Sam Harris once posed the question: If Islam really is a “religion of peace”, then shouldn’t its extremists be extremely peaceful? Instead, “Islamic extremism” is a byword for often appalling violence.
Certainly, some Islamic theologians such as Australia’s Imam Tawhidi make a compelling case that, over the centuries, Islamic teaching has been deliberately distorted, producing the violently intolerant faith that we mostly see today. Unfortunately, it’s also the case that Tawhidi is very much a lone voice, and that, whatever the “true” Islam is, Islam, as it’s practised, is mostly very far from peaceful.
In fact, it’s entirely telling that even those non-Muslim Westerners who fetishise Islam openly argue that we mustn’t offend Muslims, because they’ll turn violent. Australian cartoonist Andrew Marlton attacked fellow cartoonists who mocked Islam, before confessing that he was simply afraid to “put my family and my coworkers at risk of being firebombed”.
Quite obviously, Marlton does not live in Sweden, quite possibly for the same reason.
Last Friday there were riots in the city of Orebro. The violence spread to the city of Norrkoping, which is about 160km southwest of Stockholm, and to Linkoping. Then there was street violence in a Stockholm suburb, Rinkeby. On Saturday violence rocked the southern city of Malmo. In some cities the violence continued on Sunday and Monday. Scores of police officers have been injured and dozens of rioters arrested.
According to the BBC, Sweden’s national police chief, Anders Thornberg, says he has “never seen such violent riots”. He says the rioters “tried to kill police officers”.
In case you hadn’t guessed, the rioters are Muslims. The cause? A rabble-rousing Swedish politician with a penchant for burning copies of the Koran.
For example, Rasmus Paludan burnt a Koran in Malmo on Saturday and violence erupted soon after. There was vast destruction, including the burning of a school. You burn our holy book, we burn your schools – is that it?
Don’t expect any honest or informative reporting from the same legacy media who described months of violent race riots as “mostly peaceful protests”.
Even where there has been mainstream media coverage of the riots – apparently some of the worst riots Sweden has witnessed, remember – it has tended to obscure rather than enlighten. Euphemism abounds. The BBC refers to it as “unrest”. It labels the rioters as “counter-demonstrators”, imbuing them, whether intentionally or not, with a political legitimacy they surely do not deserve. Much of the coverage gives the impression that the true cause of the violence is Paludan, which is incredibly infantilising of the rioters. Paludan may well hold repugnant beliefs, but he has not thrown missiles at the police or set fire to cars or smashed shop and school windows. That has been done by the people who take umbrage at his speech, who feel alarmed by his blather.
These people – mostly Muslims – are not children, however much the paternalism and pity that motor identity politics might try to convince us otherwise. No, they made a decision to use physical force in response to speech. They are not “counter-demonstrators”; they’re rioters, and they are using fire and fury to try to force out of the public sphere speech they find offensive.
Sure, Paludan’s Koran-burning is infantile and provocative — but, so what? How much provocative infantilism have Christians endured over recent decades, without running amok with missiles and fire bombs? When South Park producers Matt Stone and Trey Parker staged their satirical, obscenity-laden Book of Mormon musical in Salt Lake City, no one even picketed the theatre. In fact, many Mormons said how much they enjoyed the show and viewed it as a positive for their faith.
When South Park depicted the Islamic Prophet inside a teddy bear costume, they faced bomb and death threats, and the Comedy Central channel took it upon themselves to heavily censor the episode.
Yet there is a point of principle that soars above all of this […] And that is freedom of speech. The right of every individual to say what they believe to be true, even if it upsets, outrages, disturbs. Let’s lay it on the line: Paludan’s right to desecrate the Koran must take precedence, legally and morally, over a Swedish Muslim’s right never to feel offended. This is the enlightened way. This is the path of liberty.
The Australian
Unfortunately, a great many of the Western elite don’t care much for liberty, these days.
