Standing in the sunshine with friends in a park overlooked by Stockholm mosque, Sofia said she was becoming tired of the debates around freedom of expression that followed Qur’an burnings in the Swedish capital.
The 36-year-old, who works in adult education, said she felt as if her religion was often cast as the problem, rather than the people behind the burnings.
“We are born and raised here over several generations, but they [the government] don’t talk about Muslims as if we are part of Sweden,” she said. “We contribute. We are lawyers, doctors, journalists, healthcare, normal people who are part of Sweden.”
In the latest of a string of protests in Sweden and Denmark in which copies of the Qur’an have been burned or otherwise damaged, two men set fire to the Qur’an outside the Swedish parliament on Monday. The burnings have prompted a domestic debate about the limits of Sweden’s exceptionally liberal freedom of expression laws and intensified a diplomatic row between Sweden and Muslim countries around the world.
“It’s called a ‘Qur’an crisis’,” Sofia said. “It’s not a Qur’an crisis, this is a … racism crisis.”
The two women standing either side of her voiced their agreement.
“They turn it on us as if it’s a crisis that Muslims have, but we haven’t gone and burnt somebody’s book,” Sofia added.
Salwan Momika and Salwan Najem, the two Iraqi men responsible for Monday’s burning, also burned a Qur’an outside Stockholm mosque on the Muslim holiday of Eid al-Adha in June.
On Tuesday, Ulf Kristersson, the Swedish prime minister, accused outsiders of exploiting the country’s freedom of expression laws to spread hate and of “dragging Sweden into international conflicts”. He also blamed disinformation for the outrage around the burnings.
Kristersson ruled out reducing Sweden’s legal protections for freedom of expression – which are among the strongest globally – but said his government would consider changes that would allow police to stop Qur’an burnings if they posed a threat to national security.
Chafiya Kharraki, a 45-year-old teacher, said she did not buy Kristersson’s claim that disinformation was to blame and that she thought Sweden needed to “take responsibility for its actions”.
“It is real life events that have caused the outrage,” she said. “People won’t take it, they won’t swallow it. It is not OK.”
Her friend, who did not want to be identified, said there was no need to change the law, but that it was a question of interpretation. She feared that plans by the government – a minority-coalition run by the Moderates with the support of far-right Sweden Democrats – to look at changing public order laws could pose a threat to democracy.
“Fascists are fascists, you can’t wait for them to be something else. The Sweden Democrats and this minority government is driving its agenda and we aren’t even being spoken of,” the woman said. “Burn the Qur’an and then they can say Islamophobia is bad but they have no plans to stop Islamophobia.”
Imam Mahmoud Khalfi, a spokesperson for Stockholm mosque, where 600-700 people come to pray every day, said: “Every time, you wait for this absurdity that nobody supports to be put to a stop. It’s just negative and has dangerous consequences.”
Khalfi said he had received lots of phone calls in recent months from people who wanted to talk about their feelings about the Qur’an burnings, which he said had “nothing to do with freedom of expression”.
According to a new poll, the recent burnings may have helped to extend the opposition’s lead to 11 percentage points, their biggest since last September’s election.
Near the mosque in Södermalm, people were making the most of the sun after days of rain, sitting outside with a drink or watching their children play. While there was widespread condemnation of the Qur’an burning among those the Guardian spoke to, there was disagreement over the best way to prevent it from happening.
Nora, 16, said she did not understand the burnings, which she described as unnecessary. Asked whether they should be banned, the student sighed. “That’s a hard one,” she said. “Freedom of expression is really important to a certain degree, but when it starts to violate other people it’s not right.”
Rather than changing Sweden’s freedom of expression laws, she suggested using hate speech laws differently. She said she had seen a lot of support for Qur’an burning on social media, but was strongly against it. “I don’t support it at all because it is basically violating another group of people. I don’t know how you can support that.”
For Inge Zurcher, 79, however, a ban made sense. “It’s awful. It shouldn’t be allowed,” she said, adding that the government did not “understand what damage they’re doing to Sweden and to Muslims”.
Tal Domankewitz, 39, a tourist guide, said there should be limits to Sweden’s freedom of expression laws. “There are some cases where you have to think again and not let it happen. It has to be limited.”
