But the Greatest of These is Freedom

But the Greatest of These Is

Freedom

But the Greatest of These Is Freedom

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But theGreatest

of These IsFreedom

The Consequences ofImmigrationin Europe

Hege Storhaug

Translated from the Norwegian andwith an introduction by Bruce

Bawer

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Included authors updates 2006 -2010

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“There are moments inhistory when confrontationis a necessary preconditionfor honest dialogue.”

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– Harald Stanghelle,“Expression underPressure” (an opinionpiece on the Danishcartoon crisis),Aftenposten, 14 February2006

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To Reidar Storhaug (1924-2001)Resistance fighter and father

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Contents

Introduction by Bruce Bawer, 9Preface, 151. Anooshe: A Woman in Norway, 20 2. Marriage Immigration, 303. Family-Arranged Marriage, 534. Born into Freedom, Stripped of

Freedom, 735. A Baby Can’t Tell Tales, 976. It’s also about Islam, 1247. The Muslims’ Challenge, 1478. Around Europe, 1729. Sustainable Immigration, 20310. “Take care of the future,” 217Afterword: Do We Have Intelligence andCourage? 239Afterword to the English-LanguageEdition, 253

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Selected Literature, 301

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IntroductionBy Bruce Bawer

In recent decades, as Hege Storhaug notesin these pages, those of us fortunate enoughto live in the Western world have enjoyed adegreeof freedom unparalleled in human history. Thisfreedom did not come easily. It is the productof centuries of struggle – a product of theRenaissance, of the Protestant Reformation, ofthe seventeenth-century Enlightenment, and ofa long series of hard-won reforms in variouscountries, of which the most notable andinfluential were probably the AmericanRevolution and American Declaration ofIndependence, which in 1776 affirmed the thenremarkable notion that human beings – everylast one of them – had a right to the pursuitof happiness.

Among the things that freedom frees up arehuman creativity and innovation. Thus freedomhas brought with it a remarkable array oftechnological developments and culturalachievements as well as unprecedented levelsof prosperity.

But freedom, alas, also leads tocomplacency. People who are born into a freesociety, and who never know anything else, canall too easily come to think of freedom as thenatural order of things, the default situationof humankind. Many of them can even be taughtto mock the idea that they are free, and to

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look up to totalitarian heroes such as Mao TseTung or Che Guevara. It can be terriblydifficult for free people to imagine what itis like not to be free; terribly difficult forthem to conceive of the ordeal undergone bymillions who, in living memory, have inhabitedCommunist Gulags and “re-education camps”;terribly difficult for them to recognize theheroism of such men and women as Vaclav Haveland Aung San Suu Kyi, who at extraordinarypersonal risk stood up to tyranny; terriblydifficult for them to recognize that thefreedom they fail even to appreciate is, infact, an extremely rare and precious exceptionto the state of affairs throughout virtuallythe entire history of human civilization. Thisignorance and indifference result in analarming shortage of the very vigilance thatis necessary to keep freedom alive and well.So it is that freedom, in the freest of timesand places, rests upon exceedingly fragilepillars.

In the last century, Western freedom facedthreats in the form of German, Italian, andJapanese fascism and Soviet Communism. Todayit is once again threatened – this time notonly by ideological enemies beyond our bordersbut by the steady accumulation and empoweringof ideological enemies in our very midst.

Let there be no confusion about one thing:immigration, in and of itself, is not an enemyof freedom. On the contrary, immigrationplayed a crucial role in renewing, generationafter generation, the promise and reality ofAmerican freedom. Over the last two centuries,millions of people from every corner of theglobe have been drawn to America by itsfreedom and opportunity and have contributedto it their energy and imagination, their hard

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work, and a diversity of skills and talents.They made American science and technology, andthe American economy, the marvels of the world– all the while helping American liberty toflower ever more abundantly.

But the immigrant wave that is sweepingover Europe today, and that is poised to dothe same, in time, to America, differsdrastically from the immigrant waves of thepast. The existence of Muslim enclaves inEurope – enclaves governed not according todemocratic principles but according toilliberal Islamic law – testify to the factthat all too many of those who have come tothe West in recent decades have come here notto enjoy Western freedoms but to exemptthemselves from them, to exploit them, andultimately to undo them. The burgeoningwelfare rolls that seem destined to bankruptone European country after another, moreover,reflect the fact that all too many of theMuslims who have established residences inEurope have done so not with the intention ofworking hard but with the intention of coollyand systematically draining dry social-services systems that were designed to be usedby native populations only in cases ofcatastrophe or desperate need.

Rather than being built up by these newimmigrants, then (many of whom are, properlyspeaking, not immigrants, since they stillspend much if not most of their time in theirhomelands), Europe is being torn down by them.The true nature of this situation is stillinsufficiently understood by many in theUnited States, and the seriousness of theproblem appreciated by only a few. Even highlyplaced individuals in the American governmentand the media – people whose job descriptions,

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one might think, would require that they havea clear sense of what is going on in Europe –don’t get it, or don’t want to. For many ofthem, to speak the unvarnished truth about thepresent crisis (and a crisis is assuredly whatit is) is to express prejudice. On thecontrary, to face up to the unpleasant realitynow afflicting Europe is a matter of socialresponsibility, pure and simple – and to turnaway from it in discomfort or confusion, orout of a sense of hopelessness or helplessnessor fear of being called a bigot, is a graveabdication of that responsibility.

The simple fact is that no one in the U.S.understands the reality of today’s Europe aswell as a few well-placed observers in Europedo – if only for the simple reason that thelatter have experienced that reality firsthandand on a daily basis for a number of years.And in all of Europe, Norway – which is HegeStorhaug’s turf, and the main focus of thisbook – occupies a special position. In termsof population, this mountainous northernkingdom is tiny, with only four and a halfmillion residents. While in the largercountries of Western Europe there aresignificant Muslim communities in a number ofcities, in Norway the Muslim community as suchis largely confined to a single city, Oslo.Norway and its capital thus represent a veryhandy microcosm of the European crisis.

In the larger Western European nations,such as Britain and France and Germany, thesheer scale of the immigrant communities makesit impossible for any one person to have adetailed familiarity with those communitiesand their problems. In little Norway, however,it is still possible for a single tirelessindividual to have a handle on everything

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having to do with Islam, immigration, andintegration, and to be personally acquaintedwith all the major players – the politicians,the imams, the community spokespeople, and soforth.

In Norway, that single tireless individualis Hege Storhaug.

Hege is, let it be understood from theoutset, no defender of white against black, nostandard bearer for ethnic or cultural purity.On the contrary, she was led to her concernfor immigration and integration policy and thechallenge of Islam by the noblest of motives:a passion for secular democracy, an unwaveringinsistence upon the equal rights of women, anda fervent dedication to the respectfultreatment and responsible upbringing ofchildren. She came to this issue, in short,not as a basher of immigrants or Muslims butas a critic of policies and ideologies thatoppress individuals who, she ferventlybelieves, should enjoy the same rights shedoes – no matter what community, religion, orethnic group they may happen to have been borninto. Hege wears many hats: she is a writerand journalist, a researcher and formulator ofpolicies, and a lobbyist and activist onbehalf of those policies’ implementation; sheis also a brilliant debater who haspassionately championed the causes of freedomand human rights on countless Scandinaviantelevision and radio debates, in talks andlectures and colloquia. She has made enemiesamong sundry imams and Islamist communityleaders and their variously naïve andspineless defenders in the media, government,and academic and literary intelligentsia, andwon devoted admirers among ordinary Norwegiansof every religious and ethnic background who

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recognize her as a stalwart advocate for thefreedoms of all. For like Jefferson and Adamsand Franklin, Hege believes, quite simply,that liberty belongs to everyone, and that nocountry that calls itself democratic canafford to allow tyranny in the name of anyideology to exist within its borders. No onein Europe can surpass Hege as a sheer witnessto the consequences of Europe’s disastrousimmigration policies both on the largest andthe most intimate of scales; no one has givenmore thought to, or understands better thanshe does, the reasons for those policies’colossal failure; and no one has addressed thesituation with deeper insight, fullerhumanity, or greater eloquence and courage.For those of us who wish to grasp what isgoing on – and it is important, for the sakeof our civilization and our children’sfutures, for all of us to grasp what is going on– she is an indispensable resource, and thisbook an essential starting point.

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PrefaceBy Hege Storhaug

The freedom we enjoy today as citizens ofWestern democracies is unique. Nowhere else inthe world, and at no other time in history,have human beings been blessed with such ahigh degree of personal liberty. I am thinkingin particular of the free and openrelationship that exists between men andwomen, their equality before the law, and therespect of members of each sex for the rightsand personhood of members of the other. In theWest, individuals of both sexes have the samerights and the same opportunities to shapetheir lives and pursue their dreams. Men andwomen can establish lifelong friendships. Weare free to follow our hearts and to marrywhom we wish. And if a marriage doesn’t liveup to our expectations, we are free todissolve it. Women’s bodies, moreover, aretheir own: it is up to them to decide whetherthey wish to be mothers and how many childrenthey will have. Women can go where they want,when they want. And they are free to speaktheir minds. Freedom of speech permits all ofus to challenge ourselves and those around usand thereby influence and improve the societyin which we live.

This freedom did not float down from theskies. Nor does it come with a guarantee thatit will last forever.

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Immigration is changing key aspects of lifein the West in ways that individual citizenshave little opportunity to influence – exceptat election time. A few years from now, mostof the people living in my own city, Oslo,will be immigrants, and by the end of thiscentury the majority of Norway’s inhabitantswill be persons with non-European roots. Themore individuals who come to Norway or who areborn here to parents who live outside ofmainstream society, the more difficult it willbecome to achieve real integration. As thenumber of people who need to be integratedgrows, so will the need for clear,comprehensive efforts at integration.

In recent decades, immigration has broughtto Norway larger and larger groups of peoplewho live by values that are at odds withWestern liberty. Is integration goingsmoothly? Far from it. Indeed, the challengesare greater than many believed just a fewyears ago.

For what is it that’s actually happening?Let’s start with immigrant children, a largepercentage of whom fall through the cracks inschool and many of whom end up in gangs ratherthan in the Labour market. In a typicalclassroom, a grand total of five Norwegianpupils may be expected to do the job ofintegrating no fewer than fifteen immigrantchildren – a virtually impossible task. Manygrandchildren of immigrants start their first dayof school without the slightest knowledge ofthe Norwegian language or Norwegian culture.An unknown number of Norwegian-born childrendon’t even get to grow up in Norway; insteadtheir families send them to their homelands(and, often, enroll them in Koran schools) andstore them there for years in order to keep

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them as far as possible from Norway and itssecular values.

Young women who want to live like theirNorwegian neighbours, who desire an educationand an active social life, and who wish toshare their lives with the people they love,can end up spending their lives on the run.Some women are under such serious threat thatthe authorities don’t see any alternativeother than to give them new identities andfind them a place to live outside of Norway’sborders. Mothers who seek to escape violent orunhappy marriages are kept on tight leashes;and those who break those leashes run the riskof being killed by their own families. Violentcrime has also risen dramatically in recentyears. Gangs terrorize and rob children andyoung people, selecting their victims atrandom. A few decades ago, the rape of a youngwoman would be a big news story; today it israre for even a gang rape to make the frontpage.

At the same time, more and more immigrantboys label girls as whores, and as honourless,because they dare to exercise the personalfreedom to which everyone in Norway issupposed to be entitled. In parts of Oslo,gays don’t dare to hold hands, for they knowthat their love might provoke some of “our newcountrymen” to commit acts of violence.Freedom of expression is also in danger. In2006, Norwegian embassies were attackedbecause a marginal Christian newspaperpublished Danish cartoons of a religiousleader who lived in the seventh century. Sincethat episode, hardly anyone in Norway hasdared to say anything critical or negative inpublic about Muhammed and Islam; such commentsare reserved for safe, private conversations.

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(Given this state of affairs, it isinteresting to note that Muhammed is now oneof the most common names for baby boys inOslo.) Today almost every fifth resident ofOslo has a non-Western background – abackground, that is, in a part of the worldwhich lacks the freedoms we treasure sohighly. Many of these new citizens live inseparate societies within mainstream society.These parallel societies are not sustainableand are dependent on steadily increasingfinancial support by Norwegian taxpayers. Thusimmigration also costs Norway dearly in money.

Unfortunately, many of the perpetrators ofassaults on individuals have their roots inthe Muslim world. The integration of Muslimsin the West faces a number of challenges.Islam’s view of women is an especiallysignificant obstacle to the integration ofMuslims in democratic Europe. Islam’sproblematic relationship to both human rightsand critical reflection also plays a role inthe development in Europe of parallel Muslimsubcultures and a Muslim underclass. For thesereasons, Islam is a major topic in this book.To be sure, to write about Islam and Muslimsis to step into a linguistic minefield. Imyself am often furious when I hear Muslimsdiscussed as if they were a single uniformgroup of people all of whom share the sameneeds, the same opinions, and the samevisions. It is not only non-Muslims who talkabout Muslims this way; Muslim spokespersonsand politicians do it, too. I could not careless whether a certain person was born Muslimor not. What is interesting to me is whetherthe person seeks to lift his or her religionout of the private sphere and into the public

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arena, and to use it as a basis for politicalactivity and the drafting of legislation.

The general term for Muslims who have suchaspirations is Islamists – they are, in otherwords, politicized Muslims. Islamism can inturn be divided into many categories. What allIslamists share is the desire to create astate run according to Islamic laws andprinciples. The main division within theIslamist camp is between those who only wishto employ words and missionary activity toachieve their goal and those who also considerpolitically motivated violence a legitimatetool. It is, of course, no secret that somemembers of other faith traditions blur theline between religion and politics – asevidenced, for example, by the opposition ofmany Christians to abortion and gay rights.But no Christian in Norway seeks to establishgender-discriminatory Christian marriage,divorce, and inheritance laws based on ancientChristian texts. By contrast, a family lawbased on religion – and at odds with humanrights in a multiplicity of ways – is a sacredgoal for Islamists.

I should mention that there is widespreaddisagreement about the proper interpretationand understanding of the concept of humanrights. The United Nations’ 1948 Declarationof Human Rights was a reaction to the massiveassaults by certain governments on groups andindividuals during World War II. Some argue,therefore, that human rights are meant, firstand foremost, to protect individuals andgroups from abuse by the state. I believe,however, that in a democratic and humanisticcountry such as Norway – where the state doesnot represent a major threat to human rights –those rights should be recognized as

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protecting the individual, in addition, fromabuse committed within families and groups.

I have spent fourteen years dealingprofessionally with a range of immigration-related issues. Today I work as informationdirector of the independent political thinktank Human Rights Service (HRS), which wasfounded in 2001 and focuses especially on theintegration of women and children withimmigrant backgrounds. At HRS we have thefreedom of not representing anybody; we workin the cause of a well-functioning democracythat is worthy of the name. In this book,however, I am speaking only for myself.

During the nine years prior to myemployment by HRS, I was a journalist andauthor. I spent more than two of these yearsin Pakistan, the non-Western country that hassent the largest number of immigrants toNorway. These years brought me much joy, notleast because of the Pakistanis’ generosityand helpfulness. Norwegians encounter greathospitality in Pakistan, and it is also easyto form close, long-term friendships with thepeople of that country. Pakistani humour –including the black humour of which so manyPakistanis are masters – is one of the thingsI most valued during my time there.

But it was also in Pakistan that I lost mypolitical and cultural innocence. I saw close-up how inhuman ideologies can systematicallydestroy individuals’ lives. And on returningto Norway I encountered at close quarters thesame collectivist and reactionary socialsystems I had observed there. In the yearssince, I have seen those social systems growever more deeply rooted.

I have always reacted to acts of injusticedirected at individuals and groups by people

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in power – no matter who those people in powerwere. In recent years, there has been a newreason to resist such abuses: a concern forthe future of secular democracy. Democracy, wemust never forget, has lasted for only a verybrief period of humanity’s very long history,and it is profoundly vulnerable. The newimmigration to the West, and the consequentgrowth in influence of religio-politicalideologies, threatens to drastically weakendemocracy’s ideological foundations.

Norwegian asylum policies are not a subjectof this book. To me, it is obvious that afree, prosperous country such as Norway shouldprovide protection to political dissidents inflight from despotic regimes. At the sametime, I also believe that we should do more tohelp people in need in the places where theylive. To tear them away from familiar andbeloved settings, and move them to entirelyalien societies where they may spend years ingovernment-run asylum centers, is not alwaysthe best solution.

Immigration itself, in my view, will be themost crucial determinant of Norway’s future.Today, the country’s asylum policy is far moreregulated than its immigration policy. Most ofour new countrymen come here as immigrants,not asylum seekers. It is immigration, inparticular, that leads to the infringement ofindividuals’ basic human rights, and thus itis immigration policy that requires a radicalchange of course. The immigration debate isalso crippled by myths and a lack of factualknowledge – a failing that has led toprejudice on the part of top politicians,social commentators, members of the media, andordinary citizens. One goal of this book,then, is to help fight those prejudices that

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have made it more difficult for people toreflect openly and critically upon theconsequences of immigration.

This book is intended to be a contributionto the debate about Norway’s – and the West’s– future. Immigration from the non-Westernworld is today’s and tomorrow’s greatestpolicy challenge. Immigration concerns you; itconcerns me; it especially concerns the non-Western immigrants in the West today. And itconcerns, not least, our children and ourchildren’s children.

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1Anooshe: A Woman in Norway

It is early morning in the Norwegiancoastal town of Kristiansund. Two cabs stopoutside the courthouse. Out of one of themstep a woman lawyer and her client, a youngwoman. A man steps out of the other while hislawyer, still inside, pays the driver. The manshoves his hand in a plastic bag. A secondlater, six shots are fired. The young,unguarded woman falls to the ground. Thekiller throws down the revolver and walks intothe police station, where he confesses to thecrime. The long-planned job has been done.Anooshe Sediq Gholam, only twenty-two and themother of two, has been executed by herestranged husband because she availed herselfof the right to divorce.

Anooshe, who was from Afghanistan, found italmost inctedible that a woman in Norway hasthe same right as her husband to dissolvetheir marriage. Anooshe had been only thirteenyears old when she was forced into a marriagebed. In Afghanistan she could hardly havedreamed of escaping the union that had beenthrust upon her. But in Norway, as she hadbeen told by workers at the refugee center,you can legally divorce. Legally divorce! Foran Afghani child bride, it was almost too goodto be true. And, as it turned out, it was toogood to be true. As her murder demonstrated,

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Afghani law and traditional Afghanipunishments apply on Norwegian soil, too.

No honour killing has made a deeperimpression on me. This was because ofAnooshi’s background – who she was as a person– and because she had contacted me the yearbefore.

A child having children

On that red-letter day in recent Norwegianhistory, Friday, 26 April 2002, I was stillworking part-time as a freelance journalist.The newspaper Dagbladet informed me that anAfghani woman had been killed, and asked me tocover the story. The year before, staffers atthe Svanviken refugee center had phoned me onAnooshe’s behalf the year before. I’d writtenan op-ed about gender-based persecution andasylum policies. Anooshe and the head of thecenter wanted advice. She had received deaththreats from her ex-husband, threats sovirulent that she was sure it was only amatter of time before he would succeed intaking her life. The head of the center wasthus considering various residencyalternatives for her. One alternative was anisland without a connecting bridge, but with alocal ferry. The idea was that any strangerwho tried to cross to the island wouldimmediately be identified by the locals andstopped.

Anooshe wasn’t worried mainly about her ownlife, she said on that occasion. She wasworried how life would be for her two smallsons when she was gone. That’s how certain shewas that all the threats weren’t empty.Anooshe also feared for her parents and hersix underage siblings. Her husband’s family

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had played a major role in the civil war underthe Taliban, she said. The family had beenrepresented in the leadership of the warlikeNorthern Alliance. They were powerful, andafter Anooshe had taken her life into her ownhands and divorced, they had threatened thelives of her nearest relatives in Afghanistan,who had therefore been forced to flee toPakistan. With intense anxiety and sincerelove in her voice, Anooshe told about herparents’ sorrow and powerlessness when herhusband’s warrior family forced them to givetheir child in marriage to “an evil andbestial” man. Anooshe saw no solution for herfather, mother, and siblings other than thatto bring them to safety in Norway.

Who was Anooshe? Born in northernAfghanistan, she was ethnically Uzbeki. Herfather was well educated, and Anooshe receivedgood schooling. She grew up in a gentle andloving family, but it had no power in theclan- and tribe-based Afghani society. Thus,when a powerful and violent warrior familydemanded the thirteen-year-old’s hand inmarriage, her family had pretty much no choicein the matter. Protests would likely have beenmet with a brutality that could have costhuman lives. Anooshe, then, was a child whohad been forced to marry a man ten years hersenior. She was a child who had children afterhaving been raped by her husband. She had herfirst child when she was only fifteen yearsold. The next year came the second, who wasborn very prematurely because of the physicalviolence to which Anooshe was subjected everyday of her life. Anooshe was still a childwhen she saw her own small children, too,being hit and kicked. And when the childrenwere only a few years old, it was their turn

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to be forced – forced to abuse their ownmother.

Anooshe moved to Norway in May 1999 withher then husband, who had decided to seekasylum there. She would then have beennineteen and a half years old. Her husband,however, told the authorities that she wastwenty-two. He wanted, Anooshe explained to meon the phone, to avoid uncomfortable questionsabout her having had children while still aminor. Her husband had two wives, but it wasAnooshe, the younger, whom he chose to takewith him to Norway. It made sense: she wasbook smart and spoke English, while he wasilliterate. Her knowledge and wisdom, hedecided, would be of value in a new society.

