The diplomatic fallout over the burning of the Quran outside a mosque in Sweden is threatening to escalate into a trade war after calls from Muslims in the Middle East and North Africa came to boycott Swedish products.
Last month, a 37-year-old Iraqi refugee who wants the book banned tore out pages from the Quran and set them alight outside of Stockholm’s central mosque. A key point of contention is the fact that the protest was given the go-ahead by a Swedish court.
Turkey’s president Recep Tayyip Erdogan has led a chorus of criticism from a host of Islamic governments over the decision to allow anti-Islam protests to go ahead. “We will eventually teach the arrogant Westerners that insulting Muslims is not freedom of thought,” Erdogan said in televised remarks.
Saudi Arabia noted how the act coincided with the Eid al-Adha religious festival and the end of the Hajj pilgrimage: “These hateful and repeated acts cannot be accepted with any justification,” the Saudi Foreign Ministry said.
Who is calling for a trade boycott?
Earlier this week, the Cairo-based Al-Azhar mosque, the oldest Sunni institution in the Muslim world, urged Muslims to boycott Swedish products over the recent Quran burning. It suggested a similar boycott of Danish products amid two incidences of Quran burnings this week in Copenhagen, Denmark’s capital. The mosque decried decisions by those governments that allowed the burning of Islam’s holy book.
Yemen’s Minister of Industry and Trade Muhammad Sharif al-Mutahar announced a boycott of Swedish products earlier this month. Similarly, Mohsen Rezaei, secretary of Iran’s Supreme Council of Economic Coordination, called for a boycott on July 23.
Now Muslims in the Middle East and North Africa have taken to social media to call for a boycott of Swedish products using the hashtags “punish the Swedish government” and “boycott Swedish products.”
Sweden is one of Europe’s largest economies with a GDP of $585.94 billion, according to the World Bank. It is also home to major multinational companies such as Ikea, which produces and sells furniture and home accessories, high-street fashion retailer H&M, home appliance manufacturer Electrolux and mobile technology provider Ericsson.
According to figures provided to DW by the Swedish Chamber of Commerce, 2.6% of Swedish exports went to the Middle East and North Africa in 2022 ($4.88 billion, or 51.4 billion Swedish krona).
The biggest importers of Swedish products among Muslim countries are Turkey and Saudi Arabia, according to the United Nations COMTRADE database, followed by Egypt, United Arab Emirates, Indonesia, Malaysia, Morocco, Qatar, Algeria and Pakistan.
Concern from business groups
Business Sweden, a business development group jointly owned by the Swedish state and the Swedish business sector with offices in countries including Morocco, Saudi Arabia and UAE, said that “Swedish companies generally have a good reputation and are considered exemplary employers with a strong understanding and connection to local communities.” The group added that it was closely monitoring the “unfortunate” situation.
“It is important to remember that Swedish companies have deep roots in many Muslim countries,” it said in a statement to DW. “We want to emphasize that the events in Sweden, where the Quran was burned, do not in any way reflect our values, and it is something that, like the Swedish government, we condemn and distance ourselves from.”
The rapid urbanization in the Middle East and North Africa has turned the region into an attractive export market where demand for technological innovation is growing — particularly in the information technology and communications, transport, health and energy sectors.
Saudi Arabia and UAE are two of the biggest trade export partners for Sweden’s exports-orientated, manufacturing-based economy, said Keith Boyfield, a senior fellow at the Euro-Gulf Information Center (EGIC).
The Gulf has one of the biggest sovereign wealth funds in the world: the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia’s public investment fund is aiming to manage assets of over a trillion dollars by 2025. Almost a quarter of those assets are already held outside of Saudi Arabia.
“I think that one of the most significant things is, if there’s a continued disagreement about the issue of free speech, you might find that Gulf sovereign wealth funds bypass Sweden,” Boyfield told DW. “That’s important because they are a tremendous source of capital in terms of investment into industry and services.”
Fears of further protests
Sweden scrapped its blasphemy laws in the 1970s and now has some of the strongest legal predections for the freedom of expression in the world. But the country does not have a law that specifically prohibits burnings or desecrations of religious texts, including the Quran.
Boyfield said that at a conference earlier this year, Swedish business leaders were already extremely concerned about the way in which the authorities were, in their view, failing to prosecute protestors who burned the Quran. However, he added that because Sweden imports most of its oil and natural gas from Norway and other countries outside of the Middle East, it was important to emphasize that Gulf states have very little in terms of leverage over the Nordic country.
