Sweden and the consequences of 200 years of peace

(To Gino Lanzara)
18/03/21

The faculty of conceptualization is the quid which should allow abstraction abilities typical of every biped on average thinking: the conditional is a must, given the ease to which it is subjected to any interference capable of diverting logical flows. Reason often loves to be drugged: it is at that moment that the monsters of its sleep take shape again: instability, economic crisis, terrorism, are cyclical expressions of forgotten moments of fault. At the end try to abstract and relate what we will say with the current picture; remember, the more the daily routine appears abulically sleepy, the more the reality has a devastating impact. From this angle, the icy Arctic countries represented a happy island, made up - then - of an efficient welfare state, - now - of a liberalized market that exacerbates inequalities1, Eden apparently devoid of the snake of terrorism, be it nationalist, political, imported from abroad2; the north has been a paradigm whose anomalies have been ignored, represented by the murder of the Swedish Prime Minister Palme, an unsolved case since 1986 which saw the involvement of the South African secret services.

Scandinavia, and in particular Sweden, has embodied the appearance of a political-social laboratory that many have looked to despite the perplexities regarding asylum and refugees, which have transformed Stockholm into a base for various terrorist groups3, including radicals composed of immigrants linked to the Somali jihadist movement of al Shabaab supported by Iran, which in Somalia is allowed both to acquire uranium and to threaten the Bab el-Mandeb - Red Sea route, and that led Sweden to 2nd place in the ranking of foreign fighters after Belgium.

Color note: In February, Ethiopia, in arresting 15 people for terrorist activities against the UAE, reported that the group, linked to Tehran, was led by Ahmed Ismail, a jihadist residing in Sweden.

Transalpine politics indicates that the issue is complex, where Macron intended to divide Muslims between good e bad, thus intending to control the former, repressing the latter; after all, given the number of victims of Islamist attacks in recent years, it is legitimate to try to identify an Islam illuminated; the problem remains that of the points of view, the Parisian and that of hoping, not coinciding in the acceptance of the concept of Islamic separatism, given the secular French secularism that never intended to handle the explosive political-religious mixture, already in itself now so unstable due to the friction with Turkey and the leadership in the campaigns in Central Africa.

But if for the French grandeur, a victim of its own politics of the sanctuary4 and home of the banlieu, incubators of radicalization, it is so difficult to separate the Islam of faith from political Islamism, what chances can theecumenical Kingdom of Sweden, which has granted a wide proscenium precisely to terrorism, whose evolution in socio-political terms has seen the endogenous competition of the right and left currents before5, and the exogenous and no less bloody one from Islam then? How to hit the suspects without fear of violent retaliation crystallized by the images of the Beslan School? It is also true that "...pthe more modern and advanced the societies are, the more democratic they are, and the less ... willing to respond to attacks of this type ... because they suffer from a fragility that derives precisely from democratic rules "6.

The diaspora of fighters following the territorial dissolution of ISIS, together with the wide circulation guaranteed by Schengen, has created many problems, especially if we consider the fact that the Jihad moves a war without borders to Jews e crusaders not only for religious but also social and political reasons7, and which is led to localize itself in the West with a violence destined to influence and destroy.

There is therefore no loci safe and, in considering the demographic aspect, explosive in the Islamic communities, bloodless in the Western ones, alongside the controversy that sees the opposite assimilation conjectured by Giovanni Sartori, politically indigestible, and the contextual increase of radicalization with the increase of a militancy herald of internal fractures within the Islamic communities themselves.

La happy Swedish community has been sidetracked in considering the terrorist attacks of the last decades not so direct against national objectives, how much they lead to objectives in Sweden; since 2017, with strikes mainly conducted by Uzbeks and Kyrgyzs in Turkey, Russia and Sweden and with the presence of Uighurs from Chinese Xinjiang, the greatest risk involved solitary wolves radicalized, inspired by violent events and aggregate levels, out of control cells operating in contrast with the martial organization of the Bataclan commando, crazy fueled by a blend of religion and social claims it leads to mass shooters Americans from Nashville8, the Chechen murderer of Professor Paty, the explosive suicide and the other bomber who operated in Stockholm in 2010 and 20179, to the XNUMX-year-old Afghan convicted stabber from Vetlanda in Sweden, with an attention not only to foreign fighters, but above all ai returnees, strengthened by the war experience gained, and able to benefit from pre-existing coverage networks; a context that enhances i recruiters who have abandoned the operational path of jihad to operate within the communities.

