The toxic mélange of far-right über-nationalists and PKK terrorist sympathizers plant the seeds of racist religious hatred in Europe against Muslims and Türkiye. Especially, Sweden is currently experiencing a volatile situation of prejudice, reminiscent of the historical Crusades, a volatile tinderbox of bigotry.

Rasmus Paludan, an extremist of the far-right Danish Hard Line party, carried out the unholy desecration of a copy of the Holy Quran outside the Turkish Embassy in Stockholm on Jan. 21, amid Swedish security forces’ inertia.

The world’s 1.8 billion Muslims, who comprise 24% of the world’s population, take the Quran as a book and divine revelation, a guide for life. Therefore, willfully provoking and stoking the sentiments of 1.8 billion humans is not just callous disrespect but deleterious politicking.

The hate-induced desecration has drawn condemnation from Muslims globally and several non-Muslim leaders who also expressed a chorus of condemnation. The United Nations Alliance of Civilizations denounced the stunt as a "vile act." However, the devil is in the details: some, especially vocal right-wingers inside Sweden and across Europe, defended this indefensible act under the "façade" of freedom of speech and expression. This point is repeated: Freedom of speech is not equal to freedom of spreading hatred against minorities. Divisive, incendiary acts of provocation are the last thing our divided world needs.

Swedish law enforcement became apathetic bystanders, empowering Paludan and his rag-tag coalition of racists to burn the sacred Quran outside the Turkish Embassy. The so-called Swedish Democrats Sverigedemokraterna, a nationalist right-wing party, grips Sweden. Most of Europe is in the throes of neo-Nazi, right-wing, anti-Muslim hysteria as a vote-winning calculus, from Italian Premier Giorgia Meloni’s Brothers of Italy (Fratelli d’Italia) with far-right fascist roots to the late dictator Benito Mussolini to the rising tide of the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) in Germany, to Hungary’s (Christians only) Viktor Orban’s Fidesz, to Poland where since 2005 right-wing parties have dominated the political scene to the United Kingdom’s far-right "Brexiteers" and the obnoxious Tories planning to ship "migrants off to Rwanda," Europe is convulsing by hatred for "the other" and is deeply divided and polarized. The situation will get worse before it gets any better, if at all.

Although the Swedish government conjured up some last-minute face-saving media release, disapproving the heresy of Islam’s holiest book and labeling it "an attempt to sabotage the country’s NATO bid," its verdict to green-light the event could be perceived as a message to Muslims globally that the Nordic state has no respect for the adherents of Islam.

Such unpleasant realities, far from being "isolated," are merely the tip of the iceberg in Sweden’s long list of troubling themes over the past decades. Sweden is now also a safe sanctuary for the PKK, categorized by the Council of Europe, the U.S. State Department and Türkiye as "a terrorist organization." The International Crisis Group reports that thousands of innocent civilians have been killed by the PKK terrorist organization. Yet, the Swedish government deliberately turns a blind eye to the dehumanization deployed by the PKK’s backers on the streets of Stockholm to discredit the victims and citizens of Türkiye and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

Fanning the flames

Any country that shuns a rules-based global order and short-circuits the national security of another state is destined to be struck by a calamity of its own doing. Unfortunately, Sweden is slowly but surely heading in that direction. By allowing itself to become a mouthpiece, apologist and PKK platform, it has hung itself under a Damoclean sword – expect other radicals to exploit the nation’s unmonitored social vacuum, as the Swedish Democrats Sverigedemokraterna has already fanned the flames, pouring petrol on depraved incendiary acts under the mask of free speech. Weaving together Sweden’s far-right with a lethally flat support base of the PKK and its Syrian presence, the YPG, will multiply many "Hydra-headed monsters."

A protracted Russia-Ukraine war compelled Stockholm to accept decades of ill-advised policies that encouraged the presence of the PKK and the far right on Swedish soil. Stockholm had pledged to take action to address Türkiye’s security concerns and gain its support for a NATO bid.

At the NATO summit in Madrid in 2022, a trilateral memorandum was signed between Türkiye, Sweden and Finland, which unsettled the PKK. However, since then, Sweden has been grappling with uncontrolled militant extremism, which has emboldened PKK supporters and far-right extremists, enabling them to spread their deadly agendas. As a result, Türkiye has decided to initiate the process of ratifying Finland’s NATO membership, but Sweden’s bid remains in limbo.

Despite the PKK and Sweden’s far-right having grown in size, scope and reach, Stockholm persists with a policy that leads to its self-sabotage, opening the nation to even grander challenges born from emergent geopolitical realities. Russia’s incursion into Ukraine has shaken Sweden out of years of lethargy, exposing its defense and military susceptibilities and nudging it to pursue NATO’s protection at any cost. In lieu of Türkiye’s significant strategic assistance to the North Atlantic military alliance, Sweden had no choice but to bridge the divide with Türkiye. So in autumn 2022, when Sweden promised to control and monitor PKK supporters, it (deceptively) appeared that the terrain for terrorism would be limited in the Nordic nation.

Sweden’s credibility in Muslim-majority countries

However, extensive anti-Türkiye demonstrations characterized by pejorative sloganeering followed by Quran-burning weakened Sweden’s NATO swagger. As a result, Sweden swiftly loses credibility and respect in Muslim-majority countries, so its pledge to Türkiye has fallen apart.

There was a pre-calculated burning of Islam’s holy book in front of Türkiye’s Embassy: timing is everything – executed by Paludan, a fervent Muslim hater, at the exact time when Türkiye required Sweden to take bold and necessary action against the PKK and its terror outgrowths in exchange for Türkiye’s approval of Sweden’s NATO bid.

It is naive to label Paludan’s acts and anti-Türkiye protests bolstered by PKK supporters a "coincidence." On the contrary, closer analysis reveals that Paludan and the PKK are dancing to the tune of Sweden’s hostility vis-à-vis Muslims and Türkiye, which imperils its inroads into NATO.

Sweden must be careful and mitigate the mounting extremism in the country. Here Sweden’s Security Service (Sakerhetspolisen) can, level-headedly, curb the perilous militancy of both right-wingers in Sverigedemokraterna and the PKK antics.

All fair-minded, right-thinking Europeans must acknowledge, not just in letter but in spirit, the perils of normalizing acts of hatred under the deceptive banner of safeguarding free speech and seeking genuine accountability from their governments. Or else, European governments will increasingly jeopardize pluralism, diversity and multiethnic communities but also lose well-intentioned allies.