Sofia Nerbrand: “The mob in Malmö should know how”

#Sofia #Nerbrand #mob #Malmö

We are a small motley crew planning a music party. At Davidhallstorg, in the heart of Malmö. It’s not just any party, however, but a welcome celebration of Israel’s entry competing in the Eurovision semi-finals on Thursday night.

But, to be completely honest, I’m not sure if I should go to the party. Because for the first time in my life I fear for my own safety – in my own hometown. And I am not alone in my concern. Musicians that we have asked do not dare to come and play. Not only because they are afraid of physical attacks, but because organizations like Isolate Israel have caused scores of artists to drop out of their gigs during Eurovision week – they don’t want to risk their future livelihood.

Private people who are thinking of coming to the street party ask questions about what is being done to prevent us from falling victim to suicide bombers or lynchings.

Will the Swedish police be prepared to protect Israel fans with live ammunition or water cannons if thousands of Palestine activists rush in?

It’s a completely bizarre situation.

That in Sweden, with a police license and police protection, you don’t feel safe. And I am neither Jewish nor Israeli, but I wish to be one mensch who backs my fellow Jews. Anti-Semitism affects their everyday life in an unacceptable way. The “new normal” is that uniformed police stand guard outside the Jewish preschool every day so that parents can drop off and pick up their children in peace. Would we have accepted it if it had been a rainbow kindergarten?

Twelve years ago, we therefore started kippa walks. The aim was to reduce the fear of showing one’s Jewish identity in town, but also to spread more knowledge about the Jewish to more Malmö residents.

Then it was important for me as an organizer to invite both the right and the left, and we finally managed to get the then strong man in town, Ilmar Reepalu, who was notorious for his hostility to Israel, to speak at Möllevångstorget.

So we fast forward the tape to October 7 of last year. There is a before and an after of this bloody Saturday. More than 1,100 people were violated, hunted, raped, burned and murdered by Hamas. 253 were taken as hostages to Gaza.

In Malmö, the bestial abuses were celebrated in loud car caravans with Palestinian flags already that weekend. There was cheering on social media.

The town’s Jews subsequently hide their affiliation even more. Some even bought Advent candles and put them in the windows before Christmas to blend in better.

Some Israelis, who work in the successful gaming industry in Malmö, do not dare to speak Hebrew on the bus. Young Jews ask their parents not to do anything public under their own name.

Decisive that more people realize how serious anti-Semitism is

What can be likened to post-traumatic stress disorder has not abated since anti-Semitism has been chanted in the streets and squares throughout the Western world. On the contrary. Thousands of masked activists calling for a new intifada and preventing Jewish students from attending classes at elite American universities are raising the question among many Jews in the diaspora whether they are safe anywhere but in Israel.

I visited Israel during the second intifada a little over twenty years ago when suicide bombers made every place unsafe. At the time, it seemed completely unlikely that in Sweden in the future – today’s times – they would even reflect on the fact that people living here would pose a danger. But now it is.

The fear of violence also damages our open society.

I have devoted myself to opinion formation for a quarter of a century, and have really only once before had to ask myself if I dare to publish something, and that was during the Mohammed crisis in 2006. As responsible publisher and editor-in-chief of the community magazine Neo, I needed to make a decision about whether we should print cartoons of the prophet.

The atmosphere was unpleasant to say the least, and the big newspaper dragons crouched. I myself adapted to the situation by wearing a turban with a dynamite man from one of the Muhammad drawings on the cover of Neo.

Self-censorship, silence, cowardice spread when one’s opponents are prepared to resort to violence and terror.

Now we are in a similar situation again.

Sydsvenskan recently invited to a panel discussion about Eurovision and Israel’s participation at the Stadsbiblioteket in Malmö – but many, including representatives of SVT and the city of Malmö, declined to participate on stage. I myself stood up to testify about how scared many Jews are in Malmö.

We try to protect our open society with the help of barriers around the entire Malmö Arena and Folkets park, drones with cameras in the air, police reinforcements from neighboring countries and so on. But the root of evil is thoughts, ideas and ideology.

Antisemitism. Islamism. Terrorism.

Let’s be clear, it is a large number of residents with roots in the Middle East who, based on their grudge against Jews, pose the threat. Together with the left, which has now clearly chosen a side.

A couple of weeks after October 7, the undersigned, together with a number of other committed Malmö residents, arranged a demonstration against Islamism and anti-Semitism. It was only a few days after a couple of Swedes were murdered, because they were Swedes, by an Islamist in Brussels.

On Möllevångstorget in Malmö, May Day. Banner with the text “Boycott Israel. Eurovision Song Contest Malmö 2024”. Photo: Johan Nilsson / TT

Nevertheless, the current municipal board chairman, social democrat Katrin Stjernfeldt Jammeh, chose not to attend. She used some excuse that there might be Israeli flags among the participants in the square. Unfortunately, it has been on that road ever since. The S-led City Hall cannot be counted on, and the Left Party’s many-thousand-strong demonstration march on May 1 was not about downplaying anti-Semitism, if you say so.

The fight against anti-Semitism and Islamism should not be a right/left issue. It’s about humanism.

And it is not Eurovision visitors or Jews who should have to suffer. Israel’s contestant Eden Golan will not need to hide in his hotel room during his entire stay in Malmö.

It is the mob, the perpetrators, who should know.

The situation is grim in Malmö. Some believe that Eurovision should be moved to another part of Sweden at the last moment. However, it would be a fundamental blow to the open society – and a failure for law enforcement.

It is also crucial that more people realize how serious anti-Semitism and the romance of terror are, not only in Malmö but throughout the Western world.

Sofia Nerbrand is political editor at Kristianstadsbladet/Norra Skåne