The Dread Slender Gnome on Nostr: On the murder of the Iraqi refugee in Sweden, the one who committed the horrendous ...
On the murder of the Iraqi refugee in Sweden, the one who committed the horrendous crime of burning a supposed "sacred" book.
Some have dismissed Momika’s death as an unfortunate but predictable consequence of his provocations. But if we accept that logic, we must also accept that free speech exists only at the pleasure of those most willing to use force to silence it, that the mere threat of violence is enough to determine what can and cannot be said, and that laws, principles, and rights are secondary to the raw power of intimidation.
It is a question not just for Muslims or for Middle Easterners but for the whole world: Are we going to defend liberty, openness, and democracy, or are we going to allow radical theocrats and their ideological allies—including decolonial anti-Western leftists—to try to crush our hard-won freedoms?
https://quillette.com/2025/02/05/burning-the-quran-salwan-momika-uk-sweden-islam/
Some have dismissed Momika’s death as an unfortunate but predictable consequence of his provocations. But if we accept that logic, we must also accept that free speech exists only at the pleasure of those most willing to use force to silence it, that the mere threat of violence is enough to determine what can and cannot be said, and that laws, principles, and rights are secondary to the raw power of intimidation.
It is a question not just for Muslims or for Middle Easterners but for the whole world: Are we going to defend liberty, openness, and democracy, or are we going to allow radical theocrats and their ideological allies—including decolonial anti-Western leftists—to try to crush our hard-won freedoms?
https://quillette.com/2025/02/05/burning-the-quran-salwan-momika-uk-sweden-islam/