Sweden's Prime Minister Condemns Racist Article

An opinion piece published in Sweden's Aftonbladet newspaper "has prompted harsh condemnations and accusations of racism from all political leaders, including Swedish Prime Minister Frederik Reinfeldt".

No, this story is not in reference to the Aftonbladet opinion piece accusing Israeli soldiers of murdering innocent Palestinian civilians in order to harvest their organs. You might recall that story, which I blogged about in an earlier post. On that occasion Sweden's Prime Minister refused to condemn that racist article since "it was not the government's place to comment on newspaper content". This would be contrary to "free press" in Sweden's democracy. The Swedish ambassador herself was even condemned for offering her criticism of the article's contents.

This current opinion piece is an attack on the influence of European Muslims, which the author of the opinion piece, Jimmy Akesson, the leader of the Sweden Democrats party, terms Sweden's "greatest foreign threat since World War II".

As I argued before, and reaffirm now, the Swedish government has every right, and perhaps even an obligation, to express its condemnation and contempt for racist opinions which make their way into Swedish public discourse. In the case of the anti-Muslim piece, this is especially so since the author of the offensive opinion is a Swedish politician and leader of a political party. His views are obviously important when the Swedes decide on their elected representatives. The fact, however, that the hostile anti-Israeli story was written by a private person and not a politician does not diminish the importance of the government making it clear that it strongly condemned such inflammatory allegations against the Israeli defence forces. So I say bravo to the Swedish Prime Minister for making it clear where he stands, even if it meant he had to comment on newspaper comment. Too bad he didn't take that same approach with regard to the earlier piece.

And another point. For those of you who might think that my opinion on this topic is inconsistent with my take on the White House's war against FOX news, think again. No-where in my postings about the Sweden's government non-reaction to the organ harvesting story, did I suggest that the government should have attempted to delegitimize, ostracize, marginalize, or organize a media boycott of the Aftonbladet newspaper. I only asked that it provide its comment on an important geopolitical story published in that newspaper. Certainly the White House has every right to criticize and comment on stories carried by FOX news. But the war it has been waging, which at this point seems to have badly backfired, is another matter.