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Sweden: Teacher says violent attacks on free speech ‘can happen here too,’ from ‘Islamists or right-wing extremists’

Oct 23, 2020 4:00 pm By Robert Spencer 24 Comments

When did “right-wing extremists,” who in reality are vanishingly few in number, much smaller than their international media presence, ever assaulted or murdered anyone for exercising the freedom of speech? But it is part of remaining within the bounds of acceptable public discourse today to maintain an equivalence between Islamic jihadis and these “extremists,” however fantastical this equivalence may be.

“Swedish teachers after the act in France: ‘We must be prepared that it may happen here too,'” translated from “Svenska lärare efter dådet i Frankrike: ‘Vi måste vara beredda på att det kan komma att ske även här,'” SVT, October 20, 2020 (thanks to Fjordman):

Following the events in France, Swedish teachers are now emphasizing the importance of freedom of expression in their lessons. At the same time, there is some concern that similar acts may occur here as well.

– It is not a question of, but when, says teacher Olof Linton.

French teacher Samuel Paty was assassinated on Friday after showing a caricature of Muhammad during a lesson on freedom of speech.

The act has been condemned all over the world, and in Sweden the teaching staff mourns their deceased colleague.

– This is terrible in every way. It’s a colleague who had to pay with his life in terrible ways when he did his job. You get dumbfounded, says Olof Linton, high school teacher at Östra Real in Stockholm.

He believes that the act, which he describes as an attack on freedom of expression and democratic society, could have taken place anywhere in Europe. Also in Sweden.

– I unfortunately think that this is something that we must see as an actual risk even in Swedish schools and contexts. Then the attacks can come from Islamist or right-wing extremist quarters. But we must be prepared for that to happen. It is not a question of, but when, he says.

“Can’t bend us”

According to Olof Linton – who now calls for a clear signal from both the government, school and society at large – it is a natural part of teaching to address controversial topics, which may also include offensive material being shown.

– In those cases, I always warn that it can be experienced as very unpleasant. Most teachers are capable of maintaining that dialogue with students. But it is very important as a teacher to keep this in the teaching. We cannot bow to extremist and fundamentalist teachings, he says.

“Important questions”

Charlotta Hemlin, a teacher at Westerlundska gymnasiet in Enköping, also describes a great grief among her colleagues after the act.

– We must continue to discuss freedom of expression. School is a part of society and in society it is becoming increasingly polarized. Then it is even more important that we in the school take the discussion, and then also the difficult discussions, she says.

“Gets upset”

The high school teacher Mattias Axelsson in Gothenburg is also affected by the incident.

– You are appalled. I became both angry and sad at the same time. That a teacher is murdered because of his professional practice is so terrible that it is difficult to imagine, he says.

He believes that pressure over teaching materials, as far as is known, is still relatively uncommon in Sweden.

– As a teacher, I have to choose which material I use. Then there is no end in itself to provoke and offend. It can be if I feel that I reach a higher purpose with increased learning or understanding, then I should definitely be able to show a Muhammad caricature or someone who burns a Swedish flag.

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Filed Under: blasphemy, Featured, free speech, moral equivalence, Muhammad cartoons, Sweden Tagged With: Stockholm


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Comments

  1. Kepha says

    Oct 23, 2020 at 7:44 pm

    Never trust the Left when it says it’s for free speech. Frankly, the speech reported from Sweden strikes me as both tinny and canned. Here in the States, we’ve seen the Democrats seeking to criminalize any criticism of one of their client groups as “hate speech” no matter how responsible, factual, or non-violent it may be. They further demand not merely the tolerance, but also the celebration of disgusting perversions. They are lions in their criticisms of Christianity, but crippled mice in their criticisms of Islam. There is nothing more than someone who disparages the Christian God as a “flying spaghetti monster” being as deferential as the day is long to Islamic sensibilities. This alone has convinced me that the secular Left is a frail reed on which to lean in any “coalition” against Islamofascism.

    The invocation of “right-wing extremists” is ritualistic. It is like the recitation of the Apostles’ Creed by an unbelieving cleric who serves only because his country still has enough of an establishment to guarantee him (or, increasingly a her or an it) a comfortable living. Every sane (note: not the same as moral or decent) resident of the Western world can see clearly that it is the Left and its Muslim allies who are burning out cities and feel empowered to assault or even kill critics. The conservative sane recognize this as a threat to civilized life and liberty; the radical and liberal sane either welcome it or think it can be coopted. Because of this, the Left now justifies arson and looting (it’s been broadcast on Public Television).

    We all recall the O saying that “the future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam”. Said to a Muslim audience, the slanderers include everyone who denies that Muhammad ibn Abdallah was a prophet; and hence it is an open-ended invitation of jihad against the overwhelming majority of Obama’s own countrymen.

