We are determined never to let the values that we treasure — democracy, human rights and freedom — to be undermined by hatred.”
Sweden’s fidelity to humanitarian values resulted in its accepting more than 80,000 asylum seekers in 2014
and more than 160,000 in 2015, before tightened procedures led the number to fall to fewer than 30,000 last year.
Well before Friday’s attack, a vigorous debate was underway on the best way forward,
and not all Swedes are happy: Support for the anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats grew from just under 3 percent of the vote in 2006 parliamentary elections to just under 13 percent in the 2014 elections.
Clearly, Sweden must do better keeping tabs on people who have — as the police believe Friday’s attacker had — “sympathy for extremist organizations.”
But it will never be possible to stop every random madman from getting his hands on a truck and turning it into a weapon.
Sweden’s Wisdom on Terrorism -
By THE EDITORIAL BOARDAPRIL 12, 2017
Each terrorist attack tests anew the values of openness and tolerance essential to free societies.
This will no doubt add grist to the arguments of those — the autocrat Viktor Orban, the French right-wing presidential candidate
Marine Le Pen — who conflate terrorists with immigrants in search of a better life and refugees fleeing deadly conflict.
A version of this editorial appears in print on April 12, 2017, on Page A22 of the New York edition with the headline: Sweden’s Wisdom on Terrorism.