Meanwhile, Abdi Ibrahim, 44, a social worker, said the burnings were ruining Sweden’s reputation in the world. “It feels like most people have the same perception, that freedom of expression is good but that it should not violate others. You can express your views in another way.”
Iman Omer, 20, a Muslim, who was out and about with her sister Monica, said it should be possible to classify the Qur’an burnings as a hate crime. “I understand you are allowed to think and feel what you want, this is a free country, but there must be boundaries,” she said. “It’s such a pity that it has happened so many times and Sweden doesn’t seem to learn from its mistakes.”
Just because you don’t like something shouldn’t make it illegal. I don’t agree with the burning’s, I think the action is merely to get people riled up. Either that or there’s a deeper emotional problem that’s not being dealt with.
If Sweden were to cave and ban the burning’s, where do you draw the line next. Now a precedent has been set that you can move the line, so how far does it move next? The time after that?
A free society (as it exists in Sweden) comes with an understanding that someone may do something you don’t like, and that’s ok.
Just my thoughts.
I like the idea of just cracking down on burning outside of embassies, let them keep burning all they want but not in places where it can legitimately pose a danger to the public and where they get free publicity.
So who decides in which public spaces it is ok to practice the full extent of freedom of speech? You? Is there a rule book somewhere?
The fire department might want a word
Sure! But that is a different matter then the one being discussed.
I hope the people providing comments for this article do not represent a significant portion of the community they’re identified with.
“…It’s just negative and has dangerous consequences.”
What “dangerous consequences” come from the destruction of one’s own property assuming they’re taking measures to control the fire and other potential hazards directly related to the method of destruction? That’s an interesting (if unsurprising) way to try and shift the blame in case of a violent overreaction in defense of a book.
…the government did not “understand what damage they’re doing to Sweden and to Muslims”
What damage is being caused to Sweden and Muslims by a person burning an inanimate object that they own?
“I understand you are allowed to think and feel what you want, this is a free country…"
Good start.
"…but there must be boundaries,”
So you don’t understand then. There are boundaries (Swedish Ministry of Justice article, Swedish police Q&A) and burning a book does not violate them.
What damage is being caused to Sweden and Muslims by a person burning an inanimate object that they own?
At the first burning this year, it constituted a fire hazard and the person was fined for it. At the second protest they beat the book instead, the danger has now been averted.
I will say with hesitation… the easiest way to illustrate the insanity of this situation is to:
- Put a Bible, a Qur’an, a Torah, the collected teachings of the Buddha, etc. on a table side by side and burn them all at once …
- Who asks calmly ‘Why did you do that?’ and listens earnestly to the answer?
- Who gets upset?
- Who gets really upset?
- Who advocates political sanctions?
- Who advocates violence?
The fact is, many religions will skip 1. and go directly to 2 and 3. Some will go straight to 4. Some will even go straight to 5.
That is objective historical fact, and it has nothing to do with race… one’s religion isn’t one’s race… it’s just one’s religion.
Children aren’t born with religion, they are indoctrinated into it by their parents and community. That alone proves each religion is a purely human construct, a product of culture not of any divine enlightenment. Left to their own devices, they will invent their own myths, superstitions and eventually ‘religion’… but that doesn’t mean it comes from anything other than pure imagination and a need to somehow ‘explain’ the unknown, to put an order to a very un-ordered experience called ‘life’.
All religions, to one extent or another, need to accept that there are people who do not believe, and do not wish to have outside beliefs imposed upon them. If everyone practiced their religion (or lack thereof) purely in the privacy of their own homes, no one would be offended. But so many religions insist on evangelizing their beliefs, through coercion, to other people.
The concept of a memetic virus is a real thing, and religion is one of the best examples of it. Those who choose to innoculate themselves from religion have every right to do so.
Edit: And if one’s religion cannot tolerate someone burning the holy book, then that religion has huge insecurity issues.
End rant. Good night. :p
Religions should be at 3. The people who make it up should be more moderate and laugh it off.
The 36-year-old, who works in adult education, said she felt as if her religion was often cast as the problem, rather than the people behind the burnings.
Shows you how delusional they are. Yes YOUR religion is a problem because it gets massively upset about someone burning paper. Even to the point advocating for violence. Religion is the cancer of modern society.
