How tolerance makes nations vulnerable

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The writer is senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and an adviser to Gallos Technologies

What Sweden is experiencing this summer, following a series of Koran-burning protests, is the stuff of nightmares for any liberal democracy. Ideologically-driven individuals and foreign regimes are exploiting Sweden’s societal tolerance against itself. Other nations seeking to learn from this misfortune could do much worse than to start reading the philosophy of Karl Popper. 

A society believing so strongly in tolerance that it’s unwilling to defend tolerance against the onslaught of the intolerant risks destroying tolerance itself, Popper argued in The Open Society and its Enemies. When the Austrian-born philosopher wrote his most famous treatise during the second world war, he couldn’t have known the scale of the intolerance that decades later would befall western countries. He certainly could not have predicted the battle now taking place between a symbiotic alliance of a few attention-seeking Koran-burners in Scandinavia and a group of regimes and individuals itching for a fight with the west on one hand, and tolerant Sweden on the other.

Late last month, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation convened, at the behest of Iran, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, to condemn three recent Koran burnings in Sweden and Denmark. The IOC “deplores the recurrence of acts of desecration of al-Mus’haf ash-Sharif [the Koran], and deeply regrets the continued issuance by the authorities of a permit allowing that action to occur” the leaders’ final communique declared.

They conveniently forgot to mention the fact that Salwan Momika, who triggered this summer’s anti-Swedish anger by burning a Koran in Stockholm on 28 June, is an Iraqi refugee in Sweden who previously led an Iran-linked militia in his home country. Indeed, motivated individuals and Middle Eastern states seemed ready to rail against Sweden the moment Momika burnt his Koran. “The volume of disinformation against Sweden really escalated after that incident,” said Marcus Berg, deputy head of the operations at Sweden’s Psychological Defence Agency (MPF), which monitors disinformation from overseas. “Government-linked actors in Muslim countries began communicating about it very quickly, and so did Russian media.”

Their key message — that the Swedish government endorsed Koran burnings — was simply incorrect: Swedish protest permits are not issued by the government but by local police authorities, who cannot turn down a protest application on ideological grounds. But those intent on whipping up anti-Swedish anger were not worried about accuracy. Immediately after the incident, the volume of Russian-language false information about Sweden rose by several hundred per cent, according to the MPF, as did Arabic-language information about the events.

Ordinary social-media users, in turn, amplified the information without checking its accuracy. In Iraq, citizens were so enraged that they attacked Swedish diplomats. And the reputation of Sweden — which has welcomed tens of thousands of Muslim refugees over the past two decades — has been scorched. The campaign was designed to look like popular outrage but was actually co-ordinated by groups and individuals trying to undermine a liberal nation.

Sweden’s leaders, like those in many western democracies, believe that tolerance begets more tolerance. But as Popper described, such openness makes these countries vulnerable to attacks by the intolerant. As generative AI advances, spreading credible-looking falsehoods will become even easier. Monitoring foreign disinformation, as Sweden does, is vital — but monitoring is not enough.

Liberal democracies should learn from Popper that supporting tolerance means treating the intolerant with intolerance.