Sunday, October 25, 2009

Swedish Blood Libel Paper Publishes Anti-Muslim Screed

Report here. While it is "nice" to see that the paper is an equal opportunity purveyor of ethnic hatred, the same can't be said about the Swedish government*: Whereas aggrieved Jews got a sober lecture on the freedom of the press in response to calls for official governmental denouncement, "The opinion piece by Jimmie Akesson, the leader of Swedish nationalist political party, the Sweden Democrats (Sverigedemokraterna), has prompted harsh condemnations and accusations of racism from all political party leaders, including Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt."

To clarify: I have no problem with the government's condemnation of Mr. Akesson's racist article -- it appears to be quite appropriate. I simply note the incongruity faced when the government, which barely a month ago was faced with a clear case of published anti-Semitism and decided public comment would be an inappropriate impingement on free speech, has so blatantly reversed itself in an essentially identical case (that didn't involve Jews).

* Equal treatment, not purveyance of ethnic hatred, needless to say.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Islam is not a race...therefore this is not racism and never can be...

PG said...

A bit OT, but I wondered if someone might explain exactly what Christopher Hitchens means by this shambling beast of a run-on sentence:

'Thanks to the foolishness of the "intelligent design" faction, which has tried with ignominious un-success to smuggle the teaching of creationism into our schools under a name that is plainly stupid rather than intelligent, and thanks to the ceaseless preaching of hatred and violence against our society by the fanatics of another faith, as well as other related behavior, such as the mad attempt by messianic Jews to steal the land of other people, the secular movement in the United States is acquiring a confidence that it has not known in years, while many of those who put their faith in revelation and prophecy and prayer are feeling the need to give an account of themselves.'

Is he referring to the founding of Israel in 1948? the attempts to expand a Greater Israel through settelements? or about something else altogether?

Anonymous said...

oh man. and i thought their anti-judaism was just a sign of their pro-islam views. what a fool i am.

chingona said...

PG,

Though I'd never claim to know the inner workings of CH's mind, I'd guess he's referring to the religious Zionist settlers who see reclaiming all of Biblical Judea and Samaria as something they need to do to bring about the arrival of the Messiah. That's the reading that seems to make the most sense.

I'm not really versed in the Jewish version of what, exactly, would need to happen to bring Moshiach - in fact, I'm so much more familiar with the Christian version of things that I actually wrote "return of the Messiah" before I caught myself and rephrased it - and I'm also pretty sure that not all religious Zionists are actually trying to bring the Messiah and that the theology of those who are is suspect.

But that's still my best guess as to the meaning.