    Reply
    • maria says

      Oct 24, 2020 at 4:21 am

      Sweden is in the hands of muslims, far left and nazis And there is only one party which is a real freedom party Sweden democrats.
      Sweden is lost and it should be a warning example for all countries how a wonderful free country was destroyed.

      Reply
    • Michael Copeland says

      Oct 24, 2020 at 8:18 am

      Islam’s Violent Assault on Democracy
      “Violence is the heart of Islam” – Ayatollah Yazdi
      https://gatesofvienna.net/2020/10/islams-violent-assault-on-democracy/#more-51049

      Reply
  2. Fred van de Bunt says

    Oct 23, 2020 at 8:42 pm

    About Right wing extremism?

    I am just looking into the Dutch context, which probably runs largely parallel with the Swedish context.
    https://www.aivd.nl/onderwerpen/extremisme/rechts-extremisme
    The AIVD, the general intelligence and security service, sort of equivalent with the CIA or MI5, informs what right wing extremism means (I summarize):

    Right wing extremism is directed against the State, because of the antidemocratic means being used. Right wing extremism contains foreigners hate, hate against foreign cultural elements, and ultranationalism.
    The AIVD specifies 2 main groups: 1) Anti-Islam extremists and 2) race theory extremists.
    The way the mainly not organist extremists work of is for instance spreading hatred through many social media types, and these extremists have international contacts. They extremists do talk also about weapons, and it might happen, that something violent gets organized.

    My comment:
    The race-theory adherents vanished mostly when the colonies vanished. Government officials working in an overseas colony as an administrator, reporting back to the government about the particulars of all the races in a colony, that type of thinking vanished.
    Foreigners hate, and foreign culture hate disappeared too, with the foreign holidays. The nice times spent, made people love the foreign food and the nice foreign people they met on their holidays.

    So this leaves the main right wing extremist threat, the anti-Islam extremists, the Islamophobes.
    This implies that Islam is no threat of course, because all religious are intrinsically good.

    Reply
  3. Keith O says

    Oct 23, 2020 at 9:30 pm

    These comments by the “teachers” are an example of how a higher education does not automatically translate into higher intelligence.
    They may be allow to pass on knowledge to students, but that does not make them smart. Which is why we have so many problems in the western world.

    Reply
    • James Lincoln says

      Oct 24, 2020 at 8:12 am

      Keith,

      I quote the very astute Wellington from Jun 8, 2020 at 6:44 pm:

      “Education alone without common sense, accurate knowledge and moral intelligence can have all kinds of unwelcome results.”

      Reply
      • Keith O says

        Oct 24, 2020 at 7:45 pm

        So so true James, on both counts.

        Reply
  4. Adam says

    Oct 23, 2020 at 9:55 pm

    The worst thing you can do to us “right-wingers” is leave us alone. We hate that the most, never to be pestered by some whinny “left-winger” again drives us nuts.
    How pray tell, do we spot these demons in guise, “right-wingers”? And if you are one, how do you know it? Maybe I’m a “left-winger”. How come no “up” or “down-winger”? Are we trying to exclude some people?
    Can’t I be something besides a “winger”? Could be a leg or breast guy, just saying.

    Reply
    • Jayell says

      Oct 24, 2020 at 2:00 am

      ‘Can’t I be something besides a “winger”?,,,,,

      Why do you have to be ANYTHING at all? All these labels are doled out by people who want to identify ‘friends’ and ‘enemies’, like in the military or with soccer players wearing their team shirts, to indicate who is supposed to be attacked or not in some quest for power. People with this sort of ‘political’ turn of mind aren’t interested in seeing or speaking the truth – they just want to throw their weight around and run the show and they’re not bothered what sort of mud they throw around in the process.

      Reply
  5. gravenimage says

    Oct 23, 2020 at 11:20 pm

    Sweden: Teacher says violent attacks on free speech ‘can happen here too,’ from ‘Islamists or right-wing extremists’
    …………………..

    Well, he’s half right. Where have “right-wing extremists” murdered those standing up for freedom of speech?

    Reply
    • peter says

      Oct 25, 2020 at 6:04 pm

      Exactly

      Reply
  6. tgusa says

    Oct 24, 2020 at 1:04 am

    “I should definitely be able to show a Muhammad caricature or someone who burns a Swedish flag.”
    Sweden protects free speech in its Constitution but insults are criminalized. Freedom of expression may be limited by law. He needs to re-read law of the country he teaches in.

    Right wing and islamists lumped in to the same category is only possible in the left wing (non) thought process. I have never heard of a violent attack on free speech by the right wing. I do know that since the 70s in the USA, TV and most all entertainment media have labeled the nazis as right wing. But nazi like censorship from way back then to now has always resembled the left wing far more than the right. Commies, just as much as nazis always have to invoke censorship, using violence to put an end to it. Just as we see in parts of the USA and other places today. Are modern commie nations, the leaders of the world in crushing free speech, right wing? No.

