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There are many lessons in the murder of Salwan Momika, who was murdered in a shooting late Wednesday night in Sweden, but it’s unlikely that those who need those lessons the most will take any notice of them. Momika, an immigrant to Sweden from Iraq, had been a hunted man for quite some time because he had repeatedly burned the Qur’an in public, maintaining that Sweden’s stated support for the freedom of expression allowed for this, and that it was necessary in order to call attention to the many evils that the Islamic book contained, condoned, and exhorted its believers to perpetrate. Swedish authorities disagreed, and that is why Momika is dead today.

The collapse of the West’s will to defend its own values and culture is thus the first lesson of the murder of Salwan Momika. The Swedish government states that “the constitutionally protected right to freedom of expression includes the right to express thoughts, opinions and feelings through speech, writing or images without interference by the authorities.” There is, however, a big caveat: “This freedom can only be restricted if it is necessary for the fulfillment of certain purposes specifically set out in the Constitution, and a restriction may never go beyond what is necessary to fulfill these purposes.”

All right. So Swedish government officials would likely insist that they tried to impede Momika’s activities because of their concern for the welfare of Swedes in general, and fear of what Muslims might do in response to his burnings of the Qur’an. While that may seem to be a reasonable stance, Swedish authorities don’t seem to realize or care about the fact that when they made it clear to Muslims in Sweden and around the world that they would not stand up for the freedom of expression, they only ensured that there would be more challenges to it. Bowing before violent intimidation always leads to more violent intimidation, and yet Western officials never seem to grasp that basic fact, one that we should have all learned on fourth-grade playgrounds.

Swedish officials made matters even worse by charging Momika with “agitation against an ethnic or national group.” This was absurd on its face, as Momika was not some goose-stepping National Socialist agitating for the supremacy of the white race, however much the leftist establishment wants to smear all opposition to jihad violence and Sharia oppression as white nationalism. He was an immigrant from Iraq who knew from personal experience how the teachings of the Qur’an could deform the soul and lead people to do evil and think they were doing good.

This didn’t fit the paradigm of the political and media establishment in Europe or North America, and Swedish authorities hounded and persecuted Momika, trying to deport him back to Iraq and certain death, and generally treating him as if he were the source of the civil strife in Sweden, not the jihadis who were out for this blood. This is, in fact, a quite commonplace view. On Friday, Agence France-Presse ran a story entitled “Salwan Momika, The Quran Burner Who Sparked International Tensions.” The first sentence of this story was “Iraqi refugee Salwan Momika, who was shot dead late Wednesday in Sweden, stoked international controversy with his Koran burnings.”

In reality, Momika didn’t stoke any controversy at all. The Muslims who raged against him, threatened to kill him, and ultimately succeeded in doing so are the ones who stoked the controversy. If they had taken his burning of the Qur’an as a matter that affected him alone and didn’t impugn them at all, or if they had understood and accepted the importance of the freedom of expression for any free society, there would have been no controversy. The controversy came from them, not from Salwan Momika.

The Swedish government effectively sided with those jihadis when it opted to hound and harass Momika instead of hailing him as a courageous defender of the freedom of expression, and providing him with full protection. After Momika burned a Qur’an in July 2023, the Swedish government issued a statement: “The Swedish government fully understands that the Islamophobic acts committed by individuals at demonstrations in Sweden can be offensive to Muslims. We strongly condemn these acts, which in no way reflect the views of the Swedish government.”

Not a word about the importance of the freedom of expression, or about the necessity to resist erupting in violent rage if someone doesn’t like your holy book. Swedish authorities instead chose to condemn “Islamophobic acts.” We all must love Islam now, on pain of charges of “Islamophobia,” and if we dare not to do so, the fate of Salwan Momika awaits us. He got what Swedish officials wanted for him. But if they think that his death will solve their problems regarding Islam, jihad, and “Islamophobia,” they’re in for a series of ugly surprises.