Om Vilks och SD på fyra kontinenter

David Cameron, Nicolas Sarkozy och Angela Merkel har rätt i att multikulturalism är en dålig grund att bygga pluralistiska samhällen på. Det liberala Sverige, där extremismen växer sig allt starkare, är ett belysande exempel. Det var budskapet i denna text om Lars Vilks, Sverigedemokraterna och islamism som jag skrev för amerikanska Project Syndicate i februari. Jag är rätt överväldigad över den respons jag fått och det intresse som verkar finnas för Sverige och svensk integrationsdebatt. Hittills har artikeln publicerats i bland annat tyska die Welt, Mirador Nacional (Argentina och Uruguay), The Japan Times och The New Dawn (Liberia). It is not just official multiculturalism that has failed in Europe, however; so has the multiculturalism endorsed by large parts of European civil society. Sweden, one of the most liberal countries in the world, but also one that has recently seen a surge in extremism, is a case in point. Sweden has long been known for its lifestyle liberalism. Swedes are overwhelmingly secular and indifferent toward the Swedish church. Homosexuals have been able to register civil partnerships since 1995 and marry since 2009, and the country is one of the most radical in its understanding of women’s rights – as WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange can attest. Moreover, Sweden’s far-reaching freedom of expression is one reason why Assange located WikiLeaks’ servers in the country. But Sweden’s freedom of expression was also one of the motives behind a grisly suicide attack in Stockholm in December of last year. According to a last testament left behind by the attacker, a Swedish citizen named Taimour Abdulwahab, Christmas shoppers in downtown Stockholm had to die in retaliation for “the Swedes’ support” for Lars Vilks, an artist who stirred outrage in the country with drawings of the Prophet Muhammad as a dog. Vilks argued that his work was a provocation aimed at revealing the selective liberalism within the Swedish intellectual establishment – its multiculturalism, one could say. Läs hela!