As a private person and journalist, Icouldn’t do anything on that occasion otherthan to refer Anooshe to a lawyer, ElisabethTørresby, who could present her case toNorwegian authorities. I never even consideredinterviewing her for a news article, not evenanonymously: she was so obviously in a life-threatening situation that could be made evenworse by public attention.

The first phone call I placed on that 26April was therefore to the Svanviken refugeecenter in the West Norway county of Møre andRomsdal. I wanted to talk to Anooshe. Perhaps,I thought, she had known the woman who waskilled, or perhaps she had importantinformation.

I was shocked when the director of thecenter, Trygve Siira, told me that themurdered woman had been Anooshe - victim of anhonour killing in Norway in the year 2002.

Clear testimony

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A letter that Anooshe had sent me justbefore the telephone conversation in 2001 waspublished in Dagbladet in its entirety on 14 May2002. Anooshe had lived in Norway for only oneyear and ten months, but had managed to writethe letter in Norwegian; two days later shewas granted asylum on account of her ex-husband’s persecution. Here are some excerptsfrom her letter:1

Hi,

I am a woman from Afghanistan. I am married to anAfghani man and have two children (…) I am very scared,and consider myself to be in danger and have manyproblems. I was thirteen years old when I was forced tomarry my ex-husband. My family and I were forced tomarry me off to him. Because my husband and his familyand his seven uncles were powerful and rich people in thetown that we lived in there (…) All of them were generalsand worked in the government in Afghanistan. (…) Whenthey said that I had to marry him, my father was againstit. (…) My father had reason to be against it. The firstreason was that I was a girl of thirteen, and didn’t knowanything about marriage or such things, and the secondreason was that he and his family were illiterate, andalmost the whole town knew that they had no humanityand were like animals.

1 I have corrected some errors in usage and sentenceconstruction; otherwise the letter is just asAnooshe wrote it. The entire letter [in the originalNorwegian – trans.] can be read at Dagbladet.no and onthe Human Rights Service website, rights.no.

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My husband’s uncle has six wives, and all of them,like me, were forced into marriage. (…) They pressuredand threatened the girls’ families, and said that if thefamilies didn’t agree, they’d kill them. My husband’s unclehad killed one girl’s father, who didn’t want his daughterto marry him.

It is terrible in Afghanistan. In particular they’re sostrict with women. Those with power and money makedecisions about other people’s lives. Therefore my familyfeared that perhaps my father, too, would be killed if hesaid no to the marriage, after I was raped. (…) I grew upin an intelligent, kind family. If my father had not beenthreatened by my husband and his family, he would neverhave married me to him, my husband.

(…) He slept with me against my will. I was onlythirteen, and was unaware of all these things. I can’t findthe words to describe hard and difficult things, and whathas happened to me. I have only prayed to God that Iwould die, but God didn’t listen to me.

(…) He began to hit me after two months ofmarriage. He has threatened me with weapons, and hehas said that he would shoot me (…) every single day Ihad wounds on my body (…) My life was an endless roundof abuse, beating, shoving (…) I couldn’t sleep at nightand live out the day in peace. When he wasn’t home it washis family that threatened me and his brothers who hitme. I have lost all the good things and joys and the funtimes that a girl of thirteen experiences.

(…) When I was fifteen, I had my first son. It was sodifficult to raise a child and look after him all by myself,but I looked after him anyway, while I was abused by myhusband. I think my in-laws had hearts of stone. Theydidn’t have love or any feelings for one another, or forothers. They were inhuman …

I had never thought that I might be able to divorcehim one day, and live a new and safe life in peace. If Iwere in my country I wouldn’t have been able to leavehim, because in Afghanistan people have the worstculture (…) Women have no opportunities in my country

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(…) no opportunity to divorce. If they do it they’re killed bytheir husband or his family.

I believe that I am lucky to live in a country that hashumanity, and a country where people can tell right fromwrong.

When we came to Norway I had not decided to leavehim (…) When we lived at the refugee center in Oslo, hebegan to hit me even more. And said to me that I mustn’tthink that I’m in Norway and that I’m free or that I canmake my own decisions (…) therefore he hit me everysingle day, and the children, and said that we mustn’t tellanybody about it (…) or he would cut me up into smallpieces and throw me in the trash.

Eventually I started taking a Norwegian course (…)When I was in the course I met many other women, andwe talked together. He was scared, because I might meetother people in the course and learn more aboutNorwegian law and leave him. Then he abused me veryroughly, and I had to tell him whom I talked with in thecourse and what we talked about every day. He burnedme by throwing boiling water on me, and hit me with ahard, heavy bicycle lock (…) then I couldn’t take it anymore (…) I would have been glad if he had killed me atonce, it would have been better than dying every day.

It wasn’t easy to leave such a man, but I did itanyway for my children’s sake. I didn’t know then that Iwas placing my family in great danger (…) He threatens tokill my father or my brothers. He told me that I had tothink of my future. He would get his revenge at some timeand place, because I had made a huge mistake. And hesaid that if I loved my family, I had to come back to him.But I would not go back to that hell, and I know that hewill kill when he gets his hands on me.

I don’t see any solution to this.I am very scared of losing my family. I’ve talked with

the police and with the Norwegian Directorate ofImmigration, and those who work in this center where Ilive, and I asked them to help me. But they say that theycan’t do anything.

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I heard about you, and decided to write to you andask for help. I hope you can read my letter andunderstand what I mean and how hard I have it. I wouldlike very much to get in touch with you in order to getgood advice (…) Please help me.

Anooshe Sediq Gholam, 19March 2001

I think this letter is our era’s mostimportant and clearest testimony to thecruelest brand of inhumanity that women canbring with them when they come to the West,and to the fact that this inhumanity persistsin homes not far from our own.

What a loss Anooshe’s death was for Norway!She could have made a real difference.

“Do we dare to take her in?”

In the wake of the honour killing, I wascontacted by several of Anooshe’s neighboursin Rabben, a residential neighbourhood in thetiny township of Eide, population 3200. Theytold me about the meeting to which they’d beensummoned by local officials before Anooshemoved in. At the meeting they were told that awoman with two children was to be their newneighbour, and that she had received suchserious death threats that she needed thelocal community’s protection. Were theywilling to step forward? Would they take herinto their homes, into their hearts? Wouldthey risk the possibility that they might oneday grieve her death?

Several were hesitant. But they stepped upto the plate anyway. On Friday, 26 April 2002,there were many who regretted it. Theyregretted it because they’d fallen in love

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with the unusually good and wise Anooshe, andalso with her boys. Anooshe’s sons had becometheir children’s best friends. Their pain overthe loss gnawed at them every day.

Anooshe was a remarkable woman in manyways. She integrated herself in record time.She wanted to live in modern democratic Norwaywith both her head and heart. She beganattending secondary school. Her plan was tobecome a doctor, and according to her teacherthis was not an unrealistic dream. Theneighbours incorporated Anooshe quickly intotheir private and social lives. Theycelebrated holidays together. They sharedAnooshe’s dreams, and they shared her sorrowsand hard times. Anooshe also told some of herneighbours about her marriage. Not just aboutthe violence she’d suffered, but about theviolence directed against her children, andabout how the children had been pressured todiscipline her, their own mother. Theneighbours also knew that her husband had beenfined after being reported to the police forviolent behavior, and that he had beenimprisoned for violating a restraining order.

More than a few times while Anooshe hadlived in secret (supposedly) at the refugeecenter in Svanviken, she had had to be takeninto hiding because her husband had beenobserved in the area. Most likely, he hadtracked her down with the help of others likehimself. Anooshe feared that he would try tokidnap her children and take them to Iran orAfghanistan, thus putting pressure on her tofollow. In those countries, no judgment ispassed on a man who kills a disobedient wife –especially not a woman who has taken her lifeentirely into her own hands by divorcing himagainst his will. Apprised of all this,

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Anooshe’s neighbours did what they hadpromised the police during the meeting withlocal officials: they kept a close eye onstrangers who turned up in the area.

For security reasons, Anooshe wastransported by car to her Norwegian class. Oneday, driving through Eide in the car, she sawher husband. Yes, there was a very good reasonwhy Anooshe didn’t take part in publiccelebrations. It wasn’t a question of notwanting to; it was because she feared that herhusband or his co-conspirators might be hidingin the crowd.

How was it that a man who represented sucha threat to Anooshe and her children could bepermitted to take legal action to ensure hisparental rights? Anooshe didn’t understandhow the Norwegian democracy she had come toknow would afford her husband such anopportunity. As it turned out, it wasprecisely this that led to her death. When shestepped out of the car with her lawyer,Elisabeth Tørresby, at about 8:30 thatmorning, she was about to attend a child-custody hearing. Not a single police officerwas there to protect her. The pistol her ex-husband pointed at her was loaded withammunition that is intended for hunting andthat isn’t even allowed to be used in war. Itis manufactured in such a way as to cause thegreatest possible damage. When the shots werefired, Anooshe was halfway turned away fromher husband. Apparently she didn’t see thepistol pointed at her. She died on the spot.

“Impossible not to love Anooshe”

A few hours after the murder, armed policeofficers turned up in peaceful Eide. They

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feared that Anooshe’s ex-husband had co-collaborators who would kidnap Anooshe’s boys,aged six and seven. The police took uppositions outside the township’s governmentbuilding, the grade school, and the daynursery. On 28 April 2003, the mayor of Eide,Oddbjørn Silteth, described the police actionas follows: “They tried to be anonymous, butit’s not so easy in a place like this. It wasa bit special. In fact it reminded me of thewar.”

Anooshe’s boys were taken underground.During the first days after the murder, theywere protected by the police twenty-four hoursa day. None of the neighbours were told wherethey were; they were only assured that theboys were safe. Through local officials, theywere able to send the boys letters and gifts.The boys were given new identities and a newhome, which may or may not be in Norway.

Anooshe’s memorial service took place atthe church in Eide on 7 May 2002. It was therethat her neighbours got a last glimpse of herchildren. There was an extensive policepresence at the service, both because of thedanger of kidnapping and because a Muslimgroup had called for a demonstration toprotest Anooshe’s burial in Christian ground.Despite the danger of kidnapping, Anooshe’ssons sat in the front pew, guarded by police.Each of the two little boys placed a red roseon his mother’s casket. With a heart-shapedwreath of white roses, the boys said a lastthank-you to her.

The church was virtually packed. “It wasimpossible not to love Anooshe,” one womantold me. The woman had worked with refugees inKristiansund, Anooshe’s first home in Norway,

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and had made the long trip to Eide along withcolleagues to say a final farewell.

During the brief time she had beenpermitted to live in Norway, Anooshe had lefta clear mark on the people she met. In hisremarks at the memorial service, the pastoralso mentioned how easy it had been to loveAnooshe: “Anooshe had become one of us here inEide, our fellow human being, whom many hadcome to love.” Neighbours, friends,classmates, and teachers who spoke at theservice agreed.

The verdict

Shortly after the murder, I contacted oneof Norway’s leading experts on Muslimcultures, Walid al-Kubaisi, an author andrefugee from Baghdad. He was in no doubt aboutthe killer’s motive. On 28 April 2003, heexplained to Dagbladet: “Anooshe was a Muslimwoman with children. By getting a divorce inNorway, she challenged Islam’s sharia lawabout obedience to one’s husband. Sheprotested against her husband, and she soughtto join the Norwegians’ – the infidels’ –society, which has a different honour code.Therefore her husband probably thought thatshe might sleep with men outside of marriage,since this isn’t considered immoral inNorwegian culture. This, in turn, would makehis sons the children of a whore; and this isenough to provoke a conservative Muslim man tocommit murder.”

Another man in Norway with roots in thesame cultural region as Anooshe only dared tospeak out anonymously, and he explained themurder as follows: “As the children’s father,

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Shamsi [the ex-husband] can never accept thatthe boys have been taken from him and thatthey are growing up with people who aren’tMuslims. Norwegians live, as he sees it,without morals.” That Anooshe had left herhusband in the summer of 2000, he furtherexplained, could be considered an act oftreachery: “An Afghani Muslim woman has noright to divorce and to have her own life. Ifshe does, she is considered a whore. Byleaving her husband against his will,moreover, she violates her obligation to obeyher husband. He loses face.” That Anooshelived among Norwegians was viewed as apostasy,this source believed; and under sharia law,apostasy is punished by death. This man alsomaintained that the ex-husband’s family inAfghanistan knew that Anooshe was dead beforethe shots were fired – meaning that the murderhad been ordered at the highest levels of thefamily in Afghanistan, and that the ex-husbandhad carried out his obligation to his familyby firing those shots in Kristiansund. Themurder, then, was the result of a collectivesentencing.

In his way, then, Anooshe’s ex-husband,too, was a victim – even though his fate can’tbe compared at all, of course, with Anooshe’ssuffering and death. He was the product of aculture in which individuals are brought upwithin rigid boundaries, and in which there isvirtually no room for empathy with those whocross those boundaries. All he knew was thatas a Muslim husband, his job was to enforcehis authority. Hence he had two alternativesto choose from: either set Anooshe free andparticipate fully in Norwegian society –thereby losing respect and status among hisown people – or kill Anooshe and then continue

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to live in the conservative Afghani Muslimsubculture in Norway.

The year after the honour killing, anappeals court sentenced Anooshe’s ex-husbandto eighteen years in prison for premeditatedmurder. The court’s written verdict describedhim as a vulnerable and unstable person. Buthis level of awareness before and during themurder was high. During the murder itself,aggression was more conspicuous than despair.The verdict stated that he could not acceptbeing abandoned – something he himself hadexplained during the criminal proceedings. Areport from the refugee center at Eide wasalso presented during the introduction ofevidence. It said that he had reacted to thefact that Anooshe had shown her wounded bodyto a male doctor and a male police officer. Hehad called her a whore, and said she hadprobably slept with everybody in Eide. Itturned out, then, that Walid al-Kubaisi’sassessment of the motive for the murder hadbeen right on the money.

The verdict further stated that whenAnooshe had left her husband, he had felt notonly despair, but also shame and humiliation.His oppressive Afghani view of women, thecourt believed, made it impossible for him toaccept Anooshe’s liberation; her conduct madehim feel that he had been “brought down to alower social level by his young wife.” Theappeals court called the murder a plannedexecution.

The sentence was appealed to the SupremeCourt. It refused to hear the case. It notedthat Anooshe had managed to adapt to Norwegiansociety: she had wanted an education, wantedfreedom of movement, wanted an escape from thestrict regimen for women prescribed by her

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homeland’s traditions. Anooshe’s liberation,wrote the Supreme Court, had “exposed her tothe danger of being killed in accordance withlongstanding local traditions fromAfghanistan.” The Court further noted thatimmigrants who choose to conduct themselves inaccordance with Norwegian society’s norms havethe right to the protection of the law.

Anooshe’s ex-husband was ordered to paydamages of 300,000 kroner to each of hischildren, Baborsha and Sharokh, for havingdeprived them of the woman they themselvescalled “the world’s best mother.”2

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2

Marriage Immigration

Anooshe and her children came to Norway asrefugees and applied for residency here. Mostnon-Westerners who settle in Norway, however,have come here through marriage. Let us take alook at who the immigrants in Norway are.

The immigrant population in numbers

Today there are immigrants living in everytownship in Norway. In recent years, abouttwenty thousand new immigrants have settled inNorway every year. Given that Norway’spopulation is about four and a half million,this corresponds roughly to an annual influxinto the U.S. of 1.3 million people. Annualimmigration through so-called familyreunification – which usually means importingspouses, sometimes with children – has inrecent years amounted to approximatelythirteen to fifteen thousand persons. Aboutthree-quarters of the immigrants to Norwaycome through family reunification, while onefourth come as refugees. Norway accepts aboutone thousand quota refugees per year throughthe U.N.; the other refugees come on theirown, and are either accorded asylum status orgranted residency on humanitarian grounds (or

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are placed under the category “otherprotection”).

The total number of immigrants in Norway isnow 386,000. This represents 8.3 percent ofthe nation’s total population, according toStatistics Norway’s figures for 2006. The non-Western population is 285,000, whichrepresents 6.1 percent of the population. Thenumber of Western immigrants is 101,400, or2.2 percent of the population. The immigrantpopulation is rising steadily as a proportionof the total. In 2002, immigrants only made up6.9 percent of the population.

For Statistics Norway, the “immigrantpopulation” consists of immigrants themselvesand their Norwegian-born children. The so-called “third generation” – which consists ofindividuals one or both of whose parents wereborn in Norway – is defined in the statisticsin Norwegian. Although Norwegians havetraditionally referred to all descendants ofimmigrants as immigrants, Statistics Norwaydoes not do so, because it assumes thatintegration will take place naturally overtime, and that people whom many Norwegianswould call “third-generation immigrants” canthus not be characterized as immigrants. AsStatistics Norway demographer Lars Østby saidin Klassekampen on September 6, 2003, “If aperson in 2033 has a bunch of Pakistani great-grandfathers, I won’t be able to have a basisfor saying that this person will beparticularly different from my great-grandchildren.” A total of 180,000 currentNorwegian residents were born in Norway andhave one foreign-born parent, which means thatthey fall outside of the statistics citedabove. Statistics on the number of “second-

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generation” couples that have had children arenot released to the public.

The country that has given Norway thelargest number of non-Western immigrants isPakistan; today the number of individuals inthis group is 27,700. No non-Western group haslived in Norway longer than Pakistanis, andtherefore, naturally enough, the “secondgeneration” is largest among Pakistanis. Owingto high immigration levels from Iraq in recentyears, however, the number of “first-generation” Iraqis now exceeds the number of“first-generation” Pakistanis. Iraqis are nowthe second largest non-Western group in Norway(20,100), followed by Vietnamese (18,300),Somalis (18,000), Bosnians (14,800), Iranians(14,400), Turks (14,100), and people fromSerbia and Montenegro (12,900). Withoutquestion, it is the Somali community that hasexperienced the largest growth during the lastfive years, from 10,100 to 18,000.

While the numbers of Swedes, Danes, andBritishers living in Norway have held stableduring the past few years, the non-Westernpopulation has increased steadily, and thenumber of non-Western children and youngpeople is high.3 Statistics Norway explainsthese differences largely by pointing not onlyto the group’s length of residency in Norwaybut also to various nationalities’ marriagepatterns.

3 I’m not taking into account here the new situationinvolving such matters as residency permits andfamily reunification for Poles and other Europeangroups, since immigration within the EuropeanEconomic Community is not a topic of this book.

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Almost every fourth person in the townshipof Oslo, or 123,900 people in all (23 percentof the township’s population), is now a first-or second-generation immigrant. Westernimmigrants constitute four percent of Oslo’spopulation, while non-Westerners make upnineteen percent. In the neighbourhood ofSøndre Nordstrand, 41 percent of the residentsare immigrants, the great majority of themnon-Western. Statistics from 2006 that werepublished in Aften on 15 June 2006, show thatnon-Western immigrants account for 86 percentof the capital’s growth during the last tenyears: of the almost 50,000 new residents,only 4,000 are ethnic Norwegians. After Oslo,Drammen is the township with the highestpercentage of immigrants, almost 18 percent.

The marital route to Norway

Marriage is at the heart of the immigrationpolicy challenge, because marriage is the mainroute to Norway. It’s by far the simplest wayto immigrate, and also the fastest way toattain Norwegian citizenship. After threeyears of cohabitation, one can beindependently granted permanent residency, andafter four more years of cohabitation, one canapply for Norwegian citizenship. Labourimmigrants can apply for citizenship afterseven years’ residency.

About 75 percent of all those who immigrateto Norway come through so-called reunificationwith persons in Norway. An adult can bereunified with someone to whom he or she wasmarried before emigrating, and with whom he orshe may have children. Most of those who come,however, are newly married to a person livingin Norway. An important question is: Whom do

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immigrants in Norway marry and bring toNorway? The statistics tell an unambiguousstory of the one-way shipping of spouses.4 Inother words: one person leaves; two peoplecome back.

The most important statistics concern thenine-year period 1996-2004. Let us firstexamine the marriages in the largest immigrantgroup in Norway, the Pakistanis.

Of those Pakistani-Norwegians who marriedduring this period, 75 percent of the first-generation men and 74 percent of the first-generation women married in Pakistan.5

Eighteen percent of the men and 23 percent ofthe women married an ethnic Norwegian. Threepercent of the men and one percent of thewomen married a person of another nationalorigin living in Norway.

Second-generation Norwegian-Pakistani girlsand boys married people of the same nationalorigin at an even higher rate than did membersof their parents’ generation. Seventy-sixpercent of the boys who married during theperiod were married in Pakistan; for thegirls, the figure is 77 percent. Twentypercent of the boys and 21 percent of thegirls married a Norwegian-Pakistani in Norway.Three percent of the boys and one percent ofthe girls married a Norwegian. The samepercentages married individuals with otherbackgrounds. The year 2004 was a record yearfor both boys and girls: fully 80 percent ofthe marriages were with individuals inPakistan. Of the exactly 100 boys who marriedthat year, only one married a Norwegian girl.Of the 91 girls who married, only one marrieda Norwegian boy.

