Sweden making it illegal to deny genocide - a well thought through legislation?

 First a disclaimer is warranted: I strongly condemn any movements that try to deny genocides which for the past decades have been quite common in neo-nazi enviroment even though this view is undergoing a change. This change means that some leading nationalsocialist movements no longer denies the undeniable, but rather questions the results of research on for instance exact numbers. This is of course a change of tactics rather than beliefs, but is likewise also worth condemning. As an historian and a policy researcher I am however quite unsure of whetever actually criminalizing such expressions of beliefs (beacuse this is what it is) can actually be a good way forward.

For the past years Sweden have discussed a legislation which primarily aims at stopping holocaust denial. As a result of EU-regulations this have actually happened and today a new law is taken into effect. This law states the following:

Anyone who in a statement or other communication that is spread denies, excuses, or grossly trivializes a crime that constitutes or corresponds to genocide, crimes against humanity, war crimes, or the crime of aggression according to a decision rendered by a Swedish court or a recognized international court for violations of international law, and which has become final, shall also be convicted of incitement against an ethnic group if the act is intended to incite violence against, threaten, or express contempt for such a group or individual as referred to in the first paragraph (SFS 2024-340). 

Whilst this is a rather open legislation it also causes a number of problems. The first problem is that scholarship actually have a large problem in defining genocide, since it can hold several different dimensions. A couple of years ago I read a course on genocide, and one thing I took with me is the difference between conventional versus cultural genocide. The latter means that a state takes measurments for not erasing the population but rather by force assimilate them into society. A classical aspect of this is the notion of colonization, where both Swedish governments and north- and southamericans have tried to forcecfully assimilate native populations, without aiming to physically erase the individuals. Therefore, a genocide can not be reduced to simply a large amount of violence, but also have strong cultural dimensions. The term genocide initself is, as in many other cases, the result of a specific historical situation and were developed with the holocaust in my mind, thus creating problems of actually re-interpreting it in other historical aspects. Therefore, the legislation might actually miss covering up some aspects that are clearly of genocidal nature, but not conventional genocides. A second problem which emerges is that it is only genocides that have been ruled by an international court of law or swedish court that becomes illegal to deny. The problem with this writing is that it thereby can go beyond some cases where we have not actually declared things as a genocide, but rather as war crimes aimed at civilians. This is partly due to the political nature of genocide: by describing a state actors deeds as a genocide we also have impacts on the international arena. Thus the legislation actually creates the risk of further injury of groups by not making them eligible for such notions. 

I however think that the legislation have one advantage and that is that it does not limit our freedom of expression as much as it could have. This is due to the writing the aim of the speech have to be to incate hate or violence towards a certain group. Thereby, some of the criticism put forward that it opens a door where theoretically an academic could be put on trial, is not the case given that this part of the law is taken in consideration by the courts. 

What should we have done instead of this legislation? I personally fear that it might backfire, since it creates a notion that some things can not be questioned with formal sanctions from the government. Thereby, a risk that is created is that the groups currently questioning genocides can utilize this aspect in their propaganda and instead create a will to listen to those who speak of ideas of which the government is afraid in the view of the audience. What I instead would have like to see is a utilization of history and academics similar to that of the 1990's, when the swedish government aimed at actually educating people of the past. By such education, those who actually denies genocides can be put into place by both educators and their peers when questioning genocides. Hence, I would rather see a larger focus of genocides within the national curriculum for both history and social science, as well as efforts to increase public interference. Legislation, even though this is a form of "soft force", is seldom the solution to solving greater social issues. Instead we could have had a government that actually took concrete action, rather than simply passing new legislation.

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