Let’s get this absolutely straight:
If you spend your Ostara holiday by burning cop cars, chasing firetrucks, hacking up cobblestones, setting fire to schools, and hunting police officers, you’re not doing so because some hateful numbnut wants to burn a book you like. You do it because you’re a belligerent insurrectionist with no interest in partaking in society.
Over the course of last week, hoodlums, criminals, secessionists, fanatics, zealots, and unhinged children put five Swedish communities to the torch. They hunted public services, burnt public and private property, caused mayhem and destruction like packs of rapid dogs. And yes; I know being called a dog is a sensitive insult within the Muslim cultural context. But if these dogs do not want to be referred to as such, they shouldn’t act like it.
Why though? Why would the criminal juvenile element come crawling out the woodwork right now? Well, because they were lured out. They came like rats to the Pied Piper’s calling. The Pied Piper, in this instance, performed by the Danish right-wing politician Rasmus Paludan, of the Danish political party Stram Kurs. This racist, nationalist, and islamophobe, decided to spend his Easter holiday touring Sweden to put on xenophobic demonstrations where he burnt the Quran. Why do such a thing you might ask? To make himself a nuisance. To stir shit. To make people angry. To prove his thesis that Muslims are violent and disregard the social codex and law of their western countries. To stoke the flames of division. Which he managed expertly here in Sweden these past days.
Before we get into my main point, there’s a long list of disclaimers I’ll have to go through. I’ll… try to be brief, if you permit me the courtesy of just an inch of good faith. Okay? Okay…
#1: Paludan is a racist prick.
#2: According to Swedish law, and liberal humanism, anyone has the right to believe and think what they want. You’re allowed to be liberal. You’re allowed to be conservative. You’re allowed to be religious. You’re even allowed to be a racist prick. That’s exactly how the Swedish general public wants society to function. It’s in the Swedish constitution. If you don’t like it; go somewhere else where things are different. Or, alternatively, try to debate for changing the constitution like what you do in a democracy.
#3: Anyone has the inalienable right to do with as they please with their private property (with the possible exception of littering). If I want to burn a book of mine, I can damned well do so, regardless of what book that is. If I, or anyone, decide to be a racist prick and burn a (to some considered) holy text, there’s not a Gods damned thing anyone has the legal right to do about it. Not in Sweden. Not in a liberal country. I can warm my house by the fire of Bibles, Qurans, Talmuds, and whatever the fuck else I please. You’re allowed to think I’m a prick for doing so. You’re not allowed to stop me or physically punish me.
#4: If you rise to the bait of the likes of Paludan, you’re a gullible idiot. A moron. An absolute fucking melon. Because your ire and violence is exactly what he wants to provoke. You, who go out with your torches and pitchforks, are playing into his hand.
#5: The burning of a book cannot possibly be dangerous to your personal beliefs. No Christian becomes less so if I burnt a Bible. No Muslim is less of a Muslim because I burnt a Quran. Your beliefs are your own. Personal. Subjective. And if your faith is so fragile that it’s damaged because a bundle of papers and verses are burnt, then your faith is weak.
#6: Just because something is sacred to you doesn’t mean it has to be sacred to anyone else. This isn’t the medieval ages. Grow up. Sanctity is personal. A product of the printing industry doesn’t need protection from you.
#7: You do not have the right to project whatever’s sacred to you onto anyone else. Not in Sweden. If you think differently, debate it in parliament. This is not a Caliphate.
#8: Hate speech is illegal according to Swedish law. What exactly constitutes hate speech we’re not collectively sure on yet.
#9: Being a prick, and a racist one at that, deserves derision. In my opinion. Acting like a mob of rabid dogs also deserves derision. In my opinion.
#10: If you protest the burning of a, to you, sacred symbol by destroying the society around you, you make yourself a fundamental problem to that society. Something broken and damaged to be fixed or removed. You’re not a holy warrior. You’re a blood-drunk ravager and marauder.
All of that needed to be said, because all of that has been argued and asked about. And I would very much like whatever comes next to be capable of moving past these points that hopefully detail both the legalities of the Swedish constitution and my own personal opinion on this whole sordid chapter.
Which brings me to the matter at hand; namely, what constitutes hostile political manipulation from a foreign country.
See, Paludan’s political movement is a nationalistic, islamophobic, far-right party from Denmark. The man himself has dual citizenships with both Denmark and Sweden, which muddies the waters a bit. But his party has no direct ambitions on Sweden. None. When he comes to Swedish shores and burns books and incites mayhem, he does that not as a Swedish citizen but a Danish politician. He does this in cities and areas where he knows he will be seen and heard by a particular Swedish demographic where he wants his intended effect. In Norrköping, Linköping, Örebro, Rinkeby, and Malmö he peddled his message, and his intention is to send angry young Muslims into conflict with the public. His wish is for Muslims to leave, primarily Denmark, but the western world at large. He wants to exhibit Muslim rage. Show an immigrant population at its worst.
Police vehicles were stolen, joy-ridden, wrecked, and burnt. Homes were destroyed. A gaggle of ill-raised children set a gods damned public bus on fire, while there were people in it. Cops were injured in a hail of stones thrown by delinquents who have given up on being productive members of society, and decided instead on being a danger to it. Three rioters were subsequently shot on Sunday when they cornered police officers with the intent to cause the officers harm.
Context: This is an election year in Sweden. In five months time the Swedish public will select their representatives in parliament. The national socialist Swedish Democrats were expected to, for the first time in over a decade, maybe loose some of their seats in parliament. The islamocentric party Nuance, headed by a former Turkish Grey Wolf associate, is set to make a splash for catering to the Muslim demographic. And here comes a Danish far-right politician to incite riots and mayhem. And who do you think will benefit in the polls from this travesty?
How is this not considered foreign interference in a sovereign election process? Would it have been clearer cut in the foreign politician would have been a Brit? An American? A Russian? A Turk? A Saudi? A Chinese communist? Is it just because Paludan is Danish, a neighbourly Scandinavian, that we do not consider him foreign enough to constitute foreign interference? Is it his dual citizenship that makes us turn a blind eye to the fact that he’s a foreign politician?
The freedom of expression, of speech and writing, is paramount in Swedish society. But that’s not what Paludan has been doing. He hasn’t expressed himself. He has incited insurrection. Violent, pathetic, short-lived insurrection, but insurrection none the less. The only difference between his antics and the Orange Hydra’s January 6th speech and instigation of the Capitol assault, is that his wasn’t directed to followers but opponents, and that he never targetted the Swedish parliament, but Swedish residential areas.
Constitutional freedoms are important to a society. They aught be fundamentals that broker no exceptions. Because exceptions weaken those freedoms, like holes in a ladle. With enough of them, the freedoms become irrelevant. And isn’t it just too frustrating when those freedoms that we so enjoy and value are defiled, twisted and turned into becoming a weapon against themselves. Because the moment we eject racist pricks like Paludan from the country because he’s exercising those rights, we chip away at a piece of them.
Maybe that’s just the backside of the double-edged sword he wields. If we let him spout his hateful rhetoric, we pave the way for delinquents and criminals to run wild in the streets, and he wins his argument by proving that his hate is justified. If we stop him, we erode our own principles for the sake of hindering a foreign politician to damage our principles. Either way, we’re harmed by a simple bigot. Check and mate.
That is, of course, if we weren’t idiots. If only we didn’t rise to his provocations. If we didn’t believe the self-fulfilling prophecy of an evil oracle. But, as it turns out, asking people not be dumbasses is itself as dumb as destroying public property at the burning of a piece of literature.
/Sebastian Lindberg 19/4-2022
WastedWords 