Over the years, it has often been claimedthat the marriage pattern would change between

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the first and second generation. Thehypothesis is that the children of immigrantswill, in much higher numbers than theirparents, get married in Norway to people withnational backgrounds different from their own.The underlying assumption is that the longer apopulation group has lived in Norway, thebetter integrated it will be: in both thesocial and professional spheres, the childrenof immigrants will meet ethnic Norwegians andfind partners, and the marriage pattern willchange. Immigrant groups will increasinglymelt together with both the majoritypopulation and one another, and marriageacross cultural and religious lines willbecome common. Among non-Western groups,Pakistanis have lived in Norway the longest,and thus, according to this hypothesis, shouldthus have gone the furthest of any grouptoward being absorbed into mainstream society.One can safely maintain that this hypothesishas so far proven wrong.6

The hypothesis is also wrong as regardsanother large group that has been in Norwaynearly as long as the Pakistanis – namely, theTurks. Among Norwegian-Turks as amongNorwegian-Pakistanis, members of the secondgeneration marry members of their own ethnicgroup to an even greater extent than domembers of the first generation, their spousesbeing resident either in Norway or in Turkey.They also marry Norwegians less often than domembers of the first generation. Between 1996and 2004, 77 percent of first-generationTurkish women married in Turkey, 13 percentmarried a Turk in Norway, three percentmarried a man in Norway with a differentnational origin, and eight percent married anethnic Norwegian. In the second generation,

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the respective figures are 74 percent, 20percent, three percent, and three percent.Among men, too, there are many more in thefirst than in the second generation who havemarried a Norwegian. Second-generation Turksare more likely to marry within their owngroup than are first-generation Turks, andmost of them marry spouses whom they bring toNorway from Turkey.

Almost identical patterns are found amongNorwegian Moroccans and Indians, both of whichgroups also have long histories of residencein Norway. For most of the countries of originrepresented in Norwegian statistics, thepercentage of spouses brought over from abroadhas been high and stable during the entirenine-year period. The rates of fetchingmarriages have in fact risen in the largestimmigrant groups, which first began toemigrate to Norway nearly forty years ago. Thesame applies to new groups, such as men fromBosnia, Gambia, India, Eritrea, Ethiopia,Somalia, Serbia and Montenegro, Sri Lanka, andVietnam. Similar increases are found amongwomen from Bosnia, Chile, Iraq, Iran, Serbiaand Montenegro, Somalia, Sri Lanka, andVietnam.

Fetching marriage is about several things.One major factor in its popularity is thedesire of non-Westerners in Norway to helpboth relatives and non-relatives in theirancestral homelands to achieve prosperity inthe West. The pressure to emigrate in thosehomelands is strong. Another factor isimmigrants’ opposition to marrying outsidetheir respective groups. A third factor isimmigrants’ desire to ensure the preservationand perpetuation in Norway of the culture andthe social and religious values of their

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homelands. A fourth factor is immigrants’close ties to their countries of origin, wheremany of them own significant amounts ofproperty. Many of them, in fact, livementally, as it were, in their country oforigin, with Norway serving only as aneconomic base. Modern transportation enables anumber of them to commute, in effect, betweencontinents – a way of life that wasimpossible, of course, for Norwegians whoemigrated to the U.S. a hundred or more yearsago.

There is a widespread myth that needs to bedispelled. Statistics Norway, leadingpoliticians, and others maintain that it isnot immigrants but ethnic Norwegian men whoenter into the most fetching marriages.7 Thereason why they make this claim is that theyseek to make the problems involving non-Western marriage patterns seem less seriousthan they are. But what enables them to makethis claim is that they include in theirstatistics Norwegians’ marriages to Swedes,Danes, and other Europeans. Such marriages, ofcourse, are not pro forma or arranged byfamilies, and the expectations for thespouses’ integration are very good. To besure, many marriages between Norwegian men andwomen from poor countries such as Thailand,the Philippines, and Russia, as well as theBaltic countries, may be suspect, but thenumber of marriages with these groups is farlower than the number of fetching marriagesamong non-Western immigrants.8

Marrying relatives – a ticket to Norway

The public discussion of several subjectsassociated with immigration and integration

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has been plagued by a lack of empiricalevidence. I am thinking especially of mattersrelating to children and women, as well associal and family structures. But thanks to aninitiative conceived of by personnel at theNorwegian embassy in Pakistan, we now know farmore about the brand-new spouses who come toNorway from countries like Pakistan.9

During the year and a half from thebeginning of 2004 to mid 2005, 436 Pakistanisapplied to immigrate to Norway after marryingNorwegian-Pakistanis. Almost 60 percent of theapplicants told the Norwegian embassy thatthey were related to their new spouses.Thirty-four percent were first cousins, 11percent were second cousins, and 12 percentwere more distantly related.

Sixty percent percent said that theirmarriages had been arranged by their families.Six percent said it had been their own idea,and three percent said they had used a so-called matchmaker, such as a marriage agency.Seventeen percent said they didn’t know whowas behind their marriage. But how many saidthat they had married out of love? Threepercent.

Many were young when they married. Almost50 percent of the spouses in Norway were undertwenty-three years old at the time of theirmarriages. Eleven of them were under eighteen.In 2004, one Norwegian-Pakistani partner wasfourteen years old when that individual’sprospective spouse in Pakistan applied for anengagement visa. In eight out of twentyengagements, either the Norwegian or thePakistani party was underage.10 The agedifference between the spouses ranged up to 40years.

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The educational level of the spouses inPakistan tended to be low. Seventeen percenthad less than five years of schooling or noneat all. Thirty-one percent had finished lowersecondary school, and 39 percent had completedupper secondary school. Only ten percent hadany higher education.

It is among this ten percent with highereducation that the fewest marriages torelatives take place. And it is among thosewith the least schooling that the mostmarriages to close relatives take place.Seventy percent of those with less than fiveyears of schooling, or none at all, married arelative. Sixty-five percent of those who hadcompleted lower secondary school married arelative; for those who had completed uppersecondary school, the figure dropped to 52percent. Among those with higher education,the percentage is 38. The embassy’s figuresalso showed that the less schooling thepartner in Pakistan had had, the more likelyit was that his or her spouse would be a firstcousin.

Honour killing awakens Scandinavia

The year 2002 marked a turning point in theScandinavian integration debate. The reason:two honour killings.

First Fadime Sahindal was killed in Uppsalaon 21 January. Fadime’s father shot herbecause he believed she had dishonoured him bymarrying a Swedish-Iraqi man named Patrik.(Her father had wanted her to marry a cousinin Turkey.) On TV, in newspaper interviews,and even in a speech to the SwedishParliament, Fadime had spokenstraightforwardly about her life and death

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struggle to live with the man she loved. Shetalked about death threats and about theoppressive values that left their mark notonly on her life but also on the lives of somany other immigrant girls and women inSweden. These public appearances onlyintensified her father’s feeling that he hadlost his honour and respectability among hisown people. Fadime was banished from herimmediate family and the Kurdish community.Before she was to leave Sweden to beginstudies abroad, her mother and siblingsvisited her to say goodbye. With this visit,she entered the “territory” to which the menof her family had forbidden her access. It wasthis that motivated her father to take uparms.

Fadime’s murder shook all of Scandinavia,perhaps especially because public warning hadbeen given that she would be killed. Indeed,the victim herself had warned that it wouldhappen. Thanks to all the TV pictures andnewspaper interviews of Fadime, who had been avivid presence among us, she didn’t become –like so many others – a faceless name and anunheard voice.

It was three months after Fadime’s murderthat Anooshe was shot in Krustiansund. For thepublic in general, and especially for somesegments of the media and the politicalestablishment, these events served as a wake-up call. As a result, assaults on girls andwomen with non-Western backgrounds were givena higher priority on the government agenda.Debates on the subject filled the opinionpages. Young women with non-Westernbackgrounds went to the barricades in bothNorway and Sweden and bravely recounted theirexperiences. They demanded to be taken

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seriously; they demanded political action.11

They demanded the same freedoms, the sameright to self-determination, as ethnicNorwegian and Swedish women. And not least,they demanded the freedom to live with thosethey really loved.

Mina makes contact

Most Scandinavians now recognized thatimmigrant women may be running a serious riskif they violate cultural and religious norms.One sign of this recognition was a phone callI received in the summer of 2002 from ahospital physician who wanted advice. He wasdesperate: he was treating a patient who’dbeen abused by her husband. Now she was aboutto be released. But to what? She couldn’treturn home to her abuser, and she didn’t wantto go to a crisis center. She had explained tothe doctor that in the eyes of her people –not just her extended family but her entirecommunity – the crisis centers were“whorehouses.” Muslim women, they believed,should be under the supervision of the men intheir families. The woman had told the doctorabout death threats she had received frommembers of her immediate family. The doctor,it was clear, grasped the seriousness of thesituation.

I spoke briefly on the telephone with thewoman, whom I will call Mina. By purecoincidence, it turned out that we had meteach other outside her apartment in an Oslosuburb the year before. When I had noticed, onthat occasion, that she was of Pakistaniorigin, I had been moved to strike up aconversation, and with her husband at her sideMina and I had chatted together for several

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minutes. She got a kick out of the fact that Iwas familiar with the Pakistani village of herbirth. Speaking to me on the telephone in thesummer of 2002, she was glad to discover thatwe had this slight acquaintance: for her, myfamiliarity with Pakistani culture wascomforting. She insisted that we meet: shewanted to tell me about her situation, receivesome support, and come up with solutions. Thedoctor had arranged a place for her at acrisis center. There was no alternative. Minawanted me to come there.12

The next day I met her outside the crisiscenter. Mina had not taken a chance that herextended family might pass judgment on herdecision to live at a “whorehouse.” Insteadshe’d sought shelter at the home of her olderbrothers the night before, and her niece haddriven with her to the crisis center. We saton a bench with our backs to the wall of thebuilding for a couple of hours while Minatalked. She made it absolutely clear thatshe’d reached her limit. She wanted to go hometo her children, and wanted her husband out ofthe house. The violence in the marriage hadlasted for fourteen years. She’d had enough.She wanted to get a divorce and live in peace.

While we sat on the bench, Mina took out aphoto of herself to prove the seriousness ofthe violence to which she’d been subjected.The photo, which had been taken at a hospitaltwelve years earlier, showed her roughed up tothe point of being unrecognizable. She hadlost count of how many times she had beenabused in that fashion.

The death threats begin

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Mina definitely needed a lawyer to initiatedivorce and child custody proceedings, arrangefor the division of assets, and pursue anylegal action against her husband. And whatabout their home? She had gone to the crisiscenter against her will, and had stayed therefor several days; then, after being pressuredby her brothers, she had moved in under their“honour-protecting wings.” Once again she hadcome under severe pressure to give her husbandanother chance. No woman in the family, shewas told, had ever divorced of her ownvolition. What was implied in this, Minaexplained to me, was that if she divorcedagainst her husband’s will, she would send asignal to other women in her extended familythat they, too, could escape.

The pressure on Mina had soon escalatedinto threats to (for example) break her armsand legs. Then her husband, his brothers, andMina’s eldest brother had made explicit deaththreats. During this time, Mina had hardlyever been permitted to speak with her childrenon the phone. She had been able to spend sometime with a couple of them, but the others hadbeen kept completely apart from her. It wasclear that they were being manipulated in themost serious way. Several of them expressedoutright hostility to Mina and called her a“whore.” Even the smallest child, who was allof five years old, talked to her like this.

During the first meeting I had with Mina,she rattled off the names of several malerelatives – brothers-in-law, cousins, brothers– who had threatened her life. It wasimpossible for me to follow it all. In orderto give me a handle on who was who, and alsowith thought to Mina’s security, we decided toput together a family tree. As it turned out,

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Mina’s family tree not only gave me anoverview of her extended family – it painted avivid picture of the practical consequences ofNorwegian immigration policy.

How they came to Norway

Mina’s family tree first took root inNorway in 1973 when her father, whom I willcall Ahmed, left his Pakistani village to workin Norway. Contrary to the erroneous claimsthat are still made by many pundits,journalists, and editors today, neither Ahmednor any other non-Western persons were invitedby the Norwegian government to work in Norway.No: they came of their own accord – andNorwegian officials were caught napping.

This became clear in the summer of 1971,when so-called Pakistani “tourists” receivedextensive coverage in the press. That summer,young and middle-aged Pakistani men on touristvisas were roaming the streets, almost on theverge of starvation. Many had been broughthere by smugglers in Germany. They weren’talone. Many Moroccans, Turks, and men fromvarious African countries had also come toNorway on tourist visas. Under the law as itexisted at that time, they should have beensent home at once because they hadn’t comehere with working permits. But cabinet memberOddvar Nordli, on behalf of the Labour Partygovernment, allowed the law to be overlookedand gave the men working permits even thoughthey were already in the country. The idea wasthat these poor men should be permitted toearn the money they needed to buy planetickets home, thus sparing Norwegian taxpayersthe expense.13 History shows that something

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entirely different happened. Officials closedtheir eyes, and the men stayed.

In 1971, 990 Pakistanis, 450 Moroccans, and390 Turks were living legally in Norway. In1975, when a formal stop was put to Labourimmigration to Norway, over 3,700 Pakistanis,600 Moroccans, and 1100 Turks had receivedwork and residency permits.14 Among them wasAhmed, Mina’s father.

After working in Norway for five years,Ahmed brought over his wife and children underthe rules permitting reunification with one’simmediate family. Ahmed had ten children inhis native village. Two of the sons were overeighteen years old, and thus too old to bereunified with him under the law. But Ahmedbrought ten children over anyway: he adoptedtwo of the sons of a brother of his who wasstill living back in the family’s homevillage.

During the 1980s, Ahmed’s children reachedmarriageable age. Thereupon began themigration of new spouses from Pakistan toNorway. First out of the gate was Ahmed’soldest son, who was paired off with a femalecousin of his back in their home village.Second son, same procedure. The firstmarriageable daughter was hooked up with amale cousin in the village. Of Ahmed’s tenchildren, nine married cousins in his homevillage. All of the cousins immigrated toNorway. When the tenth daughter was ready tomarry, there was no marriage-ready male cousinavailable in the village, so she was marriedoff to another man from the village, who thenimmigrated to Norway.

After a few years, one of Ahmed’s sonsdivorced and was married again, this time to aclose relative in the village. She, too,

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immigrated to Norway. Hence Ahmed’s tenchildren yielded eleven marriage immigrations,nine of them with cousins.

It didn’t stop there. Mina’s husband hadfive brothers left in the village. Even thoughMina’s husband had been illiterate when hecame to Norway, he had figured out quicklyenough how best to exploit Norwegianimmigration policy. He met a Norwegian womanwho had, shall we say, limited socialprospects. He made an arrangement with her,and one day they traveled together toPakistan, where she wed a man twenty years herjunior – Mina’s husband’s brother.

At this point, Ahmed’s ten children hadyielded twelve marriage immigrations.

After Mina’s husband’s brother had beenmarried for four years to the much olderNorwegian woman, he won the right to Norwegiancitizenship. What did he do? He divorced,just as Mina had predicted he would, andmarried a cousin of his in the family’s homevillage to whom he had been engaged sincechildhood. She immigrated to Norway.15

Ahmed’s ten children had now yieldedthirteen marriage immigrations.

Mina’s husband repeated the successfulprocess for another brother of his in thefamily’s home village. This time he found aNorwegian woman who, like his as yet unmarriedbrother, was in her early twenties. She, too,had limited social prospects.16 A little overfour years after the marriage, the man becamea Norwegian citizen. What did he do then?Exactly what Mina had predicted that he, too,would do: he divorced the Norwegian woman andmarried the cousin to whom he had been engagedsince he was a child. The cousin immigrated toNorway.

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Ahmed’s ten children had now yieldedfourteen marriage immigrations.

Mina’s husband decided to repeat thesuccessful procedure for a third brother inthe village. But this time Norwegianauthorities put a stop to it. The thirdbrother could not speak a word of English;thus the “married couple” didn’t have a sharedlanguage in which they could communicate. The“marriage” was rejected as being withoutfoundation.

But Mina’s husband knew what to do. Howabout finding a divorced woman or widow inNorway with Pakistani origins? Then thecouple would have a common language, and ifthey didn’t meet before the wedding day itwouldn’t matter to Norwegian authorities,since arranged marriages were legitimategrounds for immigration. The plan was put intoeffect, and the marriage was recognized asvalid in Norway. At this writing, the thirdbrother is counting the days until he getsNorwegian citizenship and can divorce hisNorwegian wife.

Ahmed’s ten children had now yieldedfifteen marriage immigrations.

Mina’s husband, from whom she was nowdivorced, no longer had five brothers left inhis native village. He had two. He took abreak from arranging marriages for others and,as Mina predicted, traveled to the villagehimself and married a woman seventeen yearshis junior. She moved to Norway in 2006.

Ahmed’s ten children had now yieldedsixteen marriage immigrations.

The genealogical chart and the familyhistory behind it have been thoroughlydocumented by means of official records in thenational register and conversations with the

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police, Mina, the Norwegian women, and manyothers. The story told here is the reality ofNorway today. And the history isn’t over.

Ahmed’s grandchildren: is integrationimproving?

Today several of Ahmed’s grandchildren areof marriageable age. One might imagine that asa result of integration they would marrypeople born in Norway. So far, four of themhave married. Three were sent to the familyvillage in Pakistan to marry their cousins,who have immigrated to Norway.

One of Ahmed’s grandchildren refused tomarry a cousin from the village. I will callher Nadia. At one time, I had just under ahundred text messages from Nadia stored on mycell phone, most of them sent at night from alonely soul shivering under her blanket.17 Themessages were about being threatened with (forexample) “being stabbed all over your face,”about her younger brother calling her a whore,about her mother going to bed and playing deadto pressure her into marrying. The messagestold of threats from her family to kill her ifher mother died, of hospital visits for thetreatment of neck and head wounds sustained inbeatings, of her father’s statement that he“would rather die than live if she marriedoutside the family’s house in the village,” ofnightly nightmares about being killed. And themessages communicate her hope that she mightsomeday be able to marry a Pakistani man inNorway with whom she was in love, that the twoof them might be able to live in peace withoutfear of what tomorrow might bring in terms ofthreats and violence, and that she might not,after all, be turned out her family – a family

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that, in spite of everything, she was closelybound to and still loved – should she chooseto follow her heart.

In the end, Nadia was compelled to breakoff relations with her family in order toescape marrying her cousin. Instead, shemarried the Norwegian-Pakistani man whom sheloved, and who was about her own age. Theymoved into their own apartment with supportfrom his family, with whom they are in closecontact. A year later they had their firstchild. The threats from Nadia’s familypersisted after the marriage, but after themarriage passed its two-year point theystopped. Nadia and her husband have finallyfound peace and quiet in their daily life.They’re doing well together, and are convincedthat – despite the costs – the struggle towhich they had committed themselves in orderto be together had been the only proper courseof action.

By the summer of 2006, the Labour immigrantAhmed, who had come to Norway thirty-threeyears earlier, had been transformed into anextended Pakistani-Norwegian family witheighty-one members.

“A financial milk cow”

The immigration history of Ahmed’s familyis entirely a product of Pakistani culture andNorwegian policy – a policy that creates theoptimal conditions for the use of marriage asa tool of immigration.

How Norwegian policy functions at theindividual level can be shocking. I want tosay a few things about Mina’s life – a lifethat provides insight into what happens insuch families when a wife and mother tries to

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establish a dignified life for herself and herchildren. Mina’s life also provides insightinto how an extended Norwegian-Pakistanifamily establishes the same social structurein Norway as in its homeland, aided in largepart by the fetching of new spouses.

Mina came to Norway as a child. When shewas sixteen years old, her schooling in Norwayended and she was put to work. Why? Becauseshe was of marriageable age. At that time,Norwegian authorities required that a personwanting to import a spouse to Norway have acertain minimum income. Mina needed to go towork in order to fulfill this requirement.

The summer Mina was eighteen years old, sheaccompanied her father and a couple of herbrothers to their home village in Pakistan.One day Mina’s father put three photos on atable in front of her. They showed three ofMina’s male cousins, all of them brothers.Mina’s father asked her to choose one of themas a lifemate. Some choice. I asked Mina whatchances she had of escaping her father’s plan.She replied: “Whom could I turn to? Whomcould I cry to?”

Mina was, then, given a “choice” amongthree cousins. And she was pressured to choosea particular one – the one who had the weakestposition on the marriage market, because hehadn’t been to school and was darker than mostpeople in a region where dark skin is equatedwith low status and ugliness. This young man,according to Ahmed, was the one who mostdesperately needed a visa to the West. In theend, therefore, he was the one who got Mina –a human being reduced to the status of aliving visa.

When Mina’s husband came to Norway, therewas an apartment waiting for him with a table

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already set and a wife ready to support him.He was as good as helpless in modern Norway.He was illiterate, couldn’t speak Norwegian,and knew nothing about Norwegian society. Hisonly professional experience was with horsesand the soil. Mina became the household’s soleprovider. She had to arrange every detail ofhis life. It was a major burden. It goeswithout saying, moreover, that the situationwas also untenable for her husband, a productof a patriarchal, conservative Pakistanivillage. Soon enough, he resorted to theremedy of the impotent: he began to abuseMina. One reason why he did it was that,according to his own world picture, he had nosexual control over her. Mina worked outsidethe home. On her way to and from work, and ather workplace, she encountered other men. Itwas unavoidable. For him, it was entirelyunheard of for a wife to have contact with menoutside her closest family.18

Once her husband had found employment andtaken up the role of family provider, Mina wasforced to give up her job. She was onlyallowed contact with close family members.Sometimes her husband locked the outside doorbehind him with an extra lock. He coded thetelephone so that she couldn’t place calls. IfMina wanted to go to her private femaledoctor, he accompanied her from the door oftheir home all the way in to the doctor’soffice, where he took part in theconsultation.19

The economic aspects are a chapter in andof themselves. Mina’s control over her ownfinances changed gradually as her husband grewfamiliar with the Norwegian system. Having putan end to Mina’s career, he took full controlof the family’s income and child care. Mina

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told me that he had gained access by force toall the family accounts, emptied them fromtime to time, and sent the money to hisparents in Pakistan. When he had first come toNorway, his parents had lived in a small clayhouse with a dirt floor and were among thepoorest people in their village. After he hadlived in Norway for a few years, his parentsand their nearest kin moved into a large two-story brick house and acquired a car,servants, and top-quality modern furniture.