    He finds himself in the middle of a Swedish sandwich. The slice of bread on one side are the islamists while the other slice are the anti-islamists. He is the slice of cheese in the middle. He can continue focusing onthe right wing, that is his individual right, right up until the islamists come to cut off his head.

    Reply
    • gravenimage says

      Oct 24, 2020 at 1:23 am

      And when has anyone *ever* been murdered for burning a Swedish flag? Not that I can find.

      A bit off topic, but I have to admit I found this darkly humorous:

      “Pakistani man dies after inhaling fumes from burning American flags at anti-Islam film rally”

      https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2204904/Pakistani-man-dies-inhaling-fumes-burning-American-flag-anti-Islam-film-rally.html

      This was Muslims burning US flags to protest the “Innocence of Muslims” movie trailer for daring to expose the fact that Muslims are violent. In other words, this was a protest against allowing freedom of speech.

      Reply
      • tgusa says

        Oct 24, 2020 at 1:45 am

        On the burning of American flags Swedish flags no, no flag burner has as of yet been killed nor even threatened.

        On the pakinut inhaling fumes thing,
        roflmao.. I don’t feel sorry for him.

        Reply
        • gravenimage says

          Oct 24, 2020 at 1:54 am

          Agreed, tgusa.

      • James Lincoln says

        Oct 24, 2020 at 1:41 pm

        gravenimage,

        I can see it now – albuterol inhalers (bronchodilators) will be handed out before the next US Flag burning in Pakistan.

        If they are really stupid, they’ll have oxygen tanks close by…

        Reply
    • tgusa says

      Oct 24, 2020 at 10:54 pm

      Good informative article at the American Thinker.

      “With All the Nazi Talk in This Election, Who Were the Nazis?”

      https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2020/10/with_all_the_nazi_talk_in_this_election_who_were_the_nazis.html

      Spoiler; The nazis were not right wingers.

      Reply
  7. Jesper Kraul Jensen says

    Oct 24, 2020 at 2:02 am

    “from ‘Islamists or right-wing extremists”

    you may consider, that if he had only said “islamists” he would be branded an islamofobe. By also mentioning “right-wing extremists” he still has a job…

    Reply
    • Fred van de Bunt says

      Oct 24, 2020 at 3:20 am

      That is the answer. In the Netherlands you have Geert Wilders, and his Islam critical party. Geert Wilders himself gets police protection for 18 years now. And saying openly that you are an adherent to his party, might have great consequences for your career in government, but also in semi-government institutions and branches were central government has influence, and the safety of yourself, living in many areas in the Netherlands.

      In France they have a 115 year old law that secures the safety for adherent to religions against persecution.
      But what if adherents of religions start to persecute? An impossible idea, because all religions are instrinsically good….

      Reply
  8. Stephen says

    Oct 24, 2020 at 7:45 am

    Hmmm… interesting…. I don’t see any single attack on free speech from “right wing extremist” but I still see often are from the islamists and leftists (incl. antifa, The greens, communists, radical socialists)

    Reply
  9. john smith says

    Oct 24, 2020 at 10:11 am

    Excellent Michael, keep up the good work that you are doing.

    Reply
  10. OLD GUY says

    Oct 24, 2020 at 12:55 pm

    Sweden is falling to the muslim/islamic invasion and take over of their society from within. The islamic leadership uses the claims of religious persecution as a tool to change laws and social views along with intimidation, violence and murder to disrupt the host countries society. The leadership of Islam is all about POWER and CONTROL.

    Reply
  11. Art says

    Oct 24, 2020 at 4:44 pm

    Item ONE: The “Right Wing” has never had any extremists nor do they attack people. They don’t go there.
    Throughout history the Progressive Liberals have led their revolts making this same claim. Yet, with few examples (America, Israel) do we see the “Left” not using terrorism, both before and after any change in power, along with brutality. Then, if they lose, like our CSA did in 1865, they fund and fuel terrorist organizations, first the KKK, more recently ANTIFA and BLM.
    Even groups like the one that was going to kidnap and kill Wisconsin’s Governor are based in the Progressive Liberal Party, along with Hamas-supporting CAIR and other terror groups mentioned before.

    Reply
  12. K. says

    Oct 25, 2020 at 2:33 am

    In Scandinavia, the Breivik trauma is very much alive. They will respond with that if you say right-wing extremists don’t kill people, no matter how disagreeable their views. This makes them even more blind to the fact that deadly violence from Muslims is anything but a rare and isolated crime.

    Reply

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