Up until an Iraqi-born suicide bomber in Stockholm sent more than just winter chills up Sweden’s spine over the weekend, Sweden believed it was safe, and immune to post 9/11 attacks.
So did Canada. Until the Toronto 18.
Precipitated by our combat role in Afghanistan, and then boy-terrorist Omar Khadr as Canada’s poster child for jihadist genetics, the Toronto 18 was our wake-up call to perceived impunity.
While the 1985 Air India bombing was the biggest act of terrorism committed on Canadian soil, most Canadians tend to put it in a different category — a one-off by Sikh extremists specifically targeting their own — as they continue to fear another Toronto 18 terrorist cell is assembling to indiscriminately kill in the name of al-Qaida.
This is no longer written off as paranoia.
But it should not ignite a fuse.
Like Canada, Sweden has one of the more open immigration policies in Europe, and it is no doubt feeling it is now being punished for the good deed of accepting more Muslim immigrants from Iraq since Saddam’s lynching than any other country.
A by-product of this, now rearing, is internal racism.
As Canada seeks to find balance between true immigration and legitimate refugees with the kind of human smuggling that had a boatload of Tamil “migrants” jumping queue in British Columbia, the Swedes have begun tossing such political correctness aside.
In fact, the country’s anti-immigration party, the Sweden Democrats, have likened the 5% (and growing) Muslim population as the biggest threat to Sweden since Hitler fired his first shot.
As a result, the far-right Democrats are now power brokers in Sweden’s parliament.
What set off bomber Taymour Abdulwahab, figuratively and literally, was Sweden’s 500 troops in Afghanistan and a three-year-old Swedish cartoon of Mohammed in a dog’s body.
And so the 29-year-old Muslim, a Swedish citizen since 1992, went out to blow up a train station.
Toronto got lucky with the Toronto 18. They were caught before their plot could be hatched.
Stockholm got lucky. Its bomber’s explosives detonated prematurely.
At the same time, however, another type of fuse was re-ignited in Sweden, and that’s far-right nationalism.
Beware its importation — even if it can be rationalized.
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