At first Mina had nothing against helpingher husband’s family to improve their standardof living. There were two main reasons for herincreasing opposition to the money transfers:her husband’s financial priorities lowered herand her children’s quality of life: “We’llstay home as much as possible,” her husbandwould say, “because it doesn’t cost anything.”Nor was she ever shown any respect orgratitude: “I have never been anything otherthan a financial milk cow for them. If ithadn’t been for me and the children, neithermy husband nor his family would have hadanything at all. Yet they have never thankedme or been nice to me.”

“Just like in our homeland”

Shortly after Mina was discharged from thehospital in the summer of 2002, she went tothe police and filed a long list of chargesagainst her husband: abuse, rape, systematicimprisonment, possession of illegal firearms,participation in illegal immigration throughpro forma marriage, and abuse of the welfaresystem (while working full time in hisbrother’s store, he was receiving governmentrehabilitation support, which is for people

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who cannot work). She charged not only herbrother but two of his brothers withthreatening her with death. At her firstmeeting with the police, Mina produceddocumentation showing that charges had beenfiled against her husband for raping theNorwegian woman whom he had used to bring hisfirst brother to Norway, that other chargeshad been filed against him for threatening toassault Norwegian-Pakistani men, and that hehad earlier been subject to a restrainingorder that denied him the right to visitMina.20 The police also were given a writtenstatement by Mina’s doctor expressing concernthat she might be killed by her husband.

Mina’s greatest desire was for the policeto remove her husband from the apartment andlet her move in with her children. When shewas told that the police didn’t have theauthority to do this, she cried out to thepolice officer: “This is just like in ourhomeland. The man does what he wants. Hetosses out his wife and takes the children.She has no rights. It shouldn’t be that way inNorway. Do you know what they [the men] say?They say that the police don’t do anything, nomatter how much we women try. So they can dowhatever they want. They feel so safe.”

Mina was referred to a lawyer and toBarnevernet, the Norwegian Directorate forChildren, Youth and Family Affairs.

“Taking over custody” – of Mina

Barnevernet was already familiar with someaspects of the family situation, having beeninformed earlier about Mina’s abuse. At ameeting I attended, I heard a Barnevernetrepresentative tell Mina that her case was

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“exceedingly complicated” because of “culturalfactors.” The focus was particularly on Mina;Barnevernet was especially concerned about herdecision to divorce her husband. They werescared that there was a danger of an honourkilling – as with Anooshe.

Mina fought intensely to obtain temporarycustody of her children until a decision couldbe made about permanent custody. The pressureplaced on her and the threats directed at herby her brothers, her female relatives, and herhusband intensified by the day. Her relativeswere very tired of having her living withthem. “They think only of honour,” Mina toldme. “They’re scared that I might be a rolemodel for other women in the family – thatthey’ll see that they don’t have to live likeanimals.”

Behind Mina’s back, her husband and Mina’sbrothers had been laying plans for a long timeto “take over custody” of Mina. One day herhusband came driving to the extended family’shouse with a copy of the Koran beautifullywrapped in a silk headscarf. In front of boththe adults and the children in the family,Mina was forced to swear on the book that shedidn’t have a lover, which everybody thoughtwas the reason why she wanted a divorce. Minaalso agreed to return to her husband andpromised that she would take responsibilityfor the marriage working. She was then drivenhome.

Barnevernet continued to monitor thesituation. Growing more and more resigned toher fate, Mina withdrew both her police reportand her divorce application – chiefly becauseof pressure from her husband and the rest ofthe family, but also because she felt theauthorities had failed her.

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“You are a dog”

Three months later, the situation changeddramatically. Mina’s youngest daughter toldanother child in the extended family that shehad been sexually assaulted while Mina hadbeen living away from home. The assailant: herfather. The information reached the police,Barnevernet, and me before it reached Mina.When Mina heard the news, she didn’t dare toreport it. She was scared of being accused byher relatives of having manipulated the girlto make the accusation. But they accused herof it anyway.

How did the little girl’s family and herfather’s acquaintances treat her when heraccusation became known? They made fun of herand accused her of being a liar. They calledher, among other things, a “dog” – a commonterm of abuse among many Muslims because Islamconsiders dogs unclean. They believed that thelittle girl and Mina had conspired. The factthat the girl had told her story to a judge,and that both the judge and the policebelieved her, did not alter this view.

Disobedience can pay off, and this provedto be the case with Mina. In an unguardedmoment, she left her home on an errand. Herhusband tracked her down and attacked her,beating her until her face bled horribly. Shewas still bleeding when he got her home, whereall the children were. He told them that Minahad attacked him, and that he’d been forced todefend himself. For their own protection, hetold the children, they would have to go tohis brothers’ house for the evening. He tookthem all there, except for the daughter whomhe was suspected of having abused. The next

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day he couldn’t get into the house. Mina hadchanged the locks.

A new round of interviews with the lawyer,the police, and Barnevernet in the autumn of2003 finally brought results: Mina receivedtemporary custody of all the children and wasgiven a body alarm; a restraining order wasput out against her husband. Mina’s extendedfamily froze her and her children out whilegiving her husband their love and support.

Not until 2006 did Mina manage to make adecent life for herself. She received custodyof all of her children, while her husband wasdenied all contact with them. She has beenallowed to keep her home. Her relatives stillreject her and she lives with a body alarm.All the crimes of which she has accused herhusband are still being investigated by thepolice, with the exception of the purportedsexual attack on the youngest daughter. Eventhough the authorities believe that she wasindeed sexually assaulted by her father, theyfeel that there is insufficient evidence toconvict him.

The spider net

Needless to say, I would never claim thatMina and her children’s experiences of violentassault by criminal and semi-criminal men intheir extended family is a widespreadphenomenon in tradition-bound families inNorway. Mina’s story does, however, show howsuch a family is likely to react when a womanwants to escape an unhappy life. In myexperience, very few women manage to break out– indeed, very few even dare to try. Theirdreams hardly ever come to anything. Mina wasthus an exception. She stood up against

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everybody, including Norwegian authorities,and did so against all odds. She challengedthe higher powers in the spider net – theextended family – in which the oldest men areboth the prosecuting authorities and thecourts of law. In that spider net, one womanstanding alone is as helpless against thesystem as the next, and is every bit asprepared as the others to stab a “sister” inthe back if she violates the old village’scultural norms and values, especially thoseinvolving sexual conduct.

In the extended-family system, virtually noone dares to trust anyone else entirely, foreveryone knows that the tolerance level isvirtually zero. Thus there is lying,manipulation, game-playing, and deceptionaplenty – the purpose being to hide the truthabout oneself and to protect oneself frompunishment.21 It’s inhuman, of course, to haveto live up to the demands of such a system.Whether by thought or by action, large orsmall, you’re bound to break the code in thecourse of daily life. And when your potentialinformer is sleeping in the same room, or thenext room, you’re obliged to be dishonest, tobe suspicious. You’re trapped, and you holdyour head down for fear of the possibleconsequences. As we’ve seen in the case ofvarious despotic regimes during the postwarera, such as those of Stalin and Hoxha, theinformer can be at the heart of one’sinnermost family circle. Under those regimes,if you had thoughts and opinions that wentagainst the ideology of the ruling leadership,you risked being turned in to the authoritiesby your own father, mother, sister, orbrother. So it is in a traditional extendedfamily: the oldest man in the clan can

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function as a small-scale Stalin or Hoxha. Andit doesn’t matter whether he wants to be aStalin or not: the role is imposed upon him,and if he fails – if, that is, he neglects toexercise his power in such a way as to inspirefear and submissiveness among the other familymembers, especially where women’s sexualconduct is concerned – he’ll lose face withinthe family, and the family will lose faceoutside the family. In such a case the manwill lose his “peacock throne,” and his powerwill devolve upon the next oldest man.

How a culture based on honour and shameresults in gossip, suspicion, and out-and-outlies has also been described by Ayaan HirsiAli, the Somali-born former member of theDutch Parliament, in her book The Son Factory:About Women, Islam and Integration: “Lies and honourplay an important role in this culture ofhonour and shame; ignoring or simply denyingwhat has really happened is normal. The tribalculture has a strongly developed sense ofmistrust, not only of outsiders, but also ofthe members of one’s own family or clan” (TheCaged Virgin, p. 50). Hirsi Ali maintains thatlies in the innermost private sphere areroutine: “lies are continually being toldabout the most intimate matters. It is asurvival strategy, but it also become a way ofliving.” In this way, children learn fromtheir mother’s daily conduct that if theydon’t want to be punished, they must lie.Children learn that “it pays to lie,” saysHirsi Ali (The Caged Virgin, pp. 25-6).22

The hotbed of honour

Honour thinking has its origins incountries and regions where the central

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government is weak and where power is insteadorganized – in feudal fashion – according toclan, caste, or tribal membership. In suchplaces there is no welfare system to serve asa safety net should some accident befall anindividual or family. Therefore the individualis dependent upon a larger group – namely, thefamily, clan, caste, or tribe. This kind ofsituation obtains, for example, in Kurdishareas, in Somalia, in the Arabic world, inPakistan, and in Afghanistan. These aresocieties marked by a lack of modernity anddemocracy – societies where the status ofwomen is extremely low and entirelyconditional on their sexual conduct.

In these societies, girls and women arebearers of the clan’s honour, the tribe’shonour, and the extended family’s honour. Theycarry the men’s honour on their shoulders – anhonour upon which men are entirely dependentif they wish to obtain, and retain, therespect of other members of their community.This respect is based on fear: a fear thatprotects one against external enemies, thatsecures one from being exploited in business,and that ensures that one is treated withdignity outside one’s own circles. A girl, orwoman, who breaks with the strict sexualmorality enshrined in unwritten rules andnorms, or who is suspected of having done so,or who is thought capable of doing so, placesthe honour of the men in her family injeopardy. She is showing that she doesn’t fearher own men – on the contrary, she is, by hervery behavior, mocking them and exposing theirweakness. She is saying indirectly tooutsiders: look! These men are nothing to befeared. They can’t control me or other women

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in our family. These are men with whom one cando as one wishes. They’re without honour.

Needless to say, a man’s all-embracing fearof losing control over the women in his familytakes a huge daily toll in energy andattention. The exercise of control leads to alack of innovation and creativity. Result:conformism.

Either one has honour, or one doesn’t.There’s no in-between. So it’s only throughconstant vigilance that men can recover theirhonour – that is, reinstate fear. Thevigilance takes the form of sanctions againstdisobedient women – and against any menoutside of the family who have touched thefamily’s women. And the most extreme sanctionof all is murder.

That was why Anoonse, an Afghani, wasmurdered. That was why Fadime, the Kurd, waskilled.

Fadime’s challenge was answered in a waythat sent a clear message to the world:namely, that her family’s men were not weak.And the other women in the family received aclear message, too – about what awaited themif they followed her example of disobedience.For the same reason, Mina’s desire for adivorce never won any support from the men inher family: such support would have sent allthe wrong signals. Nor did Mina get anysympathy from her female relatives – for awoman who stands by a disobedient womanbecomes herself an object of suspicion: Is shecut from the same cloth? And since it’s amother’s responsibility to bring her daughterup to follow the moral code, that mother isfully responsible if her daughter violatesthat code. No wonder, then, that Mina’s ownmother didn’t back her up. On the contrary:

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her own mother, Mina told me, believed thatthe family’s men had every right to kill her.

The village lives on – in Norway

There wasn’t a single person in Mina’scircle of intimates who was willing to takeher side. When her daughter told the extendedfamily about the sexual assault, I was there.Mina wanted someone from outside the family tocommunicate to them that it was important thatthey believe the girl and not discuss the casein her or the other children’s presence (ashad happened on several occasions).

I felt I’d been there before. Visiting thatfamily in Oslo was like visiting an extendedfamily in a village, or a lower middle-classor middle-class family in a city, in Pakistan.Several generations under the same roof. Womenin traditional clothes. The age-basedhierarchy among the women, with the daughters-in-law at the bottom of the ladder. The mencoming and going between servings of hotcasseroles. The big TV set in the middle ofthe house, always turned on, at high volume,with the satellite dish tuned in to thechannels coming in from the “homeland.” Onebedroom per married couple, often includingchildren’s beds. No private life for anyone,for private life is suspect; a need to bealone, if only for a half hour, is suspect.For being alone is the same as being able tosin. And in these families, sin is virtuallyidentical with forbidden sexuality. There is atotal control over one another and athoroughgoing mutual suspicion, which isreflected in the conversations: gossip aboutone another and about acquaintances; criticismof one another and of acquaintances. And

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during these conversations children of allages are present, though they have no inputinto the choice of topics.

And anyone who might yearn for a lifedifferent from the one being lived inside thiscocoon knows that that choice wouldessentially involve an automatic severing ofall family ties. I’m referring here to youngpeople who might wish to move out so they canstudy or work, and to grown men or women whomight want to live alone, unmarried, or enterinto non-traditional relationships. Hardlyanything is more sensitive in these milieuxthan the idea of choosing one’s own lifepartner on the basis of one’s emotions. Loveand romance are so taboo that even marriedcouples aren’t supposed to display affectionfor each other in the sight of others. A womanis especially discouraged from showingaffection for her husband – for if she does,other people might suspect that she can’tcontrol her feelings.

This was how I experienced the mental andsocial circumstances of Mina’s extendedfamily. For them, Norway is only a financialbase. And Mina, as she herself said, has onlybeen a financial milk cow for her husband andhis family in Pakistan. But it’s a lot harderfor her today to live with all the immigrationcheating by which her imported husband hasprofited. That her marriage to her cousin alsoled to three new visas for his brothers, plustwo visas for their cousins, makes her asfurious now as it did then. I have no idea howmany times in recent years Mina has phoned mein despair over Norwegian immigration policy,over politicians who allow the endlessfetching of new spouses from abroad, and overthe fact that no policy has been put in place

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to stop to this abuse. For, as she says, heryoung nieces and nephews will be used inexactly the same way that she and her siblingswere used, as pure tools of immigration. Andas a result they’ll never escape the village,never be freed from the spider net, never getto live completely in Norway.

They’ll live here only part of the time –and with only part of their selves.

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3

Family-Arranged Marriage

The statistical information presented inthe previous chapter about fetching marriageamong non-Western immigrant groups in Norwayis the most extensive and detailed material ofits kind in all of Europe. Most Europeancountries – among them Sweden, Germany, andFrance – have no official statistics at allabout these matters. A few do. One of them isDenmark.

A 2000 study in Denmark showed that about90 percent of all married male immigrants andchildren of immigrants from the formerYugoslavia, Pakistan, Somalia, Turkey, andVietnam married individuals with the samenational origin, who either were alreadyliving in Denmark or were “fetched.” Another2003 study awakened great interest. For thefirst time, it was possible to say why themajority of immigrants bring over spouses fromtheir homelands.23 Researchers examined thefamily backgrounds, educational levels, andpersonal attitudes of 693 children ofimmigrants from Turkey, Pakistan, and theformer Yugoslavia. All the children had cometo Denmark at age seven, had lived in Denmarkfor at least twenty years, and were betweentwenty-eight and thirty-six years old when thestudy was carried out.

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Of those who had had no education, about 90percent were married off in their country oforigin. Meanwhile, fewer than half of thosewith more education brought spouses over fromtheir homelands. The researchers concluded asfollows: in most such cases, it’s the familythat decides whom one marries. The lessconflict young people have with their parents,the greater the chance that they’ll marry intheir homeland. From childhood on, youngpeople in these communities have adaptedthemselves to the authoritarian extended-family system and have absorbed its values.The researchers also said that the moreliberal parents’ attitudes toward childrearingand Danish values and lifestyles, the greaterthe chance that their children will marry inDenmark. If parents have low levels ofeducation, language problems, and traditionalattitudes rooted in their village in the oldcountry, the probability increasessignificantly that their children will marryin their homeland. The study also showed thatthose who marry in Denmark and whose spousesare ethnically Danish are very likely to marrypeople at the same level of education asthemselves. This is also the norm among Danes.

And how can young people be more successfulat evading family-arranged marriages in theirancestral homelands? The researchersconcluded that only more education can, to acertain degree, protect young children inimmigrant families from fetching marriages.

Denmark has its own version of Ahmed’sfamily tree. In 2000, Eyvind Vesselbo mappedout the marriages of 145 Turkish men who cameto Denmark around 1970 and their descendants.All of the 145 men brought wives over fromTurkey, and after getting divorces some of

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them brought even more wives over from Turkey.Nine out of ten members of the secondgeneration brought spouses over from Turkey.In the third generation, the rate of fetchingmarriages was 97 percent. By the year 2000,the original group of 145 men had multipliedalmost twenty times over the course of thirtyyears into a group of 2,813 persons.24

In the Netherlands, the marriage patternsof over 81,000 first- and second-generationMoroccan and Turkish men and women werestudied. Only four percent married ethnicDutch people, eighteen percent marriedindividuals of the same nationality in theNetherlands, while 75 percent brought spousesover from their homelands.25 There’s no dataon whom the remaining three percent married,though there’s reason to assume that most ofthem married someone in the Netherlands withanother national background. The pattern isthus almost identical to that found amongTurks and Moroccans in Norway.

In Britain, 71 percent of Pakistanis enterinto fetching marriages. One study shows that90 percent of the fetched spouses arecousins.26 Since 1997, about 150,000 newimmigrants have arrived in Britain every year.

24 Eyvind Vesselbo, “‘I går, I dag, I overmorgen.’Indvandrerrapport III,” Ishøj Kommune 2000. 25 Data from Statistics Netherlands (CBS), presentedin the report “Trouwen over de grens – Achtergrondenvan partnerkeuze van Turken en Marokkannen inNederland,” Erna Hooghiemstra, Sociaal en CultureelPlanbureau, The Hague, May 2003. The report has anEnglish summary.

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These figures do not include asylum seekers orrefugees.27

In 2005, 53,000 spouses immigrated toFrance. There are no general statistics aboutthese people’s national backgrounds. For manyyears, marriage has accounted for most of theimmigration into France.28

The internationally known British professorand demographer David Coleman claims that thefetching of spouses has been responsible formost of the immigration to Europe since the1970s: “Originally, family reunification was aterm that meant reuniting families, meaningthat an already married person – usually amother with children – immigrated to a countrywhere her husband had already been working,often for several years. But today, as a rule,it involves newly created families. That is, ayoung man or woman, who was born in or haslived most of his or her life in Europe,travels to the family’s homeland and fetches aperson as a spouse, who – perhaps – he or sheknows a bit from the family’s vacations in itshomeland.”29

It’s often said that it takes time tochange traditions. This is a partial truth. Incountries with family-arranged marriage, it’sgeneally accepted that the bride will move inwith her bridegroom and his family. Had Minaacted in accordance with this norm, of course,she would have moved back to Pakistan andresided there with her husband and his family.But this once-firm tradition has beenmodified, and there are two major reasons why.One is that the huge economic differencesbetween European and non-Western countriesmake it lucrative for the groom to move toEurope. The other is that immigration througha family-arranged marriage to a European

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cousin, close relative, or stranger is – quitesimply – legal.

Plenty of examples

I would estimate that in the last fourteenyears I’ve met 150 to 200 individuals face toface who have been assaulted by the peoplewith whom they were united in immigrationmarriages. Most of the encounters came aboutbecause I was a journalist, but I also metsome of these persons through acquaintances invarious communities. Most often I’ve beensought out as an expert, either directly bythe affected person, by his or her friends andfamily members, or by government employees whohave been trying to help the individual inquestion. After I started working for HumanRights Service, the referrals continued. Mostof those whom I’ve met have been young; a few,like Mina, have been well into adulthood. Theaffected individuals have come from threecontinents – Africa, Asia, and Europe – andfrom the countries of India, Pakistan,Afghanistan, Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Syria,Lebanon, Ethiopia, Somalia, Morocco, Gambia,Macedonia, and Albania. The overwhelmingmajority had been married off to cousins. Andthere were very few who didn’t have dramaticaccounts of assault.

Take Hera, age nineteen. I met her when shewas being kept under lock and key in herfather’s home in Pakistan. A friend of hers inNorway was worried about her, and sent her atext message saying that Norwegians – meaningme and two colleagues – were on their way tothe region of Pakistan where she was living.This pleased Hera, who asked us to visit.When, as arranged, I turned up with my

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colleagues at ten in the morning, her fatherwas sitting at his house’s entrance gate. Herahad asked us to say that one of us was herformer teacher. With a gruff expression, thefather led us into the large, two-story house.Alone with us in the living room, Hera told usin a hushed voice that she was being rapedevery day – with her father’s permission – bythe cousin she had been forced to marry. Thestory was this: Hera hadn’t managed to earnenough income to fulfill the legal requirementthat would allow her to bring her spouse toNorway.30 When the spouse’s application to bereunified with her had been rejected, Hera’sfather had taken her back to Pakistan. Theidea was for her to get pregnant. If they hada child, Hera’s father figured, her husband’stie to Norway would be strengthened and hemight, for that reason, be granted a Norwegianvisa so that he could live with his wife andchild. Hera’s father, she told us, pointing ata door, stood guard outside her bedroom everyevening. Her life was restricted by thehouse’s four walls. She wanted to flee, to runfar away – all the way back to Norway, if shecould. But what would happen, then, to hermother? What suffering would Hera’s demandfor a decent life cause her mother? She knewthe answer. So it was that this nineteen-year-old girl, born in Norway, sat behind mentaland physical lock and key in the house in thevillage while the cousin who had been forcedupon her by her father endeavored every nightto impregnate her against her will.

