Hans Bertil Mattias Gardell (born 10 August 1959) is a Swedish historian and scholar of comparative religion. In March 2006 he was appointed of the Nathan Söderblom Chair of Comparative Religion at Uppsala University, Sweden.
He received the Lenin Award in 2009.[1]
Early life and education
Mattias Gardell was born in Solna, Stockholm County, Sweden. He dropped out of high school and lived many years later as a researcher among black and white racist representatives in the United States.[2]
He earned a PhD in the history of religions at Stockholm University in 1995. His 1995 dissertation on Louis Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam was published in both British and American editions.[3]
From 2004 -2006 he lived in Cairo, Egypt, studying the rise of political Islam.[2]
In March 2006, he returned to Sweden and was appointed the first holder (from 1 July 2006) of the Nathan Söderblom Chair of Comparative Religion at Uppsala University.[3]
In 2010, Gardell was one of eleven Swedish activists from Ship to Gaza participating in the flotilla that tried to break the Israeli Blockade of the Gaza Strip. Along with his wife, Edda Manga, Gardell was aboard MV Mavi Marmara during the Israeli armed forcesraid on the flotilla on the morning of 31 May 2010.[5] He was deported from Israel and landed in Sweden on 3 June, 2010 along with Manga and other Swedish participants.[6] He told Swedish journalists "We were victims of a massive military assault ... It can not be described as anything but piracy." He also stated that the soldiers came on board with fully loaded weapons equipped with laser sights and at least four people were killed execution style.[7]
In 2012, he testified as an expert witness on Islamophobia in the trial of Anders Behring Breivik[8] In 2018, he co-authored the "Sweden"-section of the European Islamophobia Report 2017 published by the Erdogan controlled think-tank SETA.[9]
In a 2015 interview Gardell stated that individuals who commit acts of Islamic terrorism for Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State have "no previous contacts with Islam" and "have no connections to any mosque" but instead have radicalized online. [10]
Political views
Gardell in September 2013, in Stockholm, speaking during a protest against Barack Obama's visit to Sweden.
He has said that he feels an attachment to Asatru and has practiced it "in waves", but as of 2007 did not practice itactively.[12] In 2007 he considered himself pagan and has called himself a "spiritual anarchist".[13]
^Bitte Hammargren (3 June 2010). "SvD: "Det var rena avrättningar"". Svenska Dagbladet (in Swedish). Svd.se. Archived from the original on 5 June 2010. Retrieved 5 June 2010.
^"Videointervjuer". ArA - Antirasistiska Akademin (in Swedish). 8 January 2015. Archived from the original on 17 February 2020. Retrieved 6 September 2020.