Terrorism has become asymmetrical war thanks to an integralist and messianic version of religion, to the clash of civilizations, predicted by Huntington but politically incorrect, without the possibility of reaching duel and battlefield at Clausewitz. In fact, it cannot be established who to fight among all these elusive entities connected with a globalization that has transformed Islamic terrorism into a network of local organizations extended from the Horn of Africa to Stockholm, with economic damage caused by a virtual risk that cannot be quantified. , and marked by the media activism of ISIS and Al Qaeda. In this regard, while the West has focused on the Sunni threat, former Shia fighters in Syria and Iraq could spread to be used by Iran, which established the Shiite Liberation Army (SLA) in 2016 thanks to the Pasdaran. , then commanded by General Qassem Soleimani, commander of the Quds Force.

The capital error is political: rejecting the Huntington clash, but expecting to export democracy, especially if we consider the contexts in which Hezbollah, the Iranian proxy and among the most skilled light infantry on the planet, and Hamas, easily cross the very narrow border that separates guerrilla, insurrection, terrorism, low intensity conflicts, meanings united by the aspiration to possession of the territory and the choice of objectives; in this respect jihadist activity should not be seen as a phenomenon in its own right, but as a flexible, simple and economic tactic aimed at strategic insurrectional purposes, where the presence of foreign fighters derives from the ease of receiving refugee status, and the difficulty of monitoring too many masses.

That Sweden, committed to keeping with Finland, Denmark and Norway, a delicate one Nordic balance constitutes a pole of interest is evident, as it is evident that it has worked to establish its own sphere of influence by focusing on energy, finance, and fear of the Russian revanche.

Sweden, which does not participate in the polar BRI, is relevant from the fact that it has managed to put the soft power del Dragone, also called into question by the consequences of Covid for which Stockholm, caught unprepared by the waves of infections while trying to protect the economy from an impact destined to affect GDP for a long time, has expressed its intention to ask for the start of a investigation, intent not softened by the possible supplies of medical supplies, and despite an incipient internal political crisis. The Swedish position must be considered both in light of the rejection of Huawei's requests for participation in the tender for the assignment of 5G frequencies, and from the perspective of a debated approach to NATO to which Stockholm is already linked by a PfP.10 since 1994 and a cooperation reserved even more dated, accompanied by an increase in the military budget, and fueled by the will of Moscow which led the Swedes to militarize the island of Gotland, fundamental in the Baltic aeronaval chessboard.

Russia, starting from its heartland and passing through the Baltic fault, has moved the iron curtain on the line connecting Finland, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, and has continued to send its boats between the Swedish archipelago and the coasts. Finnish, despite the sustained commitment to Mediterranean and Middle Eastern theaters. It is indicative that, for this new strategy, Defense Minister Peter Hultqvist, a Social Democrat who does not seem to have doubts about Russian aggression, has assumed responsibility, also considering the events of Crimea and Donbas, which faced the activities of intelligence Muscovite on Scandinavian soil, and which seems to have taken advantage of the little veiled threats of Minister Lavrov in the event of joining the Atlantic Alliance11; it should be noted that the Hultqvist doctrine, which questions Swedish neutrality, and considers the negative Turkish political evolution, tends to favor bilateral relations with the American hegemon, the cornerstone of the alliance. But it is in its own backyard that Sweden has shown its own suffering, where the reception party he had to take note of the difficulties that arose in the management of migrants12, superior to aspiring workers, with the government grappling with the Salafist ideology13 which catalyzes alienation, crime also in an anti-Semitic key, social polarization, with flashes of cognitive war in the background thanks to artfully distorted and then disseminated information14. They are created no go zones, we rely on Sharia, we oust a state that does not have a clear anti-terrorist policy as a result of its own structure, based on relatively small ministries and relatively large independent agencies, unable to deal with systemic crises and in coordination difficulties; a system that payment 200 years of peace when dealing with countries that come from more troubled realities, where the counter-insurgency is based on techniques borrowed from military paradigms and where, to fight a network, another more organized network is needed.