Then there’s Shahid – a sturdy guy, nearlythirty years old, who for three yearsstruggled against his family’s pressure tobring back to Norway the cousin he’d beenforced to marry. When he went to Pakistan on

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vacation in the summer of 2003, several of uswho were friends of his told him jokingly:“Now don’t come back and tell us that you’vebeen forced to marry a cousin, too!” Helaughed heartily. So did we – fully believingthat he was only going on a vacation. Fourmonths later he came back – scrawny, headbowed – after a vacation that had beenextended for one reason: because it had takentime to break the will of this man who was inlove with somebody in Norway. But what couldShahid do, in the end, when his fathersimulated heart problems and had to go to thehospital, when his mother alternated betweentears and accusations that his father’s“deadly illness” was Shahid’s fault, and whenhis brothers stormed and raged and threatenedphysical reprisals should their father die?What could Shahid do when his “weak and sick”mother said that she wouldn’t be able to keephouse and take care of the family in Norwayany longer without the help of a daughter-in-law? Would Shahid force his own mother toreturn to Pakistan and live with servants shedidn’t know? Finally he caved in. The pastthree years of his life, during which he’slived in a marriage with a cousin from hisvillage, could easily fill a book. The mostburlesque detail is probably how he, after twoyears of intense pressure, finally climbedinto bed with his cousin – while his satisfiedmother enjoyed her triumph in the next room.

Then there’s a Turkish-Kurdish girl namedAvin. When she was eleven, her family sent herfrom Turkey to live with an adult cousin inNorway. Avin was supplied with identity papersbelonging to an Iranian woman of eighteen. Shehad children in a hospital when she herselfwas a child, and the medical staff didn’t ask

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her a single question about herself. Hadanyone tried to speak with her, however, theywouldn’t have received an answer – for herhusband was constantly at her side, ready tospeak on her behalf. From the time she wasthirteen years old, Avid had various jobs inthe public sector; but she chose not to revealher age to anyone because she had been told byher cousin that if she did so, Norwegianauthorities would send her home – where deathawaited.

Cousin marriage – a hindrance to integration

I could continue to recount individualcases, page after page. But let’s put away thefaces and the names. Why is marriage betweenclose relatives so common in many immigrantgroups? And how much choice do the partnersin such unions have?

Key sources of mine who are immigrationofficials working with forced marriages amongNorwegian-Pakistanis believe that up to 70percent of the cases that reach their desksfall into the same category as the situationthat Mina was locked into – marriage betweencousins.31 Are there any major features ofcousin marriages that cause them to beparticularly involuntary and to hinderintegration – a state of affairs that we’veobserved with blinding clarity in the saga ofMina’s extended family?

No one in Scandinavia has done a morethorough job of collecting and analyzing dataon the involuntary nature of cousin marriagesthan Anders Hede of Denmark. Hede is a projectleader for the weekly publication UgebrevetMandag Morgen, and he’s published his materialin a work entitled “Baggrundsnotat om

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spørgsmålet om et forbud mot fætter-kusineægteskaber” (“Background notes on the questionof a prohibition of cousin marriages”). Thiswork had a major influence on Denmark’sintroduction of new immigration rules in theautumn of 2003. Under the new rules, marriagesbetween close relatives – that is, first andsecond cousins – would be treated in theimmigration application process as forcedmarriages and would therefore be regarded asinvalid grounds for immigration. Thepresentation of cousin marriage in thefollowing pages is mostly drawn from Hede’swork. His findings and analyses are entirelyconsistent with my own observations.

First, some general facts. Cousin marriageis common in large areas of the world. Around18 percent of the world’s population lives insocieties where 20 to 50 percent of themarriages are between cousins; 47 percent livein societies where one to ten percent marrycousins; 17 percent live in societies wherethe percentage is below one. For the remaining18 percent of the world’s population there areno relevant data. Although such marriages arewidespread, a study of 564 cultures around theworld shows that no fewer than 277 of themforbid cousin marriages. And studies in theU.S., Australia, and Norway estimate that onlytwo to six out of one thousand marriages inthe majority population are between first orsecond cousins.

Cousin marriages occur in all largereligious groups. But there are no keyreligious texts in Islam, Judaism, orChristianity that address this form ofmarriage, either positively or negatively.Today it’s unquestionably most common amongMuslims. This may be related to the fact that

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the nephew of Muhammed, the prophet of Islam,married Muhammed’s daughter. When one mariresaway one’s children to their cousins, then,one is following Muhammed’s example.

Pakistani statistics estimate that 30 to 60percent of marriages in that country arebetween cousins. Among Kurds in Turkey, 11 to31 percent marry cousins. In Iraq, thepercentage is between 46 and 57 percent, inSri Lanka 7 to 20 percent, in Morocco 29percent, and in Bangladesh 7 to 20 percent.(The figures aren’t entirely comparable, sincesome studies include second cousins and somedon’t.)

Several studies indicate that the rate ofcousin marriage among immigrant groups inEurope increases from the first to the secondgeneration. This pattern has been demonstratedamong Turks in France and among Turks andMoroccans in Belgium, where it’s beenconcluded that the marriages are animmigration tool and that families in theimmigrants’ homelands exert considerablepressure upon their relatives in the West tosubmit to cousin marriages. Cousin marriage isalso more common among second- than first-generation Pakistanis in Britain. In the cityof Bradford, it’s now estimated that up to 80percent of new marriages among Pakistanis arebetween cousins.32

A study that attracted attention in Britainin 2005 indicated a high rate of deformitiesamong newborn babies of Pakistanis. ThePakistani population accounts for 3.4 percentof the country’s births, but fully 30 percentof the birth defects registered among newbornsoccur in children of parents with Pakistaniorigins.33 In Norway, Camilla Stoltenberg ofthe Norwegian Institute of Public Health

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recorded that every twentieth child born ofPakistani parents in Norway between 1967 and1993 was born with defects. The risk ofdeformities in newborn babies quadruples whenthe parents are closely related. When a cohortof children reaches five years of age, therate of deformities in that cohort increases.Among children of parents who are related toeach other, the risk of dying in the firstyear of life is also two to three timeshigher.34

Far from Bollywood

At regular intervals, debates erupt aboutcousin marriages, with the main focus usuallybeing on the degree to which such marriagesare voluntary. A number of factors suggestthat such marriages are thoroughlyinvoluntary. Mina was eighteen when she wasmarried. She was young, which is typical incousin marriages. Her parents had arranged themarriage without consulting her. There had notbeen many candidates, since the number ofavailable male cousins was naturally limited.They found no good reason to put off thewedding; doing so could increase the risk thatMina would grow independent and start makingdecisions for herself – or, even worse, mightlose her virginity.

To refuse to marry a cousin usually bringson family conflicts and punishment. To try towin support within one’s family for an effortto get out of such a marriage is essentiallyfutile. Mina had no one to support her whenshe tried to avoid marrying her cousin. As shesaid to me: “Whom should I cry to?” Almostall her siblings were married to cousins. Whyshould they support her rebellion? She knew

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well, too, that if she put up any resistanceshe’d become an outcast, and possibly be inphysical danger.

Few young people in Muslim communities dareto gamble on a love match. Most of those whodo marry for love become outcasts. A leadingNorwegian-Pakistani lawyer, Abid Q. Raja, hastold Aftenposten (6 August 2005) about the fighthe waged to get his family to accept hismarriage to the Norwegian-Pakistani woman heloved. His family wanted to marry him off inPakistan. Conservative Party politician AshanRafiq has also told, in VG (6 January 2004),about the serious threats she faced from herfamily because she wanted to marry theNorwegian-Pakistani Oslo politician Aamir J.Sheikh, also of the Conservative Party. Thetwo of them fought for several years to winacceptance for their love. Sheikh himself hastold about being forced to marry in Pakistan.(He divorced in 2003.) The couple, thentwenty-eight and thirty-three years old,decided to defy all the threats. They marriedwhile Rafiq was a member of Parliament.

Yes, one can safely say that the Norwegian-Pakistani reality is far from the bliss-filledworld of Bollywood.

The Sikhs’ success

Conflicts of interests between immigrantparents and their children occur withparticular frequency in cases of cousinmarriage and fetching marriage. If the youngpeople involved were able to choose forthemselves, they would prefer a spouse whogrew up in the West. In my experience, it’sespecially the girls who have this dream. Agirl expects that a man who has grown up in an

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environment reasonably similar to the one inwhich she grew up will treat her with greaterunderstanding and respect than one who grew upelsewhere.

Mina was expelled from her extended family.She was thereby also set free from the spidernet. Her children, she says, will be allowedto choose their own spouses. Mina isliberated; her children are liberated. But shedoesn’t think that the other children in herextended family will be able to avoidfollowing their parents’ footsteps back to thevillage. For the purposes of integration, thisis obviously a very negative state of affairs.

Probably the most striking example inEurope of the significance of marriagepatterns for the success or failure ofintegration has been provided by Anders Hedein his studies of the situation in Britain.The Sikhs in Britain come from the Punjabregion of India, while many Pakistanis inBritain come from the Punjab in Pakistan. Inshort, they have their origins in areas veryclose to each other. Yet while Sikhs inBritain are an integration success story,Pakistanis have become an obvious underclass.Thanks to their successful integration, Sikhsexhibit an entirely different level ofmobility on the Labour market. As a result,they weren’t affected in the same way asPakistanis by the downturn in Britishindustry. Why?

In large part, the reason for this dramaticdifference is that Sikhs have a culturalprohibition against marrying relatives. Thismeans that an Indian Sikh woman who marriesmoves into the home of a strange family.She’ll therefore be more likely to try to gether husband to agree that they should move out

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and set up their own home. The Sikhs havethereby established a more dispersedresidential pattern, which has had morepositive consequences for the children, inthat it enables them to befriend Britishchildren and learn English. Very many Sikhchildren do better at school than Britishchildren, and Sikh women, on average, earnmore than British women. But when a PakistaniMuslim woman moves in with her husband’sfamily, she’s also usually moving in with herown relatives. Most likely, she lives alargely isolated life among her own people,outside the Labour market, and has many morechildren than a Sikh woman does. Her childrengrow up in a ghetto-like environment, and manydo badly in school because they speakinadequate English.

Once Sikhs, too, fetched spouses from theirhomeland. But these marriages functionedpoorly, especially when the husbands wereimported. Those husbands often brought withthem a patriarchal village mentality. Todayvirtually all Sikhs marry partners fromBritain or from other European countries. Theyoung strongly oppose fetching marriage. Theydare to take on their parents, and they win.Why? Because they know that their parentsdon’t have obligations to relatives in theirhomeland; the practice of marrying outside thefamily frees the parents from having to usetheir children as living visas for theirrelatives back in India.

The pressure on parents to marry off theirchildren to poorer relatives in Pakistan isdecisive. Some British Pakistani families tryto duck this pressure by wedding theirchildren to cousins in Britain. But thisusually leads to complaints by relatives in

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Pakistan that they’re egotistic and evil – insuch marriages, after all, two visas aretossed away.

Most Sikhs today lead integrated lives intheir new surroundings. Few retain intimateconnections to the Punjab region of India.Even so, they manage to maintain theirdistinctive cultural and religious traits. Bycontrast, as we’ve seen in the case of Mina’sextended family, Pakistani Muslims still livewith a gaze turned constantly toward Pakistan.They buy residences in Pakistan and travel“home” frequently. Money is prioritized forthese purchases rather than for acquisitionsin Britain. The preservation of traditionalmarriage patterns is thus a crucial factor infailed integration. The Sikhs, on the otherhand, are a striking example of what happenswhen immigrants embrace an open marriagemarket and act independently of pressure fromrelatives in their homeland.

It’s extremely interesting to see whichgroups in the West have practiced cousinmarriage for generation after generation.They’re the most inward-looking and isolatedgroups, the least educated, the ones who livein the past, the ones in which the status ofwomen is low and the ideal of virginity at itsstrongest, the ones in which many children areborn and in which the children are shieldedfrom the influence of mainstream society.These groups seek to live the way theirforefathers did for centuries – outside of asociety of laws and outside of modernityitself. This is the case with the Amish peopleand the Mennonites (no fewer than 85 percentof whom marry cousins); the Hutterites (whohave the highest level of inbreeding in NorthAmerica); the Tinkers, also called The

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Travelling People (among whom, according toAnders Hede, the level of inbreeding is about70 percent); and the Romany people in Europe.

Is romantic love a Western concept?

Among the native peoples of a modern, well-functioning welfare state such as Norway, thepercentage of cousin marriage is microscopic.The families of Western citizens in Norwayalmost never play a role in their choice ofspouse. Romantic love is the norm.

Some make the argument that romantic loveis a Western idea that large parts of theworld haven’t adopted. But this is nonsense,as anyone who has visited countries likePakistan or Turkey knows. These countries areseething with longing for romance and love – afact reflected in their films, their poetry,and their folk songs. In all these genres, therecurring question is this: will the twolovers end up with each other – against allodds? The hindrance consists in the fact thatmarriage is a family matter that operates inaccordance with strict norms regarding who canbe accepted as a new family member. Hede foundextensive support for the notion that romanceand love are universal phenomena in theresults of a study performed by WilliamJankowiak and Edward Fisher. Examining 168cultures, Jankowiak and Fisher asked fourquestions: Are there love songs? Do youngpeople run off together? Do people tell of anespecially loved person for whom they long?And is there folklore about romanticrelationships? In up to 90 percent of thecultures they studied, the answer was yesacross the board. The researchers had strongsuspicions that the same was the case in the

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remaining cultures, but anthropological datawas insufficient to make a definitivedetermination. They thus concluded that ifsocial conditions make romance and lovepossible, these phenomena will occur, forthey’re as universal as pain, joy, andhunger.35

“Love match” is an expression I’ve heardmany times among young Norwegian-Pakistanisand Norwegian-Indians. When two lovers bothliving in Norway win approval to marry, thenews is spread around the communities likewildfire. Young people with expressions oflonging on their faces talk excitedly about“the great thing that has happened.” Thesesame young people are brought up watchingBollywood movies on DVD and satellitetransmissions. There’s little they want morethan a love match, but few dare to believethey’ll win that lottery. Most are resigned,fatalistic. For them, it’s a long way fromBollywood to Norway.

It’s also worth noting that every singlewell-known and well integrated Norwegian-Pakistani has broken with the tradition offamily-arranged marriage. I’m thinking ofShazad Rana, who founded an IT firm, of comicand writer Shabana Rehman, of college teacherNazneen Khan-Østrem, and of Labour Partypolitician Lubna Jaffrey. All have foundpartners outside their own ethnic groups. Theylive on the free “marriage market.” And ourconsultant at Human Rights Service, Jeanette,married her husband, Audun, on 29 July 2006.

For years, intellectuals and politicians inNorway, both Norwegian and non-Western, havespoken warmly about family-arranged marriage.In the non-Western communities and extendedfamilies, parents and older people issue stern

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warnings against romantic love. Maritalfriendship and acquaintanceship develop into“real” love, they say, while “Westernmarriages” usually end in divorce, preciselybecause they’re based solely on intensefeelings that will always eventually fade.It’s unreasonable to pretend that this doesn’tin fact happen in many cases, as Westerndivorce statistics confirm. But it’s scarcelybold to predict that if women in family-arranged marriages were financiallyindependent, the divorce rates for thosemarriages, too, would shoot up dramatically.

The opposition to love matches is entirelylogical. Romantic love threatens parents’ andelders’ power and privilege, such as the rightto be waited on by a devoted daughter-in-lawwho’s also a close blood relative. Lovethreatens the effort to bring relatives stillliving in the family’s ancestral homeland tothe Norwegian welfare state through marriage.Love threatens the extended family’s andclan’s ability to strengthen its power andinfluence by bringing new members to thecountry and thereby preserve and pass onfeudal values in Europe. Love threatens thecaste system. And it threatens the male’spower position, in that it may destabilizetraditional sex roles. Love is also a threatto marriage arrangements that were enteredinto when the potential bride and groom weresmall children.

Mina’s fate was exclusion from her family.This exclusion propelled her out of thefamily’s restraints and into romance – namely,a passionate attachment to a man who sharedher ethnic background and who had scuttled hisown family-arranged marriage.

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The key: not work, not education

What would happen if our new non-Westernimmigrants wed outside their families – eitherto partners of their own choosing or topartners selected by their families? Withouta doubt, it would be easier for them to resistpressure, because it would be easier for theirparents to withdraw from negotiations andagreements with strangers. Parents andchildren would have much stronger sharedinterests in seeking out a compatible matewith a comparable level of education. Spouseswould be more likely to come from nearbyareas. Thus non-Western men in Norway wouldbe under considerable pressure to get aneducation and find work to strengthen theirvalue as marriage candidates. The women’s ageat the time of marriage would rise – and as aresult the amount of time she’d be able todevote to an education would increase. Themarried couples would probably also formnuclear families, independent of theirextended families, as many British Sikhs havedone. In time, this would lead to thedissolution of the ghetto-like immigrantneighbourhoods. It would thus be far easierfor individuals to live as individuals: they’dbe able to participate in mainstream societyas integrated citizens without having tosurrender their distinctive cultural andreligious practices, just as Sikhs in Britainhave done. It’s precisely for this reason thateducation and the Labour market aren’t topicsin this book – for the key to integration liesin a changing marriage pattern.

Of course family-arranged marriages to non-relatives won’t automatically be free of

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force. But over time, people’s ties to theirhomelands will grow weaker; integration willimprove. And when the clan, caste, and tribalmentality is weakened, bondage and force willbecome less prevalent.

Let me make one thing clear: I don’t meanto suggest here that living in a family-arranged marriage is necessarily synonymouswith lifelong tragedy. Many young people willbe inclined to think that such marriages areright for them because they’ve been brought upto think so. Given this fact, they’ll do thebest they can to order their daily life insuch a way that their marriages will work out.They’ll seek to lead friction-free liveswithin extended-family structures. Outside thehome they’ll work: inside it they’ll live withrelatives in varying degrees of contentment.And it’s true, of course, that many people inNorway live in unhappy marriages to peoplethey chose themselves, marriages in which thelove has died. Many try to keep things goingfor practical or financial reasons, perhapsespecially for the sake of the children. Inonetheless believe that the key point here isthat people in the West are generally free tomake the attempt – and to err. Hardly anyonewants to give up this freedom. Those who haveexperienced the intoxication of falling inlove and the passion of romance can’t denythat love is the greatest thing of all.

Creative cheating, physical assault

A friend of mine was forced at a young ageto marry a close relative in Pakistan. Todayshe’s divorced. During the last two years,she’s received offers from three different men

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to be wife number two. All her suitors areNorwegian-Pakistanis between twenty-five andthirty-five years old. And all are married tocousins from their parents’ hometowns back inPakistan. All three are locked intoemotionally barren marriages. They can’tdivorce without causing colossal conflictswithin their extended families both in Norwayand in Pakistan.

One of these men was forced to marryrelatively recently. His wife, who is also hiscousin, has not yet been brought over toNorway. He’s trying to talk his parents intoreleasing him from the marriage. He hasn’t yetmanaged to do so. He has also attempted tostrike a compromise with his lover, who is myfriend: would she marry him if he promised notto bring his wife to Norway? Under Norwegianlaw, this isn’t permitted: you can’t have aregistered wife living in Norway and have oneor more other wives in one’s homeland, even ifpolygamy is allowed there. My friend recentlytold me: “I’ve said yes, and I’ll tolerate himgoing to the village once a year to stay withhis wife there. I’ll also tolerate him havingkids with her – otherwise his family will makea lot of trouble for both of them. But I don’tthink I’ll be able to handle it if he bringsher here. Then she’ll be his real wife – theone who’s in his home and whom he’s togetherwith in social situations. I’ll be the wifewho’s hidden away and without privileges, andI’ll be uncertain and jealous when he’s withher. There’ll be a daily competition to do thebest by him in order to get as much time withhim as possible. And the children will sufferin both homes because both I and the otherwife will do everything we can to ensure thatour children have the strongest bond to him.

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There’s no doubt that it’ll be much harder forme than for him. I’ll lie alone at nightknowing he’s sleeping with her. But he won’thave to share me with another man.”

She also pointed out that, as wife numbertwo, her legal position would be weaker. If hedied, she would have no right to inheritanything, since her marriage, solemnized in amosque, would not be formally registered.She’d be the “invisible wife.” If he got sickand was hospitalized, his family might denyher the right to visit him. She’d be, in manyways, a non-person.

She hasn’t given up hope that he’ll succeedin wriggling out of the marriage to hiscousin. She and her lover have a last card toplay – a card that, according to her, has beenused successfully by many people she knows:you take an overdose, just enough so thatit’ll result in hospitalization. The hope isthat your family will then wake up andunderstand how serious the matter is. For theshame of losing a child through suicide is fargreater than the shame of calling off amarriage process that’s already underway. I,too, am familiar with such cases.

Does polygamy enhance one’s status in theMuslim community in Norway? There’s no answerto this, since the various groups are sodiverse. A rule of thumb is that the morewidespread polygamy is in a given ethnic ornational group in a given country, the moreaccepted it is among immigrants from thatcountry in Norway. My Pakistani-Norwegianfriend believes that polygamy neither enhancesnor reduces one’s status among Pakistanis inNorway. Since forced marriage is sowidespread, polygamy has become widespread,too; she thinks that “people are beginning to

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get used to this becoming the solution formany people.”

