Henning Mankell - Political Views

Political Views

"What would Europe have been without Islamic culture? Nothing."

Mankell participated in the Protests of 1968 in Sweden, protesting against, among other things, the Vietnam War, the Portuguese Colonial War and the Apartheid regime in South Africa. Furthermore, he got involved with the society Folket i Bild/Kulturfront which focused on cultural policy studies. During his stay in Norway in the 1970s, he got in contact with the far-left Norwegian Workers' Communist Party (AKP-ml) and took an active part in their actions. In 2002 he gave financial support by buying stocks for 50,000 NOK in the Norwegian left-wing newspaper Klassekampen.

In 2009, Mankell was a guest at a Palestinian literary conference. Thereafter, he claimed to have seen "repetition of the despicable Apartheid system that once treated Africans and coloured as second-class citizens in their own country". He also found a resemblance between the Israeli West Bank barrier and the Berlin Wall. Considering the environment the Palestinian people live in, he continued, it is not astonishing that "some decide to become suicide bombers....it is strange that there are not more of them". "The Israelis" would "destroy lives" and the Israeli State is not to have a future in its current form, as a two-state solution would not reverse the "historical occupation". He claimed not to have encountered antisemitism during his journey, just "hatred against the occupants that is completely normal and understandable".

In 2008, speaking about nationalism and Norway, he stated that "Nationalism is almost spiteful in nature. It can sometimes be glimpsed as something brown behind the waving Norwegian flags."