The Art of War

Swedish liberals are now officially good for nothing. In response to the absurd conflict over Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten’s recent publishing of racist cartoons of the prophet Muhammed, Liberal Party leader Lars Leijonborg, now demands that the Swedish government declares it’s undivided support for Denmark.

Even worse was today’s edition of Sweden’s leading liberal newspaper Dagens Nyheter. Fronting with a photo (that was subsequently taken down from their web page – I’ll link to it if I find it elsewhere) picturing partakers in the riots leading to the burning down of the Danish embassy in Damascus, and the head line "Church attacked during Sunday Mass" they make their standpoint extremely clear.

The picture is interesting in itself. The way it’s composed, framed and cut, make the rioters virtually rise from the fire coming out of the ground. One of them is waving a green flag and his facial expression is almost unhuman. These are quite literarily "muslims from hell".

The editorial page is topped by "Denmark’s cause becomes ours" and contains, among other things, this suggestive passage: "When radical imams in Denmark called for big brother and alerted the attention of the muslim world, the situation became dangerous." The head line is a paraphrase of the slogan "Finland’s cause is ours" which refers to the popular support from Sweden to the Finish people when their country was attacked by the Soviet Union in the so called Winter War in 1939. This phrase is very much alive in the common memory, and by using it this way, DN:s editorial writers are suggesting that Denmark is under attack from a dangerous and superior aggressor.

Conservative newspaper Svenska Dagbladet is keeping a comparatively lower key in their tone today, and interestingly enough Conservative Party leader Fredrik Reinfeldt, has expressed hesitance towards the Liberal Party’s suggestion for a statement. I never thought I’d live to see the day when Swedish conservatives became a voice of reason towards the liberals.

The liberals are now trying to make this into a discussion about the freedom of expression, despite the fact that the legal issues were never at the heart of the matter. Very few people have yet to express the opinion that the published cartoons should be considered illegal. This discussion is simply a diversion from the real issues.

The fact is that a wave of anti-islamic sentiments is sweeping across Western Europe, and that Denmark probably is the most racist country of them all right now. The intolerance against muslims has been growing there for years, and the cartoon publishing in Jyllands-Posten was just another part of the constant harassments of imigrants and foreigners in Denmark. On top of that Danish troops are part of the US lead coalition that currently occupies Iraq.

In the late 19th and early 20th century pictures like this, this and this, were very common in Europe. At that time discussions about solutions to "der Judenfrage" was considered legit – not only among right wing extremist, but in the official intellectual debate as a whole. Anti-semitism was woven into society’s fundamental values.

Isn’t it odd how similar Jyllands-Posten’s cartoons are to these old anti-semitic stereotypes? Don’t you find it disturbing that the muslims of the world are constantly described as a problem? That they are vilified and dehumanized? Do you really not see where this could lead?

In retrospect we can say for sure that there never really was a "Judenfrage". That the idea of a certain nationality, or cultural community, as a problem in itself paved the road to fascism. There was never, as the moderates put it, "two sides" and the solution was never "a dialog". The only proper thing to do is to refuse to describe human beings in these terms all together.