My friend thinks that polygamy willincrease in the second generation, ahypothesis I find realistic: “More and morepeople [in the second generation] are reachingmarriageable ages, and forced marriage iswidespread. Since it’s so important to parentsthat their sons not divorce, the young peoplewill see no alternative other than polygamy.Our mothers had no opportunity to choose lovemarriages. But many of us second-generationgirls want love. And the boys do, too. Butfirst we have to do our ‘job.’ The boys’‘job’ is to fetch a caregiver and maid fortheir parents. And since the boys, moreover,are supposed to live at home and provide fortheir parents, it can be hard to divorce. Manyof us girls can divorce more easily, for whenthe husband who is brought over has gotten aresidency permit of his own, we’ve done our‘job.’ You can say that the boys’ ‘job’ islifelong, while the girls’ ‘job’ can be overonce the residency permit is secured.”

This last point has been impressed upon meover and over in conversations I’ve had withyoung women, lawyers, and immigrationofficials. They tell me that if a girl feelsshe can hold out for three years, she may makea deal with her parents that doesn’t obligeher to live with her spouse in a real marriageand that permits her to divorce after threeyears.

Another young woman I’ve known well forseven years was forced to marry at age fifteento a close relative in Pakistan. After threeyears she got a divorce. She then fell in lovewith a man of Pakistani origins. He’s marriedto his cousin who was brought over from

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Pakistan, has two children with her, anddoesn’t want to take on his family by askingfor permission to divorce. Last year he andthe young women married at a ceremony in amosque. This practice, though illegal, appearsto be widespread.

Each of these young women could compile alist of names of other young women they knowwho have been married in mosques to men whoalready had wives. Most of these young women,at the time of their mosque weddings, weredivorced from husbands whom they’d been forcedto marry, while some are non-Muslims ofNorwegian or other Western ethnicity.

It can justifiably be said that these twoyoung women have landed in a thoroughlyundesirable situation. Other people practicepolygamy actively. At one Norwegian embassy, Iwas told in confidence about men in Norway whohave imported up to six wives apiece. Atanother embassy I heard about men living inNorway each of whom has brought five wivesover from his homeland. The pattern is thesame: after three to four years of marriage toan imported wife, the man divorces formallyunder Norwegian law, then travels to hishomeland to marry a new wife who is thenshipped to Norway. Only the length of theman’s life limits the number of wives he canbring over in this fashion. Immigrationauthorities say that the men engaged in thispractice are overwhelmingly Muslim.

From various sources I’ve also heard aboutchildren who spontaneously volunteer thattheir fathers have several wives. In manycases these wives all live in the sameapartment house. Such information oftenemerges when a child points out his or her

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half-brothers or half-sisters at a day-carecenter or at school.

Evidence that this practice is widespreadcan also be found at social-security offices.On several occasions, the social-securitydepartment has asked me to deliver lectures.Their problem is that many of their clientsare single women who are breadwinners but whomit is difficult to find jobs for and who aredifficult to integrate.36 The women are mostlydivorced, and some have been separated fromtheir husbands for several years. Yet manykeep having children. How widespread thisphenomenon is, nobody knows. But what’s thisabout? And what can be done? During mylectures, I learned from frustrated social-security employees that when they ask such awoman who the father of her newborn baby is,they are typically told either that the childis a result of “a slip-up” between her and herex-husband or estranged husband or that shedoesn’t know who the father is. The truth, inmost of these instances, is probably that thewoman is living in a polygamous set-up with aMuslim husband and that they have beendivorced or separated under Norwegian lawwhile their Muslim marriage contract hasremained in force. For believers, this pact,whether oral or written, is far more bindingthan a Norwegian marriage license.Financially, such a divorce or separation ishighly favourable because the woman, bypassing herself off as an unmarriedbreadwinner, qualifies for a number of social-security benefits. Also, when new children areborn and the father is listed as unknown, thehusband doesn’t have to pay child support.Under current rules, it’s hard to stop thispractice. Under the law, the government has no

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right to subject children to a DNA test whentheir mother claims not to know who theirfather is. Nor is there any limit as to howlong one can remain separated, and underNorwegian law, of course, it’s not illegal tohave children out of wedlock.

Another topic related to marriageimmigration – and one that has hardly beenmentioned in the Norwegian debate – is themarrying off of handicapped and mentallydeficient children. As a doctor told me:“They’re going to be married off, as long asthey can lie horizontally.” Or as animmigration official wrote to me: “We have anumber of, quite simply, backward Norwegian-Pakistanis who marry completely healthypeople. I’ve had Norwegian-Pakistani girls infor conversations who don’t even know whatmonth it is, who are mentally at an eight- ornine-year-old level, and who can document itwith a doctor’s certificate. They want tobring their spouses to Norway, and it’s thefamilies that are pressuring them. It’sclearly a form of tyranny.”37

The first time I came across such a casewas in 1997, when a Moroccan at the Oslo RedCross International Center was married byphone to a woman in Morocco. Marriage by phonewas permitted until 2004. She didn’t knowanything about her husband’s medical conditionbefore she met him at the Oslo apartment ofhis extended family. The man was both mentallyand physically handicapped. The family’smotive for the marriage was to get him a nurse– i.e., her.

In the late winter of 2006, I asked aPakistani acquaintance if he was familiar withsuch nuptials. He came up immediately withthree examples. One of them involved a young

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Norwegian-Pakistani woman who suffers from anextreme case of mental retardation. She canhardly take care of herself. When she wascalled in for an interview with immigrationofficials in connection with her spouse’sapplication from Pakistan for reunificationwith her, she was accompanied by her father,who presented her case to the police. Herspouse got the visa. There are no legalgrounds today for stopping this practice.

The pattern is one-sided. Healthy peopleare brought over to marry sick people inNorway. I have yet to hear about the oppositehappening.

I think it’s very nice if mentallydeficient people find love and marry eachother. Among Norwegians, the parties to suchmarriages would ordinarily both be mentallydeficient, and would themselves make thedecision to marry. This is entirely differentfrom a family-arranged marriage between amentally deficient person and a person ofnormal intelligence living on anothercontinent, the motive for which isimmigration.

Another practice that has also receivedlittle public attention is the so-calledcross-divorce. Immigration and social-securityofficials report that in Norway this practiceis most often found among Chinese andVietnamese immigrants. It works this way: acouple in Norway divorce. At the same time,the husband’s brother in China or Vietnamdivorces. The divorced spouses in Norway marrythe divorced spouses abroad. In short, twobrothers switch wives. The new marriagesprovide a basis for family reunification.Since the new “married couples” usually liveunder the same roof, it’s difficult for the

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authorities, under current rules, to provethat the arrangement is pro forma, and thusdeny the new arrivals residency permits. Afterthe two newcomers have secured permanentresidency, the couples divorce again andremarry their real spouses.

Several other thought-provoking newdevelopments have been noted by police andimmigration officials. One of them wrote thisto me: “It is common that a young Norwegian-Pakistani man who wanders from the straightand narrow is quickly married off to a‘decent’ Pakistani girl from Kharian [the cityfrom which most Norwegian-Pakistanis come] inhopes that she will straighten him out. Thesegirls are always young and poorly educated,and often end up in a nightmare of violence.Both their spouses and their in-laws harassthem and beat them.”38

Many young people behave differently withofficials after undergoing forced marriages.As an immigration official points out, thechange is particularly obvious when they’vebeen married off to a cousin who is to bebrought over to Norway: “A few years back,these young people were often open about beingforced to marry, and told us through tearsabout the situation. Now the trend is thatthey smile and claim not just that themarriage is voluntary but that it’s a lovematch. The community has become so big now, afull parallel society alongside the mainstreamcommunity, and the internal justice is sostrong. The young people see no way out, forwhere will they go? They’ve given up fightingagainst it.”39

The official adds: “We often see two ormore siblings being married off at the sametime, or within a brief period, to two or more

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members of another group of siblings (forexample, three sisters are married to threebrothers who are their cousins). Even so, theparties will insist that all the marriages arelove matches….Family reunification betweenmarried cousins is in reality thereunification of an extended family, anddoesn’t primarily serve the spouses’interests. Many of the marriages aren’t realin any way: they’re forced marriages that arenever consummated, and they’re entered intowith the sole intention of helping a cousincome to Norway. Among those who employ thisstratagem – entirely without conscience – areNorwegian-Pakistanis whom we’d prefer to thinkof as well integrated: law students, medicalstudents, and so on. Almost nobody admits tobeing in a forced marriage. Most say thattheir parents ‘suggested’ it, and that it was‘fine’ with them.”

Forced marriages and immigrant politicians

Forced marriages and the deception ofimmigration officials are, in fact, commonamong people who in many respects can appearto be well-integrated. I have in my possessiondocuments showing that leading immigrantpoliticians have been directly involved in theperpetration by their extended families offorced marriages, and that they’ve broken thelaw and infringed on individuals’ rights inorder to bring family members to Norway.Partly out of concern for their children, Iwon’t name names.

This situation is important for severalreasons: When leading immigrant politicians,of their own volition or in response to agreater or lesser amount of force exerted by

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their relatives, themselves contribute toillegal immigration and the infringement ofindividual rights, it underscores just howdeeply rooted these practices are. It alsoillustrates why it’s so hard to have anhonest, fact-based debate about these issueswhen major participants in the debate arethemselves also active participants in theillegal activity and refuse to acknowledge theextent of this illegality.

This game-playing has not only harmed thedebate. What’s far more serious, in my view,is that this double-dealing is also a majorreason for the general impotence that hasprevailed in the field of immigration. It isoutrageous that people who are deeply involvedin the violation of immigration rules are inpositions of power from which they serve upmisrepresentations of reality that have misleda succession of Parliaments and governments –and have done so at the cost of the mostvulnerable individuals of all, namelyimmigrant youth.

It is also outrageous that authority,knowledge, and credibility are automaticallyascribed to immigrant politicians simplybecause of their cultural and ethnicbackgrounds. I’ve often marveled at ourleading national politicians’ continuedfailure to understand that politicians withclose ties to extended families and ethniccommunities marked by a feudal caste and clanculture can’t easily adopt independentopinions in isolation from the powerstructures into which they were born. Fewconsiderations trump the loyalty to “one’sown.”

Some day, I believe, documentation willcome to light revealing the corrupt misuse of

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personal connections in major nationalinstitutions by leading politicians withimmigrant backgrounds.

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4

Born into Freedom, Stripped ofFreedom

Today there’s a steady stream of newspouses entering Norway. But there’s alsosignificant traffic in the other direction.This traffic is even less controlled than thetraffic coming in. It’s also far moredeserving of criticism in a nation of laws. Iam speaking here about parents who send theirchildren back to their homelands. The motive:to shield them from Norway’s democratic valuesystem, from dating, and from the opportunityto choose their own spouses in accordance withthe dictates of their hearts. The idea is tobring them up in such a way that one daythey’ll allow their families to marry themoff.

Samira from Tromsø

Her name is Samira. It’s her real name. Forthere’s no reason to give her a pseudonym. Shehas nothing more to lose: she’s already losteverything.

At thirteen, however, Samira won thelottery. She got to move from Somalia toNorway – from one of the world’s worstcountries for children to grow up in to one ofthe best. Settling in Tromsø with her parents

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and siblings, she embraced her newopportunities in life eagerly. Indeed, she didwhat our political leaders dream out loudabout in speeches: she integrated herself –and in record time. In school, Samira didn’thave to be asked twice what she thought aboutwomen’s lives in Somalia. She was herself avictim of one of the worst imaginabletraditions. Like almost all girls in Somalia,she was genitally mutilated. No one at theschool was left in any doubt as to howhorrible Samira thought genital mutilationwas. But she went further than that: shecriticized the religion she had been borninto, Islam. She took for granted her right tocriticize it, for she had seen Muslim girlsand women denied the right to speak and act asfree human beings.40

Samira had not lived long in Tromsø beforeshe threw off her hijab and dressed the wayother girls in Tromsø dressed. She held herhead high, and was always quick to flash herteasing, laughing smile. About the everydaycosts she was paying at home for her choices,she said little, and only to her very closestfriends. They knew very well that her life wastroubled, and that Samira’s father was deeplydissatisfied with his daughter’s behavior.Samira’s behavior challenged his honour. Shewould not submit to his will. Unlike Samira,he couldn’t walk with his head held high whenhe met his countrymen for prayer in themosque. What should he do with this unrulyyoungster?

The summer vacation of 2002 wasapproaching. Samira had just turned fifteen.She and two girlfriends, who also enjoyedtheir lives in Norway, made a deal: if one ofthem went on summer vacation and didn’t return

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in time for the start of the fall term, theothers would alert the school.

Samira’s uncle came for a visit fromStockholm. One day he walked into Samira’sroom and said, “Samira, you have to pack allthe clothes you have. Everything. We’re goingon vacation to London, just you and me. We’llhave a good time. I have a lot of money.”

She was startled that she was supposed topack all her clothes. But she did as she wasasked. She said goodbye to her friends, andboarded the flight to London.

Samira wasn’t back for the start of theschool year. Her friends, as agreed, notifiedthe school. The school, in turn, notified thepolice, Barnevernet, and the social securitydepartment, and called Samira’s father in fora conversation. Samira, he told them, was inEthiopia, with a grandmother and her threesiblings. She’s fine, he said. Samira herselfhad decided that she’d prefer to live there:“She does what she wants, that uncontrollablegirl.”

Could her teacher speak to Samira on thephone? Could her teacher send her a letter?No, the father had no phone number. He had noaddress. Meanwhile Samira’s mother told othersthat the girl was in London. Later she saidthat Samira was in a certain town in Ethiopia.And later still she said that Samira was inanother town in Ethiopia with her sickgrandmother.

The police had a talk with Samira’s father.He stuck to his story that Samira was fine andwas in Ethiopia with her grandmother. Nobodydid anything more. But Samira’s friends andteacher were in despair. They were sure thatSamira had been taken back to Somalia – butthey hit a brick wall every time they knocked

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on the doors of government offices. So theycontacted organizations – and ran into thesame wall. Finally the teacher got in touchwith Human Rights Service. We started workingtogether with Samira’s helpers and friends.41

Our goal was clear: to bring Samira back hometo Norway.

The school wrote a letter to the office ofthe Ombudsman for Children in Norway, whichdid nothing other than wish them luck.42 Theschool sent a letter to the Parliament, whichdid not reply. The father was called in to anew conversation at the school.43 The onlything the conversation accomplished was tomake us even more convinced that he wasn’ttelling the truth. And why should he?Samira’s unannounced disappearance had notcaused him the slightest problem, aside from acouple of uncomfortable encounters with theauthorities. Among our conversation topics wasthe fact that Samira’s passport had beenconfiscated by Norwegian police stationed inDubai only two months after Samira had leftNorway. The passport had been used by a youngSomali woman who had been headed for Norway.No, the father said, he didn’t know anythingabout that. The Norwegian police let the issuedie. So why should the father be anxious? Thesocial-security office was still depositinghis monthly payments into his bank account.

Letters to the Norwegian embassy in AddisAbaba, Ethiopia, which was the Norwegianforeign ministry’s nearest outpost to Somalia,yielded no hope. The offer from the embassywas this: if Samira turned up at the embassy,they’d be able to help her get home. Turn upat the embassy? A girl of fifteen, alone, ina part of the world where it’s very dangerousfor girls to be alone? Where there’s a war

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going on? But one comfort – if you could callit that – was that the embassy was at leastable to confirm that Samira wasn’t officiallyregistered as having entered Ethiopia.

Perhaps the government would help? No,they wrote back saying that nothing could bedone. Samira would have to go to the embassyherself.44

What about the Red Cross’s trackingservice?45 We shared with the Red Cross oursuspicion that Samira had been sent to herparents’ hometown of Garowe, Somalia. In thesummer of 2003 the Red Cross replied byletter. Samira had been found in Garowe, whereshe was under guard around the clock. She wasattending Koran school, and was accompanied toand from school by a guard – which made itimpossible for the Red Cross representative intown to speak with her. For this reason itwould also be futile for us to try to visither in Somalia.

Human Rights Service sent a twelve-pagereport to the police in Tromsø.46 In it wenoted that Samira might have been forced tomarry, perhaps while she was still undersixteen. We pointed out that she was beingheld prisoner, that she was being denied herlegal right to schooling, and that, in theworst-case scenario, her life might beimperiled. The police took the case out of thedrawer again, and concluded, with apologies,that they could do nothing.47

Samira’s friends were now at the breakingpoint. Feeling that she had no more to lose,they publicized the case. Local newspapers andthe TV news program Dagsrevyen told her story inNovember 2003.48 Norwegian authoritiesremained silent and perplexed. And Samirastayed in Somalia.

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At a meeting with Human Rights Service inSeptember of the following year, cabinetmember Erna Solberg agreed to look into thecase.49 We never heard another word from herabout it.

Samira was truly out of sight, out of mind– for the government, that is, but not for therest of us. Had she been married off? Had shehad children? Or had she held her head uphigh and spoken up and been killed? Anendless list of questions, but no answer.After two and a half years we all gave up.

But Samira remained firmly in our thoughts.In a meeting with the Oslo police in November2005, about an entirely different subject, Imentioned Samira and our worries about herwell-being. The police officer said he wouldsee what he could find out. Four days later hereported back: Samira was living with hergrandmother and siblings in Garowe.

So she was, in any case, alive.

Denmark’s Samira

The same summer that Norway’s Samiradisappeared, a Danish girl named Samira alsowent missing. Same name, same country ofbirth, and almost an identical story.

Denmark’s Samira underwent familyreunification with her father and mother whenshe was seven years old. They were very strictand violent. At thirteen she discovered thather parents weren’t her parents at all. Theman she had been told was her father was, infact, her uncle.50 When she discovered thatshe’d been deceived, she rebelled. She tookthings into her own hands and lived like otherDanish teenagers. In short, she integrated inrecord time – just like her Norwegian

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namesake. The rebellion became too much forher uncle. He held out to the girl theprospect of meeting her real mother during amonth-long vacation in Somalia. Samira becamehappy, very happy, and went on the trip in thesummer of 2002.

During long stretches of her stay inSomalia, Samira was kept isolated andsubjected to brutal violence. Twice shemanaged to make contact by telephone with herfriends in Denmark. They went to the media –and got immediate results.51 Denmark’s thenintegration minister, Bertel Haarder, madecontact at once with local authorities inSamira’s home municipality in Denmark andarranged to work with them to bring Samiraback. To the press, the minister said: “Samirais a terrible story. She is the quintessenceof successful integration – an integration shehas been punished for. Her parents shouldbring her home as fast as possible, or we willwithdraw their social support – and the Danishstate, which has been kind to a fault, willnot pay for the tickets. If the parents don’tdo so, we will withdraw the amount from theirchild-care allowance.”52

The municipality made contact by telephonewith Samira, and as a result of pressure bythe authorities and media she was brought backto Denmark a little over a month later. Her“parents” had to pay for the trip. Samira wasplaced in a foster home.

Neither the Norwegian Samira nor the DanishSamira was a citizen of her new homeland. TheDanish Samira didn’t even have valid groundsfor residency in Denmark: the fact that her“father” was really her uncle meant that she’dbeen granted family reunification on false

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premises. Nonetheless, the Danish governmentacted immediately to bring her home.

Was the Norwegian Samira a problem forNorwegian authorities? Was that whyperplexity reigned? I have documents showingthat Norwegian officials, in both the then andpreceding governments and departments, as wellas the Ombudsman for Children and otherofficial agencies, were very well informedabout the “Samira case” as early as 1991. In1992, a then sixteen-year-old Norwegian-borngirl gave me a stack of copies of letters shehad written to a friend in Norway from herparents’ homeland. They were heartbreakingcries for help. She was being held prisoner.She was to be married off to a man of aroundforty who was closely related to her. Herfriend had shown the letters to her ownfather. He, in turn, had asked officials forhelp. No one could help, came the answer –both orally and in writing. After a year ofthe worst kind of imprisonment, the girlreturned to Norway – unmarried. A quarrel hadarisen in the family as to who should get touse her as a living visa. The disagreement hadnot been resolved, however, and finally shehad been sent back.53

I can document similar – and far worse –cases, up through the 1990s, of whichNorwegian authorities have been fully informedbut on which they have refused to act. Thestandard reply from cabinet ministers andothers has been that parents have the right todecide how their children are raised. Yes, ofcourse cabinet ministers and bureaucrats haveto obey laws and regulations. But when the mapno longer corresponds to the terrain, onewould expect the map to be updated.

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Sent “home”

The treatment of young people like Samiracan justifiably be described as kidnapping andimprisonment. What is far more common is thatchildren and teenagers are sent to theirparents’ homeland and kept there for years.How many such cases are there in Norway?Officials don’t know.54 How many of these kidsare alone abroad, without their parents?Officials don’t know. Are they attendingschool? Officials don’t know. How many attendmadrasses (Koran schools) and receive no otherschooling? Officials don’t know. Who’s takingcare of them? Officials don’t know.

But if you ask officials how many Norwegianchildren live in Spain – yes, that you can getan answer to. Authorities have all that datain hand. They also know almost everythingabout who’s taking care of those kids andwhere they’re going to school; they workclosely with Spain’s child-protectionauthorities and have even set up a specialsocial-security office in Spain. They’ve evendrawn up materials, designed especially forNorwegian families living in Spain, thatprovide them with necessary information aboutthese matters.55

The parents who send their children back totheir homelands include both refugees andimmigrants; they include people from Gambia,India, Iraq, Morocco, Pakistan, Somalia, andTurkey. The group that sends the most childrenout of Norway is the Pakistanis.56 And thepractice is spreading.57

Why do parents do this? The answers, assupplied by the parents themselves as well asby the young people who are “sent home,” are

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many. The most common reason is that theparents want their children to “learn aboutour culture” or “learn about our religion.” Afew of them eLabourate on the meaning of thewords “our culture.” Some say that it meanschildren will learn “respect” for authorities,parents, and teachers. The children will learndiscipline, for in the parents’ viewdiscipline in Norwegian schools is terrible.As they see it, the lack of discipline inNorwegian schools leads children and youngpeople to lose respect for adults – and this,in turn, can lead them into crime. They alsosay that there’s too little education aboutIslam in Norwegian schools. A few parentsadmit candidly that they want to ensure thattheir children don’t absorb “Norwegian”values. When asked to eLabourate on the word“values,” they usually point to the sexualfreedom that girls and women enjoy in Norway.