For Sweden, in summary, the ad hoc truce stigmatized in 2004 by Bin Laden has long since ended15, and the existence of an extremist network with global interconnections that innervate a new social networks which starts from top to bottom and is also based in Sweden, a country that does not check the records of asylum seekers, and which is extremely vulnerable to the covert action of the Pasdaran and Shiite militias, who refer to the Imam mosque Ali, supported by Iran in Järfälla.

The espionage actions carried out against Iranian opponents in exile, which led to the condemnation of the diplomat Assadolah Assadi, and to the discovery, in Sweden in 2019, of money laundering activities aimed at supporting Hezbollah are certainly not new. Tehran did not stand by and in compensation it imprisoned and sentenced to death, on charges of spying for Israel, Ahmadreza Djalali, an Iranian-Swedish scientist, arrested after being invited by the University of Tehran and Shiraz; his case follows that of Kylie Moore-Gilbert, a British-Australian researcher detained in Iran since 2019, on suspicion of spying on behalf of Israel, and released in exchange for the release of three Iranian prisoners.

While Giulio Terzi asks to adopt a conduct aimed at not flattering the Iranian state, we propose a more flexible and extensive reading of Stein Rokkan's Scandinavian theory of cleavages, the historical fractures useful to explain, among others, the geopolitical and economic changes, the divisions characterizing the center from the periphery; a theory that currently seems to fit for dynamism and despite its origin, more to Iran and al Qaeda, capable of ignoring ideological and religious differences, to devote themselves to the fight against common enemies.

1 Sweden has not tested a property-based tax system, where the wealthy enjoy incentives related to corporate tax rates among the lowest in the EU

2 1971 murder of the Yugoslav ambassador to Sweden by Croatian activists; 1975 Baader-Meinhof Group terrorists occupy the West German embassy in Stockholm; 1977 RAF members hijack domestic Swedish flight.

3 Indonesia has criticized Sweden for the protection granted to the GAM - Movement for Free Aceh - seen as a terrorist organization. In the 90s, Al-Ansar, the GIA bulletin, was published in Stockholm during the Algerian civil war.

4 Policy that protected suspects for terrorism

5 1993 attack on the Trollhättan mosque

6 Eli Karmon, senior analyst at International Institute Policy for Counter-Terrorism

7 John Savino senior lecturer of Contemporary History at Ranepa (Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Service)

8 Christmas attack 2020

9 The investigations found that Akilov, a construction worker, father of four, and ISIS sympathizer, had had his asylum request made in 2016 rejected in 2014, and an order to expel him from the country followed.

10 Partnership for Peace

11 In 2018, the Swedish government published a 20-page booklet, If Crisis or War Comes, providing guidance on civil protection

12 Statements by the Swedish Prime Minister: from "My Europe does not build walls", to "Sweden is no longer able to accept the high number of asylum seekers we see today".

13 Salafist groups Norwegian Profetens Ummah, and Danish Kaldet til Islam

14 As reported by some Italian media, the perpetrators of the violence of 28.08.2020 in Malmö were allegedly 300 far-right activists demonstrating against Muslims; the chronicles of The Guardian e Reuters, they are different. The violent actions against the police are not those of right-wing extremists, but of Muslims in reaction to previous provocations. Imam Muric, in declaring himself shocked, blamed far-right provocateurs for getting what they wanted, arguing that the protesters were not good Muslims

15 Video recording for al Jazeera in November 2004: "Before we begin, I tell you that security is an indispensable pillar of human life and that free men do not lose their security, contrary to Bush's claim that we hate freedom. If so, let me explain why we don't strike. , for example, Sweden? "

Frame: CBSN