There is a Turkish proverb: When an idiot throws a stone into a well, forty wise men can’t pull it out. Well, that’s what an anti-Muslim activist succeeded in doing last Saturday when he burned a Quran outside the Turkish embassy in Stockholm. According to the perpetrator, Rasmus Paludan, the leader of a fringe Danish party, Stram Kurs (“Hard Line”), he was put up to the idea by a consultant for the right-wing Sverigedemokraterna ( Sweden Democrats), who paid $30 for his demonstration permit. The Sweden Democrats provide parliamentary support for the Swedish government, but their view of Sweden’s NATO membership is ambivalent. Whatever the motive for the provocation, it has thrown a spanner in the works. Adding insult to injury, ten days earlier a pro-Kurdish group hanged an effigy of Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan upside down from a lamppost outside Stockholm’s City Hall. At the best of times, the Turkish president has a short fuse but burning the Quran played into his hands. With popular support , he roundly condemned the provocation and declared Sweden could no longer expect Turkey’s support for its application for NATO membership. A visit by Sweden’s minister of defense has been canceled, […]