When you send your child to live with yourrelatives in your homeland, that child is mucheasier to keep under supervision. The peopledoing the day-to-day supervision are many: therelatives themselves, school employees,neighbours, and so forth. And the child, it isexplained, acquires a “safe” identity, viewinghim- or herself, first and foremost, as“Gambian” or “Pakistani.” What only a fewparents will openly admit is that they’ve senttheir children back so that they can unlearneverything Norwegian. They don’t admit thatgirls are sent abroad so that they won’t beable to live on equal terms with males andenjoy the right to choose their own spouses;they don’t admit that girls are sent abroad atpuberty to be prepared for marriage – to beprepared, that is, to be good wives who liveup to the demands and standards set by men in

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their families’ homeland. Not openlyacknowledged is the fact that social-securitypayments also are sent out of the countryalong with the children. Some parents admitthat boys who have gone astray are sent“back,” while many say that boys are sentabroad to prevent them from ending up incriminal gangs. Parents are also open aboutthe fact that it’s financially advantageous topark their children in their homelands, wherecosts of living are low. Most of the parents,moreover, already own a residence there, whichis often empty anyway, or partly occupied byrelatives or servants.’

A first-class school

Let’s travel to Pakistan and take a look atthese children’s living situations – whatkinds of schools they attend, what they’retaught, and what sort of culture they’rebrought up in.

In certain areas of Pakistan, it’s easy tofind schoolchildren with Norwegian passports.Most of Norway’s Pakistanis are from the heartof Punjab – to be specific, from four citiesthat are like a string of pearls: Jehlum,Kharian, Lala Musa, and Gujrat. The most“Norwegian” city in Pakistan is Kharian, andthe most “Norwegian” village is Mehmet Chak.58

This region is popularly known as LittleNorway. In February 2004, along with HumanRights Service director Rita Karlsen andAftenposten journalist Halvor Tjønn, I took atrip around the area.

Near Gujrat is a Koran school that’srecommended by the Idara Minhaj ul-Quranmosque in Norway. It’s a boarding school, andsome of the students are girls from Norway.59

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The brick building, measuring around two tothree thousand square feet, stands near oneend of a field and looms over it. There are nowindows, just vents directly under the roof.When we arrived and stepped out of our car,there were no students in sight, only a coupleof male guards at the school gate, whoimmediately went inside to get the principal.He came out, we introducted ourselves, and hetold us about his own high professionalqualifications and the school’s highstandards. He said that all of the children atthe school were taught English, in addition toa wide range of other subjects – among themcomputer science, which was taught in thespecial computer room. He added that theschool followed British teaching plans.

Some girls, ranging in age from aroundeight to ten, appeared beyond the gate. One ofthem stood out from the others. She was quiteplump, while the others were very thin. Shewas also better dressed, and both she and herclothes were cleaner. They all appeared to bescared of the principal – except for her. InEnglish, we asked the girl her name. Shedidn’t understand the question, and lookedconfusedly at the principal. The question wasrepeated. Again, the girl looked confusedly atthe principal. The principal blushed. The samequestion was asked in Punjabi, and the girlanswered with a smile: “Rabia.” Theprincipal, very displeased, explained thatthese children were so young that they didn’tyet understand English well. He stammered, andmade an obvious attempt to wind up theconversation. He prevailed upon the guards tochase the children back in behind the gate –all except Rabia. For Rabia was his daughter.

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“Is it possible to have a look behind thewalls?”

The principal shook his head, and said thatit was necessary to secure permission from thegovernment.

“But isn’t this a private school?” Now it was the principal who suddenly spoke

very little English.“Are there foreign students here?”“No, absolutely not,” he answered quickly.

Norwegians? No, he insisted.The conversation continued, and the smiles

we directed at the principal grew increasinglyfriendly and good-natured. We smiled so muchthat finally he agreed to let one of us in.

The school was dark and cold, and the firstroom large and empty. A small door in one wallled to a cramped room, a sort of cloakroom inwhich several little children were sitting.Some of them were excited and curious at thesight of a foreign visitor; others lookeduncertain and hid themselves. The principalacted quickly, and the fast-paced tourcontinued as he switched on the light in along, narrow corridor. Portions of its ceilingwere grated, and this grating formed part ofthe floor on the story above. Through it,dozens of children looked down on the foreignvisitor from upstairs.

At the far end of the corridor, theprincipal opened the door to a small classroomfurnished with wooden chairs – no desks, noblackboard. Just under the roof was a tinywindow with bars on it. Otherwise the room wastotally empty. The next room was just like it.And so was the one after that.

Perhaps some of the children understoodNorwegian? But no, a few gentle, friendlywords in Norwegian drew no attention. Yet

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these words sent the principal into a near-panic. He didn’t understand what was beingsaid, and obviously feared that somebody wouldanswer. Leading his visitor along quickly, heopened the door of a room in which there wereseven to nine teenage girls. This room, too,lacked desks or blackboards. There was alittle peephole at the top of the wall, justunder the ceiling, through which a few rays oflight shone in. Before the principal couldstop her, the visitor asked: “Is there anybodyhere who speaks Norwegian?” In reply came asingle syllable that could have been either aNorwegian or Danish “hei” or an English “hi.”Brusquely, the principal said that the girlshad to concentrate on their studies. He closedthe door.

Then, abruptly, he concluded the tour.Enough was enough. Fearing that any protestmight cause problems for the girls, hisvisitor gave in to his wishes at once.60

The visit inside “the walls” wasunsettling. The place was filthy, dark, andcold. There were no educational materials insight other than some heavily thumbed-throughbooks, and not a single female employee. Allday and night, adult men and girls weretogether behind those walls.61

At a nearby school, officials confirmedthat Norwegian children were registered at theIdara Minjah ul-Quran Koran school.

Hundreds of Norwegian children

The “capital” of Little Norway, Kharian,has a guarded, sealed-off military sector thatis its own wonderful little world, with well-kept lawns, long, tree-lined avenues, and nonoisy traffic. In this sector one can, if

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necessary, live one’s entire life. It is herethat the well-off have their homes; there arestores and schools and most of the facilitiesone needs on a day-to-day basis. Also locatedhere is probably the largest colony ofNorwegian-Pakistanis in Pakistan.62 For thoughthe neighbourhood was intended for militarypersonnel and their families, in recent years“ordinary people,” mainly those with Westernmoney, have been given the opportunity to buyinto the area. By Pakistani standards, theypay enormous sums just for empty lots, onwhich they build resplendent houses.63

Among the pupils at one of the schools inthis sector are two Norwegian-born girls ofeight and twelve. They can speak only Punjabi,plus a little English. The older girl says sheattended school in Norway for three yearsbefore being sent to Pakistan. All of hersiblings who are under the age of eighteen areliving in Pakistan with their mother, whilethe siblings over eighteen are in Norway withtheir father. The younger girl doesn’tremember when she came to Pakistan; nor doesshe recall anything from the time when shelived in Norway, though she has vacationed inNorway a couple of times. She lives with hermother and her under-eighteen siblings. Bothgirls say they’ll return to Norway whenthey’ve completed school in Pakistan. Theolder one says with a careful smile: “And thenwe’ll be there for good.”

During our conversation, two other girlsturn up. One of them is ten years old, theother fifteen. Only the younger one has aNorwegian passport, but both have families inNorway. “We’re going to Norway when we growup,” they say. But how can the older one moveto Norway without a Norwegian passport?

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Shyly, she explains that she has a cousin inNorway who wants to marry her. The principal,who is present during the entire conversation,breaks in and confirms the girl’s plans: “Thisisn’t special in any way. After the childrenfinish their education, the parents decidewhom they’ll marry. It’s very often a cousin.In this way, more and more young people in thesame family get a visa and residency in theWest. And it’s been working this way since theemigration from this area began thirty toforty years ago.”

The largest school building in the militarysector has 1700 pupils and is very popular,the principal says. Most of the pupils haveforeign passports. To ensure that theirchildren will have a place in this school whenthey reach school age, according to theprincipal, parents register them when they arenewborns. When the school bell rings for thelast time this day, a Norwegian-born pair ofsiblings are picked up by their father. He’san Oslo bus driver, and has five children agedseven to thirteen. Two of them are standing athis side, a girl and a boy. The girl, agedthirteen, has attended school in Norway for acouple of years. Neither the girl nor the boycan speak Norwegian.

“That doesn’t matter,” says the father, whois here on a visit for a couple of months.“Norwegian is very easy to learn. They’lllearn it fast when they come back to Norway.”

The children won’t return to Norway untilthey’re pretty much grown up.

“It’s easier to get a good job in Norway,”he says, and emphasizes: “They are Norwegiancitizens.”

“But why should Norwegian citizens grow upin another country?”

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“In this area everything is safer. My wifecan shop here alone,” he says pensively, andexplains how well organized and orderlyeverything is, and that discipline in theschool is strict. The children become “properPakistanis.”

“What does that mean?”“They have to learn about Pakistani culture

and learn Islam in a proper way,” the fatherexplains. But it takes money to keep thechildren in Pakistan.

“The school costs money. The books costmoney, the uniforms, the private teacher –yes, everything costs money,” he says, andadds: “While in Norway everything was free.”

“Is it worth it?”“Yes, it’s worth it. Even though they also

took away the child benefits. We get a lotmore for the money here. I earn well. Yes,even if I’m sick, I get paid.”

The school as waiting room

In a village near Kharian, a frustrated anddejected man runs a school that lacks most ofthe supplies and resources it needs.64 Thisstraight-talking principal was educated in theWest and is eager to fill his students withknowledge. But he’s banging his head againstthe wall. The “wall” is the children’sawareness that they already have visas to theWest awaiting them.

Almost all of the children at the schoolhave parents abroad, while the children livein villages, most often with their mothers.Most of the children come to Pakistan whenthey reach school age, at around five yearsold. The principal explains why: it’s about

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money – the cost of living here is low – andabout preparing the children for marriage.

The pupils, the principal feels, areunmotivated. He literally characterizes theschool as a “waiting service before marriage.”The principal explains this description asfollows:

“When the pupils are ready to marry, theymarry a cousin and go back to the West,” hesays. “I ask them: ‘What are you going to dothere? Without education you’ll end upwashing dishes or sweeping streets.’ But theydon’t care. They’re just waiting to marry andgo back to the West. Those pupils here whodon’t have parents in the West already have avisa in their pocket, because they’re engagedto a cousin with citizenship in the West. Andfor them, too, the school is just a waitingservice before marriage.”

The principal is clearly in despair aboutthe situation, and he says in a worried tone:“I could have educated them.”

Most of the pupils in the schoolyardconfirm that they have Western passports –from Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, orFrance. Some of the girls dream aloud aboutbecoming doctors or lawyers. Several tell usthey’ll study in a Pakistani city – Islamabad,Lahore – before returning to the West. Theyall think it’ll be unproblematic to go back toNorway without being able to speak Norwegianor knowing anything about Norwegian society.The boys don’t dream aloud about their futurejobs. But what about problems they might have inNorway because they can’t speak Norwegian?“There’s a lot of Pakistanis in Norway,”answers one boy.

Overhearing the pupils, the principal says:“This is typical. The girls dream about

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getting a good, respectable job, preferably asa lawyer or a doctor, or in finance orcomputers, but very few of them will get theopportunity to do so. They’ll be married offand will have children. The boys, on the otherhand, have much greater opportunities to getsuch an education, but they don’t want to bebothered.”

In Pakistan without mother and father

Enrolled in an elementary school in anothervillage in Little Norway are two Norwegian-born sisters, aged five and eight. They’reliving alone in Pakistan with relatives, andhave been separated from their parents forover two years. They also have a little sisterin Norway who is a few months old. The littlesister has already been signed up for the sameschool.65

The Norwegian-born girls are very shy, andneither of them can speak Norwegian – thoughthey were, they say, able to speak a bit of itwhen they lived in Norway. Only the older girlremembers the name of the Norwegian town whereshe was born. The younger one tells us thatshe remembers little from Norway. The olderone says warily that it was her parents whothought it was best for them to go to schoolin Pakistan. She and her little sister lookforward to returning to Norway. They may go toNorway on vacation this year or next. Theydon’t know for sure. Nor do they know ifthey’ll be visited by their parents thissummer.

The principal tells us about the school andthe subjects the children study. Pretty muchall the books are in Urdu. Education in Islamis important here. Therefore, he explains,

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they also incorporate Islamic instruction in,for example, the language lessons in Urdu andEnglish. All the education takes placeoutdoors. The younger pupils sit on theground, the older ones on benches. The pupilsare actively used as teaching assistants;physical punishment is common. The pupils evenpunish one another – as we discover when agirl with a stick in her hand bends overanother little girl who’s reading aloud.66

We make a week-long tour of schools inLittle Norway, and along the way meet severaldozen Norwegian-born children. Not one canhold a conversation in Norwegian. This doesn’tmean that no Norwegian-Pakistani children inPakistan can speak Norwegian. But myoverwhelming impression is that very few can.The children are mostly members of the secondgeneration, the progeny of people whoimmigrated to Norway. Even if they marrysomeone in Pakistan, their own offspring willbe considered the third generation. Perhapstheir Pakistani spouses will want their kidsto follow the same practice of living inPakistan for a long period. Yet even if thosechildren do spend a long time in Pakistan,they won’t appear in Statistics Norway’simmigrant statistics; they’ll be regarded ashaving become Norwegian – even if they don’tknow a word of Norwegian or know anythingabout Norwegian society. Paradoxically, manyof their great-grandparents – that is, theactual immigrants who were the first in thefamily to come to Norway – may speak betterNorwegian than their nominally Norwegianchildren, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.

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How are the schools?

Pakistan is a very poor country with majorproblems at all levels of society. This isreflected, of course, in its educationalsystem, which suffers from a serious teachershortage, a lack of qualified teachers,wretched equipment, miserable educationalconditions, corruption, physical punishment,and a high drop-out rate.67 Barely two percentof the national budget goes to education,while half goes to the military.68

There are six times more public thanprivate schools. My impression is that aconsiderable majority of the Norwegian-Pakistani children in Pakistan attend privateschools. One can easily be led to believe thatthe private schools have a far higher standardthan the public schools. And, yes, at privateschools the conditions are generally better(with the pronounced exception of thereligious schools). But as experts note, theprivate schools minimalize expenses by notdistinguishing themselves in a significant wayfrom public schools. Only around 10 percent ofthe private schools have fully qualified andfully manned teaching staffs. A pressinvestigation revealed that over 85 percent ofthe private schools in Punjab did not hold toan acceptable standard in regard to teachingpersonnel and equipment. In the upper-classcity of Islamabad, 86 private schools closedin 2003 because of low standards.69

UNESCO claims that as a result of the lowquality of education during the first fiveyears of school, pupils lack basic reading,writing, and arithmetical skills. Pakistanieducation experts are concerned that pupils

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who complete the first five years of schoolalso lack the ability to think independently.Pupils are given an extremely limited exposureto major social issues, and consequently havelittle knowledge thereof. In 2002, a group ofindependent Pakistani experts concluded thatthe overwhelming majority of both public andprivate schools offer an extremely pooreducation.70

The contents of the schoolbooks remain pre-modern and full of stereotypes – especiallyabout sex roles. Education in traditionalIslam is given much more emphasis thaneducation in social and individual rights.

Educational values

At none of the schools we visited in LittleNorway was it possible to get access toteaching plans. Surely they must exist, butthey weren’t “available” at that particulartime. The principals told us that the mainsubjects were Urdu, English, mathematics,computers, and Islamiet, the study of Islam. Noone mentioned social studies, history, orreligious instruction. But everyone emphasizedthat it was a major task to raise children tobe “good Muslims.”

Pakistan has undergone a significant degreeof Islamization in recent years.71 When Ivisited Little Norway for the first time in1993, I cannot recall that I saw a singlewoman in hijab or niqab. Today this is acommon sight. In the most “Norwegian” village,Mehmet Chak, even the female schoolteacherswere wearing niqab. Covered women have alsobecome a familiar sight in the streets ofmajor Pakistani cities. Islamization and thecovering of women in public areas go hand in

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hand, and the recent histories of Afghanistanand Iran bear witness to this indissolublerelationship. Until a few years ago, hijab andniqab were virtually non-existent. The womendressed in the cultural and religious attireknown as shalwar kamiz, with the accompanyingdupatta. The outfit consists of a tunic andwide pants, and a scarf that either hangsloose over the hair or is draped over theshoulder and breasts. In the most conservativeareas, what is most often worn is the burka,which consists of a wide coat and a veil thatcovers the entire head and face. The hijab andniqab are thus part of an escalation ofreligious politics.

When Pakistan was founded in 1947, the ideawas to create a secular state (Mumtaz andShaheed, 1987:8). The father of the country,Muhammed Ali Jinnah, was far from an obedientMuslim. He drank alcohol, ate pork, couldrarely be seen in a mosque, and married a non-Muslim. As a Muslim man, he should havemarried a Muslim, Jew, or Christian. RattanbaiPetit, whom he married, belonged to theancient Persian religion of Zoroastrianism.Today Jinnah is presented as a God-fearing,almost pietistic Muslim who consideredPakistan an Islamic state.72

The key factor in the Islamization ofPakistan during the last quarter-century hasbeen the shaping of a monolithic image ofPakistan as an Islamic state and of Pakistanicitizens as Muslims.73 To this end, nationaleducational plans and schoolbooks in majorsubjects have been revised, and are todaypermeated with religious and nationalpropaganda. History is falsified, and Indiaand Hindus are the objects of what couldalmost be called a hate campaign. An

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atmosphere has been created in which non-Muslims are regarded as second-class citizenswho have fewer rights and privileges, whosepatriotism is suspect, and whose contributionsto society are ignored.74

History books published prior to thebeginning of Pakistan’s full-blownIslamization presented India, Hindu belief,and the first great civilizations on thesubcontinent (such as the Indus culture)respectfully.75 Children’s schoolbooks treatedpre-Islamic Hindu kingdoms and non-Muslimpolitical leaders such as Mahatma Gandhi withadmiration and esteem. This is no longer thecase.

Teaching about the subcontinent’s historyhas been replaced with teaching about thehistory of Muslims on the subcontinent. Pupilslearn nothing about the region’s pre-Islamichistory. The facts of Pakistan’s origins havealso been rewritten. For example, the Islamicleaders who were bitter opponents of thenation’s founding are presented as heroic“creators of the state of Pakistan.” Inreality, they were very hostile to the idea ofa separate Muslim state, which for them was atodds with the goal of a worldwide caliphate.

Islam and nationalism figure centrally inthe instruction of most subjects. Secondgraders, for example, can read in their Urdulanguage primer that “Pakistan is an Islamiccountry. Muslims live here. Muslims believe inthe unity of Allah. They do good deeds.”

Children, the instructional plans makeclear, are taught that the Islamic way of lifeis superior to other ways of life. They’realso taught to love jihad and martyrdom.76 Insocial studies, English, and Pakistanihistory, too, the essence of the instruction

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is the same: children are instilled with thenational ideology – and, along with it, ahatred of Hindus and Indians.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan(HRCP) has cautioned against this hatred andagainst the general distancing of Pakistanistudents from all non-Muslim societies. In anewsletter entitled “Teaching Hatred” (25April 2004), HRCP warned that Pakistanieducation was still promoting jihad and anarrow view of religion. The newsletter wasbased on a Pakistani government report on thistopic, which revealed that schoolbooks aroundthe country preached differential treatment ofand direct discrimination against religiousminorities, and encouraged hate by presentinga distorted historical picture of the historyof non-Muslim societies. HRCP accusedPakistani officials of sowing the seeds ofmilitant extremism and intolerance, and fearedthat the situation would only worsen.

Reigning social values

In what kind of society do the Norwegian-Pakistani children in Pakistan grow up?

To understand social and culturalconditions in Pakistan, one needs someknowledge about the country’s politicaldevelopment. It’s no coincidence that a sayingoften heard in Pakistan is this: “The factthat the country of Pakistan still exists isthe best proof of Allah’s existence.”Pakistan has never had a long-term democraticgovernment;77 it has been run alternately bymilitary dictators and political despots. Itsgovernment is riddled with corruption; itlacks such democratic institutions as a well-functioning legal, health-care, or school

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system; and it has no welfare system at all.Recent years have seen the increasingprominence and political power of anti-democratic, fascistic religious forces.78 Theconfidence of the general public in theestablished order has long been on the vergeof breakdown. Pakistanis can hardly trustanyone other than themselves and their kin.And the (so far) consistent lack of democraticdevelopment has been especially instrumentalin the perpetuation of antagonism towarddemocratic equal rights, freedom ofexpression, and religious liberty. Theinstability of the social and politicalstructures also contributes to the suppressionof the individual and the stimulation of abroad-based conformity.