“If there’s an issue over trade, it strikes me that tourism is going to be one of the key sectors where the Gulf will lose out,” he said, adding that Gulf states had been looking to attract Scandinavian tourists and have also been investing heavily in sports such as golf.
Meanwhile, Swedish prime minister Ulf Kristersson has said that he is “extremely worried” about the consequences if more demonstrations go ahead in which the Quran is desecrated. “If they are granted, we are going to face some days where there is a clear risk of something serious happening,” he told Swedish news agency TT. “I am extremely worried about what it could lead to.”
Referring to an online disinformation campaign by Russian-backed actors, Sweden’s security service SAPO said the image of Sweden, which is looking to join the NATO military alliance, has changed “from a tolerant country to a country hostile to Islam and Muslims, where attacks on Muslims are sanctioned by the state and where Muslim children can be kidnapped by social services.” SAPO has kept its assessment of the threat level at 3 on a scale of 5, signifying an “elevated threat.”
If someone beats your wife, do you need to tell someone else to get back at them to defend her or do you do it yourself ?
If you answered yourself, then if the prophets book gets burned the super mighty man he can surely take care of it himself.
Your statment doesn’t make sense and not how life works according to religon. God sent Adam and Eve from heaven down to earth, and made them able to do what they want without controlling or intervening with them. The angels were shocked and asked God why let a flawed murderous being rule earth instead of angels who can do no wrong, and he replied that humans can learn and decide what they do but angels can’t. Also, many prophets were killed and tortured to death by evil tyrants in the history of Ibrahimic religons, God even told them this would happen but never intervened or revenged them. That’s why there’s afterlife in religon as well.
So god never intervened? we don’t read the same book, because I remember a deluge thing because god wasn’t happy in general. I also remember some plagues in Egypt, some infant deaths. I don’t know man, it seems to me that he intervened a lot
Yes he made miricles for some and let some die without interventions. And that was regarding prohpets and messengers; So what is your conclusion regarding regular humans thousands of years after he already sent his prophets? Exactly, no miricles for you. Have fun killing each other and do whatever you want
you guys are funny, always trying to justify the unjustifiable, and always carefully choosing only the parts that validate your belief while ignoring all of the context. And by the way I don’t remember killing anyone, don’t put me in the same basket as extremist freaks like the one that usually appears in your group
Your say like the ones appear in your group? What group? You think I’m a muslim because I pointed to your false logic? Anyway that’s irrelevent to the subject, and it’s pointless to personlize arguements so I will not address it. You are the one who said stupid shit that no athiests nor beilievers think would happen in life, and I explained to you why in my previous comment. Read what you wrote. Btw the first rule of theological holy books, is not to take any part out of context and that’s what you did when you said let god do miricles for you, and not what I did when I explained the context where god did miricles to some of his prophets back then, and where god doesn’t give a damn if you kill all the innocents in the world now.
Now the Lets talk about hate speech, most Muslims hate Israel’s government but don’t even hate Jewish people because Judaism is a faith and there are good jewish people everywhere in the world including Israel who oppose their government practices. In fact they obiously love those jewish people. Similarly many athiests, christians and even jews think it’s balatent racism and hate speech to burn the holy faith book of 2 billion people, among which are some of the most oppressed groups in the world. Muslims in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Niger, Lybia, Sudan, India, Ugyer in China, Palestine, Egypt, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, and in many more countries live under dictatorships, military coups, corrupt repressive regimes, occupation, discrimination, genocide and all type of human right violations. It’s not expression of free speech to say ignorant irrational things that incite hate and racism. You may say I hate china’s CCP government supporters but not I hate all chinese people, or I hate all blacks, or I hate all Indians. Thess hateful statements are irrational and void of sense, and they promote racism.
It’s completely impossible to argue with you because nothing you say is based on reality. And I have no idea what you’re talking about, it seems like a whole different conversation. I assume you are muslin? On what basis do you make that statement? When did I say something about Israel or China? Crazy talk. You draw conclusions and assume things from grains of sand, basically you’re a champion at mental gymnastics. If you want to continue the “conversation” alone, feel free.
You can’t stand by your own argument and statement because it’s false nonsense which contradicts itself. Read it again if you can’t understand how my replies were related to everything you said, or don’t and good luck.