Speech
Stockholm 10 February 2011
Birgitta Ohlsson, Minister for EU Affairs

Speech at the conference "Learning From the Other"

Ladies and Gentlemen, It is a great pleasure for me being here today as the Swedish Minister for European Union Affairs and Democracy issues.

I also would like to express my gratitude to Exit Fryshuset for having organised this conference. Robert Urell together with your team - you do a tremendous work in the fight against extremism.

Thanks for the excellent preparations with St Andrews University and British Council.

The conference of today is entitled 'Learning from the other'.

And what we have certainly learned during the last decade is that the world today is more linked and intertwined than ever before.

Political events, civil wars and even terror attacks occurring hundreds of miles from here are reflected in our society.

Foreign policy is today domestic policy. Domestic policy is foreign policy.

We have said it before but it is worth to repeat.

Democracy is challenged repeatedly.

Democracy is fragile and only as strong as we make it.

Democracy will never be stronger than the support from the local base.

Extremism is a transnational problem that require transnational cooperation and transnational solutions.

The terrorist attack in Stockholm on the 11th of December chocked the Swedish society and our democracy.

It was the first time ever we had a suicide bomber in Scandinavia.

The attack could have had disastrous consequences, and is an unacceptable attack upon our open society. A young man that grew up in a small Swedish town, then a typical Swedish average Joe, having girlfriends, drinking beer, turned ten years later into a suicide bomber with religious extreme jihadist political views.

Shortly after, Swedish citizens, were arrested in Denmark suspected of plotting dramatic terrorist attacks against Jyllands Posten, the Danish newspaper that published the cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed - that we all remember sparked wild protests worldwide.

During the 1990s, the neo-nazis connections to violent extremism were in our focus especially after the murder of the union activist Björn Söderberg. And after the massive damage during the EU summit in Gothenburg in 2001, the focus instead concentrated upon left-autonomous groups.

We don't know what the extremism of tomorrow will look like.

But we know that the struggle against violent religious and political extremism must be intensified.

Because violent extremism is nothing new.

And we know the various forms of violent extremism have something in common: they use violence to achieve political objectives.

Therefore extremism poses a serious threat to the core values of democracies. Sweden, like other countries, has an obligation under international law to prevent terrorist crimes.

We must in a better way address the factors that can lead to radicalization and recruitment.

Several studies have been conducted among Swedish high school students about their attitudes towards the Jewish population, the Roma-population, the Muslim-population, homosexuals and immigrants in general.

There is a core of 20 percent among the high school students expressing clearly intolerant attitudes, especially boys from socio-economically marginalized homes.

This group of young people can be vulnerable to the messages from extremist movements.

"The most dangerous creation of any society is the man who has nothing to lose"
as the American writer James A. Baldwin wrote.

This worries me deeply.

To me its obvious that a strategic preventive work against all forms of violent extremism is an investment in democracy.

I'm glad that the Swedish government will make more efforts to raise democratic awareness among young people at risk.

We need to raise the bar.

We will develop teaching materials and support organizations that prevent young people to develop an antidemocratic behaviour, or being recruited to antidemocratic movements.

The government has also earmarked funds for research on extremism.

Swedish democracy policy is shaped in a way that seeks to successfully address the complex demands presented by our modern era.

It aims to strengthen the social cohesion among the citizens, the promotion of an active participation in the democratic process and to ensure a secure base for the human rights.

The democracy policy also focuses on preventing threats to democracy as the use of violence as a legitimate mean to achieve political goals.

Therefore, the Government has during the past three years sought to collect as much knowledge as possible on the contemporary issues with violent political extremism as well as the occurrence of violence-promoting Islamism.

We have conducted several reports, I will only mention two of them now.

The Government commissioned the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention and the Swedish Security Service to map the occurrence of violent political extremism among right-wing and left-wing extremism.

The purpose with the study was to provide the Government with basic data and immersed knowledge for the purpose of forming strategies and concrete counter-measures for violent extremist behaviour.

The study found that the majority of persons are boys and young men aged 18-23. In a number of around one thousand totally.

The study estimated that the violent extremist groups have a limited growth potential.

However, there is a risk in both the autonomous left and the white power environment that smaller groups of very radical activists can commit very serious politically motivated crimes.

Compared to other countries, such as Denmark and Germany, the study concluded that the Swedish extremist activists were more violent and the white power groups are more likely to possess arms.

With the availability of weapons and explosives and experience of serious violence, the white power environment could seriously damage parts of the democratic society or one of its basic functions.

Today Robert Örell from Exit and I have an article in Dagens Nyheter, The message of the article is that the public debate should not only focus on violent Islamism.

A growing extremist movement can have the same effect on their extreme political antagonists. We should not forget that.

I think it's crucial that we identify the similarities between extremist environments but also how they affect each other.

In February last year the Government commissioned the Swedish Security Service to compile a study on the occurrence of violent Islamism in Sweden.

The outcome was presented in December and brought a valuable mapping out of the phenomenon, especially in the light of the terrorist attack of December 11th in central Stockholm.

Ms. Malena Rembe, chief analyst for counter-terrorism issues at the Swedish Security Service, will later today present the main conclusions of the report as well as the outreach activities undertaken during the process.

The Security Service especially highlighted the growing problem of persons resident in Sweden travelling abroad to participate in terrorist training and illegal acts of violence in conflict zones.

Persons taking part in jihad abroad may commit serious crimes and violate human rights. If they survive and return to Sweden, they can be a risk for themselves and for others.

In a globalized world with information technology, people with extremist views can more easily spread their message.

In December last year, the Somali terrorist group al-Shabaab published a recruitment video in Swedish on the web.

Sweden is working bilaterally in order to learn more from its neighbouring countries. Several EU countries have solid experience of working strategically with these issues.

I recently visited Britain, the Netherlands and Denmark to study how these countries are working concerning preventing extremism. I plan to visit Norway, Germany and the US for the same purpose.

It is my sincere hope that we today can seize this great opportunity offered to all of us by the organizers and learn as much as possible from each other - both regarding successful and non-successful measures.

I hope this work will be taken forward in line with the fundamental rights that our European Union is based upon. A union that was built on the black ruins of a burning world war caused by violent extremism.

Let me end by saying: "This conference is about learning and education is probably the best safeguard of liberty that we have."