It has happened again. Another fundamentalist attack, following the same pattern as the one in Paris. It seems to be a two-step process at work: First attack someone who made fun of your religious beliefs, then try to kill some Jews. In Paris it was Charlie Hebdo and a kosher super market. In Copenhagen, an event where controversial artist Lars Vilks appeared and a Bat Mitzvah celebration.
Many years ago I interviewed Vilks for an Australian newspaper. This was when he was working on Ladonia, an imaginary country in the south of Sweden. Ladonia began as an innocent little prank that, due to the behaviour of the local council, turned into a huge organic piece of conceptual art. I remember thinking that it was exceptionally cheeky and clever. In comparison, the work that earned him a price on his head really was nothing much to brag about. Just a few paintings of Mohammed as a roundabout dog (a short lived Swedish trend where anonymous people placed hand-made dogs in, you guessed it, roundabouts).
Just like Charlie Hebdo, Vilks was making fun of anyone who got in his way, not just Muslims (even though this seems to have been his focus in later years). And even though his provocations were mild in comparison to those of the French magazine, he still did something to offend those who attacked him. As a Jew it seems you don’t even have to do that. Just buying things in a particular super market or celebrating a girl’s 12th birthday seems to be more than enough for someone to want to put a bullet through your brain.
I do not know why all this hate comes to the surface right now, because this is the worst it has been in a long time, but I do know that it must have been brewing for a while. And even if I have always been aware of it lurking there, in the shadows, I guess I have never really believed it would escalate in such a way as it has recently done.
Only a year ago, when my book was first published, I still felt very positive about the state of the world. But now I am not so sure anymore. Not when Jews once more are being attacked on the streets of Europe for no other reason than being Jews.