extremism. Here Swedens Security Service (Skerhetspolisen) 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.
Courtesy The Express Tribune