Burning the Qur’an is a critique of the religion. Not the persons practices it. Religion must be allowed to be criticised.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ fuck religion
you seem to have lost an arm, here Ill give you an extra \
I think any religious group that I have to be worried about being publicly stabbed by when I burn their text is the problem.
The Quran burners are assholes
It’s not illegal to be an asshole
There are plenty of countries in the world where they don’t have freedom of expression and where nobody is allowed to burn qurans. Maybe they should move to such a country if this really upsets them. Let’s see how they like that.
But then they can’t moan and complain about evil liberal people allowing the population to express freedom of speech and all that fancy stuff.
They want to be free and do what they want. But not others. Others should adhere to all their weird rules like not criticizing their backwards world view and religion.
Burning paper is meaningless. Try something more direct, like outlawing
circumcisiongenital mutilation.The problem here isn’t that people get sad when they see a book burning. The problem is that the very same people think it is legitimate to start riots and try to murder others because said feelings where hurt.
When you are on the same side of a strictly moral debate as glourious humanitarian superpowes such as Saudi Arabia and Iran then you really should take a moment to reflect on how you ended up there.
Iran as a reminder have just in the last year publicly executed hundreds of women and non heterosexual people for “indecency”. In most of these other countries that are demanding action against quran burnings it is punishable by death to be gay. We haven’t fought for equal rights in Sweden just to have som religous beardman in Teheran to dictate our social policies.
We haven’t fought for equal rights in Sweden just to have som religous beardman in Teheran to dictate our social policies.
Strawman and bogeyman all in one.
Perhaps stop to think who is making you think these absurd things and why, rather than allow a group of people to continue to be marginalised because of something you’ve literally made up in your own racist mind?They aren’t marginalized. They are just hypocritical crybabies. The book they are defending and religion they are practicing is infringing on equality. Yet they want to ban others from burning some paper.
They don’t deserve any sympathy for such a moronic take.
They always demand others respect them. Yet at the same time they don’t respect others.
You haven’t addressed a single point made. You’re the strawman.
Last thursday (2023-08-07) the swedish government had a press conference with the swedish prime minister and the minister of law. The explicitly mentioned that this whole thing was top organized by foreign influences to cause cahos and to force a change in swedish internal policy. There are no bogeymen here. They are very real and confirmed by swedish official instances.
i want to be a moderate atheist but seeing this shit makes me go hell nah religion has got to be dumber than anything
At some point in the future extreme religious beliefs that go hard against reality and sicence will be seen as a mental illness. Such extreme reactions to someone burning a book clearly show that something is wrong mentally.
I’ve seen this sentiment already from some psychologists. Also that forcing a child into a religion would be considered abuse if it wasn’t connected to religion.
How is anyone harmed by someone else destroying their own property? Just ignore it and the phenomenon will go away. Trying to make it go away by force and control will have the opposite effect. It creates a great weakness that needs to be defended.
I think part of it is that Muslims don’t perceive it as a criticism of the Quran or Islam as a religion, but rather an attack on them as Muslims in society. And that’s probably what Paludan intended. Burning the Quran has taken a new meaning: “Muslims are bad, we don’t want them here”. Of course the interpretation is always in the mind of the person.
I’m against banning. I think it’s a slippery slope and banning the burnings is a poor way to deal with it. For me, as a person who once upon a time used to be a Muslim, the best response to quran burnings is to ignore them and move on with one’s life. It will be challenging for Muslims who perceive it (and rightfully so from their own angle) as an attack against them as a religious and/or ethnic group, especially when performed directly in mosque areas, or during Muslim holidays, a sort of “in your face” gesture.
I hope the Muslim community in Sweden will learn from this experinece. So far, the Easter Riots have not been repeated this year despite many Quran burnings taking place and that is already a good step. Muslim Swedes realize that if a few do harm to the community, it will reflect poorly on them, and that the best way to go is to stay calm and rational, even when your own experinece is so different that you may feel that non-muslim Swedes ‘don’t get it’.
Religious people need to take responsibility for their violence.
They should throw a couple of bibles on top of that fire.
Someone burning the bible doesn’t make the news in Sweden, so you’d never know
