Sweden on the Edge

Sweden is facing a crisis of violence. On February 5, thirty-five-year-old Rickard Andersson, an ethnic Swede, walked into an educational center for adults and shot ten people dead before taking his own life. It is the worst mass shooting in the country’s modern history. The media have speculated about a possible racist motive, but the police have found no evidence to support this—at least not yet. What we do know is that Andersson was a recluse with no friends. He’d had no income and had lived on welfare for the past decade.

Just a few days before the mass shooting, another murder sent shock waves through Sweden. Salwan Momika, a Christian Iraqi who became famous for staging public burnings of the Qur’an in the spring of 2023, was shot dead outside of Stockholm. Five suspects were immediately detained for his murder. (They have since been released but remain formally under suspicion.)

Momika was a controversial figure, whose rallies coincided with Sweden’s application to join NATO. The Turkish government referred to the Qur’an burnings when it decided to delay Sweden’s accession into the defense alliance. There has been ample speculation as to whether Momika’s actions were in fact a covert operation by a foreign power. The Swedish Migration Agency temporarily withdrew his residence permit, after it emerged that he had provided incorrect information in his asylum application, while simultaneously granting him a temporary residence permit since he risked torture if he returned to Iraq.

Whatever the case, Momika’s actions have exposed how easily Sweden can descend into violence. His rallies were met with furious riots. Similarly, in April 2022, riots broke out in several cities in response to Danish-Swedish politician Rasmus Paludan’s plans to burn the Qur’an. The chief of police, Anders Thornberg, said that police officers did not know whether they would “return home after work” or “be alive when the shift” was over.

Momika’s murder has been met with cheers online. Sofie Löwenmark, an Arabic-speaking journalist who specializes in Islamist extremism, told media that the celebrations of Momika’s murder are indescribable; there are “tens of thousands of comments with shouts of joy.”

Salwan Najem, who burned the Qur’an alongside Momika, has been subjected to death threats. On February 3, five days after Momika’s murder, a Stockholm court found Najem guilty of hate speech. He was given a suspended sentence and fined four thousand crowns (roughly $370).

As if this were not enough, January was an extremely violent month in Sweden, with bombings taking place almost every day. These bombings are nothing new; Swedes have lived with them for over a decade. They are part of the cycle of violence between the country’s gangs, which are largely a product of immigrant neighborhoods. Bombs are used for everything from intimidating witnesses to targeting rivals. 

Most bombings only cause property damage, but there have been casualties. In 2023, a twenty-four-year-old teacher was killed when her house was bombed, and a number of victims have suffered life-changing injuries. Residents of bombed buildings often say they felt like they were in a war.

Hearing explosions at a distance has become an everyday experience in Swedish cities. In 2023, residents in northern Stockholm could even read this headline in their local newspaper: “These are the things to think about in the event of an explosion in your building.” The article explained: “Among other things, the landlord urges tenants not to take any risks, to keep their distance from unknown objects that resemble a bomb, ammunition or a weapon.”

“We are going through a new wave of violence, mainly with increasing explosions—basically one every day,” Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson of the Moderate party said at a press conference at the end of January. “The fact that we are not in control over the wave of violence is quite obvious.” It is obvious indeed, and has been for longer than most Swedish politicians would like to admit.

Image by Frankie Fouganthin. Image cropped.