Ebba Busch is boycotting the Swedish radio because in their Arabic, Somali, and Kurdish transmissions they translated her desire to shoot “islamists” as her wanting to shoot “muslims”.
Now, I’m gonna start and end with saying that I am not defending the translation. It was wrong.
But, what’s important to note here is that the word “islamist” is… who calls it that?! It doesn’t really mean anything coherent. CAIR noted that it had become a pejorative shorthand for “Muslims we don’t like”, and Mansoor Moaddel from EMU said “The use of the term Islamist does not capture the phenomena that is quite heterogeneous”.
What the heck should you even translate it to? “Islamists” as a word is, and presumes, colonial language! To go into details about الوهابية (which I think is bad) is ascribing nuance to Busch that she definitively hasn’t merited.
Saying “islamists” is such an attempt at a get-out-of-jail–free card. A “no, of course I didn’t mean you, I just meant them”. Which is exactly what Busch and her party KD is blatantly leaning into here.
Additionally and just as importantly, Paludan is sure as heckfire mocking and threatening all muslims, and you don’t have to be an “islamist” muslim to want to protest that.
I’ll end the way I started: the way they did translate it was not good, even though they were put in a very difficult bind.