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CULTURE WAR IN FINLAND/SWEDEN/TURKEY: Nordic Cartoon Crisis 2.0
Nordic cartoon crisis 1.0, of course, was the one in 2005, as cartoons of the Islamic prophet Mohammed in a Danish magazine (reprinted by a number of instances the world over) precipitated riots all around the Muslim world. Of course the same issues would be replicated later on in different contexts, like with the Charlie Hebdo shooting.
This time, what is at stake is the Finnish/Swedish NATO membership quest, seemingly derailed by cartoons and other mockery of the Turkish PM Erdogan, in Finnish and Swedish magazines, and various other issues, including, once again, the relationship between free speech and Islam.
As is known, few months after the Russian invasion of Ukraine, Finland and Sweden applied for NATO. NATO operates by consensus, and applications require affirmation by all current member states to proceed. All countries expect two, Hungary and Turkey, have done this. Hungary might still cause its own issues, but what is currently at stake, however, is the Turkish veto.
One issue has been the Finnish and Swedish refusal to export weapons to Turkey. Finland doesn’t have a formal ban but stopped exports in 2019, after the Turkish invasion of Northern Syria. Finland has, however, already indicated that it will review this line, and it would probably be odd for two countries to be in a military alliance but one refusing military exports to another.
Indeed, the Finnish and Swedish governments have been lobbying for United States to release F-16 fighters to Turkey in hopes that a blatant bribe might do the trick of easing the membership process. The WSJ has indicated this might indeed be what the US will offer. I wouldn’t be too confident that this, alone, would be enough, and the Greeks might have something to say about this, as well.
However, more important has been Turkey’s claim that Sweden and Finland, claiming that these countries foster terrorists, chiefly those of PKK, ie. the Kurdistan Workers Party, which has run a decades-long armed campaign against the Turkish state. Turkey has also referred to the "Fethullahist Terrorist Organisation", ie. the Gülen movement, but this seems secondary, and it continues to be hazy what all Fethullahist Terrorist Organization is even supposed to encompass.
Of course, everyone who has ever debated with a Turk on the Internet on, like, anything, knows the salience of the PKK issue on the Turkish mindset. It’s safe to say that I’m never going to understand how this conflict truly feels to Turks, as Finland doesn’t even have any equivalent separatist groups. (There’s one in Åland, but frankly, as long as there was some form of security against Russians making a sudden move on the territory, most Finns wouldn’t give a whit if Åland became independent.) As such, I'm of course be going to discuss this from a Finnish perspective. I understand the Turkish perspective will be different.
It's important to remember that PKK continues to be a banned movement in Finland and Sweden, like in all EU countries. This has been challenged by EU courts, but the formal ban holds. In practice, this means that the Turkish government has demanded the deportations of various numbers of suspected terrorists, as well as expressed anger over expressions of speech in these countries, such as PKK flags featuring in public demonstrations.
The governments of Finland and Sweden have essentially responded to Turkish deportation requests by stating that they will work with Turkey on this issue but it’s also impossible to automatically to as Turkey has requested on this subject. A memorandum between Turkey, Finland and Sweden was signed on summer, but the countries disagree what it means.
One problem is that Finland and Sweden aren’t countries where politicians can just deport people at the point of finger. It’s up to courts to decide whether this can happen, and the courts have been reticent on this one, considering that there are doubts as to how many of the fingered suspected terrorists are terrorists at all, or just politically inconvenient for Turkey. There’s nothing, in practice, preventing deportation to Turkey – in October the courts extradited a bank robber.
When it comes to the demonstrations with PKK flags, these are generally done by the sort of far-left groups that have been, and continue to be, opposed to NATO membership, Kurdish separatist solidarity having been an important part of far-left movements in both countries for years. As such, the threat of Turks keeping Finland and Sweden out of NATO won’t of course keep them from demonstrating with PKK flags, if anything it gives them more reason to do so.
One such recent demonstration in Sweden involved an Erdogan doll being hung in effigy, by a group called the Swedish Solidarity Committee for Rojava – Rojava being the Kurdish autonomous statelet in North Syria, known for fighting ISIS and then fighting Turkish-supported Islamist Syrian rebel groups and the Turkish forces occupying Syrian territory as a part of their claimed anti-terrorist operation, Rojava’s leading groups being affliated to the same Kurdish political family as the PKK.
Soon after this, Erdogan made a demand for the extradition of 130 (claimed) terrorists by Finland and Sweden, interpreted to be a reaction to this personal affront. Swedish far-left magazine Flamman has reacted by organizing an Erdogan cartoon contest, and Finnish cartoonist Ville Ranta summarized the issue in a cartoon with an angry Erdogan demanding an increasing amount of terrorists for all affronts.
The most recent turn is the notorious Danish far-right provocateur Rasmus Paludan burning the Quran in front of the Turkish embassy. Paludan has conducted Quran-burning protests for a long time, it’s sort of a trademark for him, so it’s not surprising he’d utilize this issue for his one-man crusade as well. The Turkish government is predictably hopping mad and there are large protests in Turkey against this.
While this has been going on, the Finnish and Swedish governments have been in a hard place. Sweden has a right-wing government and Finland has a left-wing government, but both are reacting rather similarly: making noises about how the rule of law and freedom of speech are of course very important but that they also respect the Turkish government’s wishes and that they are sorry about these provocations.
And, of course, if one takes a strong free speech perspective (it’s arguable that these countries don’t always take it in other issues), it should for sure be a part of free speech to be able to fly a flag or burn a Quran if one wishes, no matter how provocatively this is viewed. One can’t help but think one point is that an authoritarian country wishes to spread its authoritarian norms concerning these issues to other countries as well. Is that a suitable price for NATO membership? To many it is.
A particular issue for Finland is a sneaking suspicion that it appears to be Sweden that Turkey really has a problem with, even moreso now after the Quran burning protest, as Erdogan has directly referred to this affair as reason to not support Sweden. If you look at the exact wording, you can of course interpret "not expect to support" in various different ways, but it's still evidentially something that makes the issue ever more complicated.
As such a frequent topic is whether, if an opportunity presents itself, Finland should just cut Sweden loose, if that it takes, even if it this means knifing a longtime ally in the back after frequent talk about how Sweden and Finland will go through the NATO process together. Not to mention that Swedish and Finnish militaries just plain are almost meant to work together – Sweden has a strong navy and air force but a weak army, Finland is the other way around.
(CONTINUES BELOW)
Apart from the already mentioned far-left movements, few people care specifically about the Kurds, apart from the faint sort of sympathy that Finns typically feel for relatively powerless nations struggling for the independence ("just like us!") In the rest of the political sphere, you of course have those who think that sending Erdogan Kurds and getting to NATO is two birds with one stone, but for the rest of them, it's more of an issue of not just letting some country like Turkey order us around and declare what laws need to be passed (for instance, because it might create a precedent for other countries)
Yes, thought patterns like this one are exactly why there might be some residual Finnish sympathy for Kurds.
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