Pakistan is a country dominated byfeudalism and the master-slave mentality. Anindividual’s value is strictly determined byhis or her family background, caste and tribalidentity, religious affiliation, and(especially) financial and political power,the latter two of which tend to be bound upwith each other. A vivid example of thedistortion of power relations in Pakistan isthe institution of slavery. Rich people buy upwhole families to work for them under theworst imaginable conditions, and pay themwages that guarantee they will spend theirlives in debt. In Pakistan, these families arecalled “bounded Labour” and occupy roles verysimilar to those of serfs in the era ofScandinavian feudalism. In the Punjab, it isespecially common to find enslaved familiesworking at brick factories. And among theslaveowners are a number of people withNorwegian citizenship

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For example, the largest palace in thevillage of Alam Pur Gondelan, near Kharian,belongs to a Pakistani who officially residesin the Norwegian city of Drammen. Near hispalace is a brick factory that he owns. A fewyears ago, he purchased an extended familyfrom Pathan, the members of which – adults aswell as children – work at his factory. Theworking conditions are exceedingly wretched,and he pays his slaves wages on which they’reunable to live.79 As a result, their debt tohim is gradually increasing – and consequentlythey’re growing even more firmly bound to himand his factory. When their time comes, thechildren will take over their parents’ debt.No one can say with certainty how many slavesthere are in Pakistan. The highest estimateI’ve seen is 20 million. For major Pakistanihuman-rights organizations, fighting slaveryis a banner issue.

I’ve mentioned the distinctive role playedby hatred for India and Hinduism in Pakistanisociety. In Pakistan, as in so many otherplaces in the Muslim world, one alsoencounters a similar hatred for Jews.80 In avariety of circumstances – and even in thebest social circles – I’ve overheard extremelyimaginative conspiracy theories and terriblydisturbing comments about Jews. It’s said thatthe Jews rule America and that their goal iseconomic and political domination of theworld. The Jews were behind the bombing of theTwin Towers on September 11, 2001 – theirmotive being to turn the West against Muslims.Jews are evil through and through; they’rehardly human beings. These attitudes arewidespread.

In the 25 May 1995, issue of Aftenposten, theauthor Salman Rushdie described his

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relationship to Pakistan in this way: “I comefrom an Indian Muslim family, but I experienceIndia as a very pleasant country, whereas inPakistan I feel ill at ease. You would thinkit should be the reverse. But in spite of itsmany defects, India is a rich and opensociety, while Pakistan is culturally animpoverished and closed society.”

Culturally impoverished and closed, saysRushdie. Pakistan is especially impoverishedin its view of girls and women. Among thecomments most frequently heard fromintellectuals, politicians, and human-rightsactivists is that “in Pakistan we treat ourwomen worse than cattle” and that “every womanis regarded as a prostitute.”81

Pakistan is one of the world’s mostpatriarchal countries. The low status of girlsand women also has a good deal to do with thedowry system. While a son’s marriage enricheshis family, a daughter’s takes money out ofits coffers in the form of the obligatorydowry. The dowry and caste system in Pakistanis a tragic inheritance from Hinduism. InIslam there’s a bride price, which means thatthe husband pays for his bride. In Pakistanthe rule of thumb is that the closer you getto India, the more Islam is influenced byHindu tradition and practice, and the closeryou gets to Afghanistan, the weaker the Hinduinfluence.

The lack of a welfare system also bolstersanti-female attitudes. A woman who opposes thewidely accepted views of her sex risks, at thevery least, being made an outcast. Sincethere’s no government department to take careof her if that happens, she’s entirelydependent on the good or ill will of herextended family, clan, or tribe.82 Yet the

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picture isn’t entirely bleak. There are a fewbrave women and men who run private crisiscenters where women can get different kinds ofhelp, including legal aid. Some of theseorganizations receive economic and moralsupport from Norway.

In Pakistan, so-called purdah – theseparation of the sexes – is a fact of dailylife. It’s practiced not only in public butalso in ordinary people’s homes, where thewomen of the house are hidden from malevisitors. In public, it operates at mostlevels of society. Thanks to purdah, it’stremendously difficult for friendships to formnaturally between men and women. Generallyspeaking, people automatically assume any man-woman friendship to be sexual. As a malePakistani friend of mine in Islamabad said:“Pakistani men can’t image a platonicrelationship with a woman.”83

According to reports by both Pakistani andforeign researchers, violence toward girls andwomen in Pakistan is widespread. And it’s notabating, either: on the contrary, it seems tobe increasing, a conclusion that’s supportedby the annual reports of human-rights groups.84

Various estimates put the percentage of womenin Pakistan who are abused in their homes at70 to 90 percent. A report by the respectedorganization Human Rights Watch puts the rateof domestic violence against women at 90percent.85 When the Human Rights Commission ofPakistan also issued an estimate of around 90percent, it drew criticism from people whoconsidered it too low.86

Violence has a variety of faces andinvolves a range of actions. Pakistan leadsthe world in the number of registered honourkillings of women, with around a thousand such

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murders a year. There is reason to assume thatthis number only represents the tip of theiceberg. Throwing acid in women’s faces,burning them to death or to the point ofunrecognizability, cutting off their noses,selling girls in order to end conflictsbetween families or tribes, kidnapping youngwomen for gang rapes, stripping women andparading them naked through villages – allthese practices have become more common.87

“Pre-modern Norwegian-Pakistanis”

It’s often said that Norwegian-Pakistanishave been stuck in a pre-modern era ever sincethey emigrated – the implications being thatPakistanis in Pakistan are far more moderntoday than they were thirty to forty yearsago, and that women in Pakistan are far freernow than they were then. For example, youngNorwegian-Pakistanis, in particular, tend toclaim that in Pakistani cities marrying forlove has become quite common.

This is untrue. In undemocratic, feudalregimes, there will always be an intellectualand economic overclass that lives, in whole orin part, outside the social code. In Pakistan,this elite makes up a microscopic fraction ofthe total population of 162 million.88 I wouldclaim, on the contrary, that Pakistan was amore liberal country when the first large waveof Pakistanis came to Norway in the first halfof the 1970s – that is, when thedemocratically elected and very woman-friendlyprime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto ran thecountry. My female friends in Pakistan, whowere young in the 1970s, say that in thosedays they could dress in short-sleeved blousesand short skirts without a problem. To wear

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such clothing in public today can becharacterized as a highly dangerous extremesport.89

The Norwegian-Pakistani children in theheart of Punjab, which in Pakistan is viewedas an area that is particularly rooted intradition and conservative in its values, growup in an environment suffused with feudalvalues – a place where human worth isdetermined by caste, tribe, and sex, whereintolerance of other cultures, religions, andsocieties reigns, and where free criticalthought is an alien concept. It’s in such asetting that Norwegian-Pakistani children are“educated.”

I’ve often asked myself this question:don’t Norway’s Labour and Socialist Leftparties still consider uniform schooling afighting issue – an essential cause in thestruggle for social and educational equality,for the formation of basic democratic values,and, yes, for the socialization process? Why,then, is there such striking silence fromthose quarters about the distressingconditions I’m discussing here?

How many children?

Norwegian authorities, then, don’t know howmany Norwegian children are, at any giventime, “back home” in their ancestral homeland.But it’s possible to come up with a reasonableguess. The Norwegian embassy in Pakistanestimates that at any given time between fourand five thousand Norwegian-Pakistanis are inPakistan. Of these, the embassy suggests thatas many as 90 percent may be under sixteenyears old. But it must be emphasized thatthese are highly uncertain figures.90 The

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embassy in Morocco has reported a seriousincrease in the number of Norwegian-Moroccanchildren in that country. Norway’s foreignstation in Gambia has reported a similar rise,which is confirmed by a Norwegian-Gambianfriend of mine. He visits Gambia annually,most recently in the late winter of 2006, andtells me that “there are so many people whohave their children here now; there are justmore and more of them.” Members of variouscommunities in Norway – among them the Somali,Iraqi, and Turkish communities – alsoacknowledge that more and more people aresending their children “home” to go to school.I personally know Somali families with five oreight children all of whom have been shippedback to Somalia while their parents remain inNorway. When a Norwegian-Pakistani father whoworks at a pub in Oslo was asked whether hischildren were in Norway or in Pakistan, hesaid: “Only the losers’ children go to schoolin Norway.” He had sent his wife and theirfour children to Little Norway. And helaconically added: “It’s me they’re sorry for– I’m the one who has a long, expensive tripto work.”

All this suggests that it’s hardly anexaggeration to estimate that four to fivethousand children are at any given time onlong-term stays in their parents’ homelands.But why can’t the Norwegian government put theexact figures on the table? The answeremerged after a series of disagreementsbetween the second Bondevik administration andHuman Rights Service. We claimed in June 2004that four to five thousand children might beout of the country. The government argued thatthis had to be a gross exaggeration.Statistics Norway (SSB) was therefore asked to

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look into the situation – whereupon SSBexplained why the exact figures could not bearrived at.91 Curiously enough, the reason hada good deal to do with Norwegian ship owners.How so? Well, in order to prevent the shipowners’ tax flight from Norway, the Norwegianparliament changed the national register lawin the 1980s. Those with so-called “strongties” to Norway, such as children or a spouseliving here, are still registered as residingin Norway even if they actually live inanother country. The law was changed in thisway so that Norway could continue to tax theship owners. The consequence for children withimmigrant and refugee backgrounds, alas, isthat if they have a parent or sibling inNorway, they’re still registered as living inNorway. Only if the parents actively reportthe children as having moved abroad will theirabsence be recorded by the system. And thefact is that very few parents with immigrantor refugee backgrounds let the government knowwhen they send their children abroad. Whyshould they? The children and their mother(if she accompanies them) will return toNorway when the time comes – that is, at thelatest, when “the red book” (that is, theNorwegian passport) gives them and theirspouses the right to live in a welfare state.It was no surprise, then, that StatisticsNorway’s study showed only around 1200children with Pakistani, Moroccan, and Turkishbackgrounds registered as having been sentabroad.

Plainly, this was only the tip of theiceberg. Yet after the study results werereleased, the second Bondevik governmentpublicly claimed that the exact number hadfinally been put on the table. Professing

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relief, the government maintained that onlyaround a thousand or so children in Norway hadbeen sent “home.”92 Why the governmentmisrepresented data that it had ordered itselfwill have to be explained by someone otherthan me. There is little reason to believeanything other than that the number ofchildren sent abroad is somewhere in theseveral thousands – and that the likelihood ishigh that the number will continue to rise.

In Denmark, when Human Rights Serviceissued a comprehensive report expressingconcern about children who are sent out of thecountry, it was taken very seriously. TheDanish government immediately set a researchproject in motion, and in June 2006 a full setof measures was adopted, in which the mainfocus was on employing all available means tokeep children in Denmark – where, after all,they would be living their adult lives.93

While our report led the Danish government,then, to take effective action, our ownleaders’ response to the same report was to donothing. It’s hard for me, as a Norwegiancitizen, to react to this contrast withanything other than numbness and shame.

Rights and obligations?

There can be little doubt that for thegreat majority of children who are sent forlong periods to their families’ homelands, thesituation is highly unfortunate for theirfuture integration in almost every way. Theirforeign stays are also often in conflict with– and, indeed, may well totally violate – anumber of laws, rules, and internationalconventions regarding children’s rights. It’salso quite worrisome that children are being

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educated in countries where human rightsgenerally, and women’s rights in particular,are often in a terribly feeble state. Also ofconcern is the question of who, exactly, istaking care of these children – especiallythose who have been placed in boarding schoolsrun by religious organizations. That thesechildren have very little opportunity todevelop their powers of critical reflection,to develop an individuality and independencethat will equip them to stand up for their ownneeds and desires (for example, when choosinga spouse), is also unsettling. In my view,these children are, practically speaking,virtually without rights. Is the doctrinereally what it seems to be – namely, get yourchildren across the Swedish border and you cando what you want with them without theNorwegian government stepping in? Yes, thisis how it works – at least if the childrenhave immigrant backgrounds.

As for the level of educational thesechildren receive, I think it’s especiallyimportant to listen to Hege Faust, an advisorat Hellerud upper secondary school in Oslo.Faust has many years’ experience withPakistani youth who return to Norway tocontinue their education after having attendedschool in Pakistan. Faust told Aftenposten on 31March 2004 that an estimated eight out of tenof these students don’t manage to make up theknowledge gap between them and their agemateswho have been schooled entirely in Norway. Herexperience was that most of those who are sent“home” return to Norway when they’re about tostart eighth or ninth grade – and thus enterupper secondary school with a weak educationalfoundation: “The reality, unfortunately, isthat this kind of student hardly ever catches

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up in any subject. As we know, Asian schoolsput plenty of emphasis on mathematics, but wescarcely notice it. In English they’re oftenbeginners when they come here. And they hardlyhave any knowledge of Norwegian (…) Even ifthey work hard, it’ll be difficult for them toget good grades. This is because Norwegianschools demand critical reflection fromstudents if they want to be rewarded with A’sor B’s.”

Faust also emphasized that students who aresent out of the country become accustomed tosocial patterns very different from thoseprevailing in Norwegian schools: “Girls whocome back from Pakistani schools areparticularly shy.”

It may only be a question of time beforesome young adult with a minority backgroundwho hasn’t had proper schooling, and who is atbest functionally illiterate, slaps theNorwegian government with a damage lawsuit.Nor do I think it’ll be long before others whohave been neglected for years by the Norwegiangovernment, and who have sufferedpsychological damages as a result, will alsosue for damages. It’s likely, too, that youngpeople whose families have deprived them oftheir freedom for years with the fullknowledge of government bureaucrats willsomeday drag the Kingdom of Norway into courton the grounds that they’ve been denied humanrights and legal protection. Eventually thenumber of damage lawsuits that have been filedby other “old” minorities, such as the Tatars,as well as by Norwegian children who wereneglected in their childhood homes, may bevastly outnumbered by damage lawsuits filed byour “new” minorities.

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5

A Baby Can’t Tell Tales

I suspect that most people in Norwayassociate Egypt with vacations, sunshine,heat, sand dunes, diving, and the spectacularpyramids. Only a very few, I think, connectEgypt with the world’s most widespreadtradition of assaults on girls and women. Butit’s true: nearly 90 percent of Egyptian girlsand women are mutilated. Their external sexorgans are entirely or partly cut – a customthat is said to have begun in the Nile valleyalmos six millennia ago, in the time of thepharaohs. From Egypt, the practice spreadalong the caravan routes and took root in abelt across central Africa, in parts of theArabian peninsula, in some countries of theMiddle East, in parts of Kurdistan, and alsoamong Muslims in Malaysia and Indonesia.Genital mutilation is now culturallyentrenched in over thirty countries. The WorldHealth Organization believes that perhaps asmany as 140 million girls and women in today’sworld are affected. A minimum of two milliongirls in these countries are mutilatedannually.94

But this is only half of the truth. Whenpeople migrated to Europe, they took thepharaonic tradition with them – so that it nowalso exists in Norway.

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In Norway today, over nine thousand girlsunder nineteen years old have roots incountries on the African continent wheregenital mutilation is practiced. Almost seventhousand of these girls are from what I wouldcall high-risk countries – that is, countrieswhere at least 80 percent of the girls aremutilated.95 The most vulnerable nationalgroup, namely Somali girls, is also, by aconsiderable margin, the largest group,consisting of around 4300 girls. Severalexperts believe that nearly half of the girlswho either move here as still unmutilatedchildren, or who are born here, end up beingmutilated. Some experts believe the figuresare even higher.96 This means, in any case,that at least 3000 to 3500 girls in Norwaytoday are affected by this custom that datesback to the pharaohs – a statistic that willcontinue to rise unless the Norwegiangovernment changes its policy.

What is genital mutilation?

Female genital mutilation (FGM) is anumbrella term for various kinds of operationson the sexual organs. The World HealthOrganization describes four types of FGM. Type1, which involves the removal of the foreskinof the clitoris, is also called Sunnacircumcision, because Muhammed is said to haverecommended it. Type 2 includes the removal ofthe foreskin as well as the clitoris. Inaddition, the labia minora are wholly orpartly cut away. This type can also bedescribed as Sunna circumcision. In Type 3,the clitoris and the labia minora and majoraare entirely or partly removed, after whichthe vaginal opening is sewn up until it is the

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size of a pinhead. In an unknown number ofcases, the clitoris is not cut away, buthidden away under the skin when the vaginalopening is sewn up. This type is called aninfibulation, and the victim is oftendescribed as being “sewn up” or “closed.” (Itcan also have other names, such as “Pharaoniccircumcision,” since this is supposed to havebeen the type of mutilation that the pharaohsprescribed.) All kinds of female genitalmutilation that don’t fall under any of theother three categories are called Type 4. Forexample, the clitoris and/or the labia may bepierced, perforated, or cut; the clitoris andthe surrounding tissue may be burned; thetissue around the vaginal opening may bescraped away; the vagina may be cut; orcauterizing agents or herbs may be placed inthe vagina to cause bleeding or to tighten upor narrow it.

Types 1 and 2 account for 80 percent andType 3 for 15 percent of all genitalmutilation.97 Type 3, the most extremevariant, is especially common in the Horn ofAfrica and parts of southern Africa.

The age at which girls are genitallymutilated varies from country to country andfrom tribe to tribe. As a rule, the operationtakes place well before puberty. According tothe World Health Organization, girls areusually mutilated between four and ten yearsof age. But some, especially in West Africa,are mutilated as infants. In Somalia, theprocedure is most often performed when a girlis between five and seven years old.

In Norway, genital mutilation was forbiddenin 1995 by a special law that prescribes ajail term of eight years – not only for those

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who carry it out but also for those who aidand abet it.98

My first encounter with mutilated girls

My first encounter with young women who hadbeen genitally mutilated was at a café indowntown Oslo early in 1997. I made contactwith them through Uteseksjonen, a governmentalagency that had established a support groupfor Somali girls who wanted to discussmutilation. Two of the girls I met had beenmutilated as children in Somalia. The thirdwas a girlfriend of theirs who had escaped therazor blade. I requested the meeting because Isuspected that the custom of genitalmutilation had been imported into Norway.

Although the meeting took place nine yearsago (at this writing), the things that theyoung women said, and the images they placedin my mind, are as vivid to me now as theywere then. One of them said: “It’s better toget drunk than to have sex.” Another saidwith undisguised sorrow: “I wonder so muchwhat it’s like to have sex if you’re notcircumcised.” A third said: “I feel a littleleft out because I’m not circumcised. Iusually tell the people close to me that I’mcircumcised. Then they don’t look down on me –they don’t think I’m loose.”

Both of the girls who were mutilated hadundergone the procedure at age seven. Bothwere sewn up. The result is a buttonhole of anopening, which makes it hard to urinate andmenstruate – and of course will make itdifficult and painful to have a good sex lifein adulthood. So both girls had had theirvaginas opened up by a doctor in Norway. Butthey had to keep it secret. As one of them

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explained, “If others know that I’ve openedmyself up, they’ll think immediately that it’sbecause I want to have sex.” The other put itthis way: “When you’re sewn up and you pee, ittakes at least ten to fifteen minutes tofinish. Because it just drips out in littledroplets. When I’m at Somali get-togethers andI have to go to the bathroom, I sit on thetoilet for a long time and just pee verycarefully. No one must know that I’ve openedmyself up. That would mark me as a whore.”

The words and sentences I set down in mynotebook that day seemed unreal. But this isthe reality of young women living in Norwaytoday. It’s not fiction. And what about thesethree girls’ younger sisters? Only one ofthem, in fact, had younger siblings – twosisters. Both had been taken back to Somaliaby their mother in 1991. One of the girls hadbeen six years old at the time, the otherseven. A young cousin of the girls had alsobeen taken along on the journey back to thecountry from which the family had “fled” onlya couple of years earlier. During that visit,all three had been genitally mutilated in thetraditional way. This didn’t lead to anyconsequences for the parents, though itresulted in lifelong consequences for thechildren.

My conversation with the three young Somaliwomen took place while I was working on mybook Hellig tvang (Holy Force, 1998). That book’s mainfocus was on marriage-related barriers,pressure, and force that young peopleencountered in their families and communities.Unquestionably, genital mutilation falls underthe topic of love and marriage. But I chosenot to cover genital mutilation in that book.At that time, it hadn’t yet been revealed that

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children were being sent out of Norway to bemutilated; the fact that such mutilations weretaking place had considerable news potentialin itself, and might have taken the focus offof the book’s main topic: forced marriage. Ialso thought that the topic of genitalmutilation was so serious and important thatit deserved to be investigated in depth beforeit could be publicly mentioned – especially ifI wanted to ensure that government officialsresponded not just with words but withpractical policies. So I placed theinformation on hold.

Genital mutilation in Norway

I now think this was the right decision.After publishing Holy Force, I was contacted bysomeone from the TV2 program Rikets tilstand (State ofthe Nation) who had read the book and noticed mycoverage in it of a probable honour killing,that of Shazia Saleh from Grimstad. Shariz haddied in 1995 in her parents’ home village inPakistan, where she had refused to marry hercousin. With this event as our starting point,we made several programs in the autumn of 1999about forced marriage and the importing ofspouses to Norway. Reactions by both thegeneral public and politicians wereoverwhelming. The then cabinet minister whowas responsible for such matters, KaritaBekkemellem, quickly formulated a new actionplan against forced marriage. I was thereforein no doubt that a TV program revealing thegenital mutilation of girls in Norway wouldresult in political action.

By January 2000 the source list wascomplete. Saynab Mohamed and Kadra Noor, twoNorwegian-Somali girls, would be involved in

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the project. I also had specific informationabout other children with Gambian backgroundswho had been mutilated while living in Norway.And State of the Nation didn’t have to be askedtwice to colLabourate on the program. I alsowanted to use a hidden camera to recordstatements by major Muslim leaders, in orderto avoid a problem that had been tied up foryears with the issue of forced marriage: inpublic, these leaders explicitly distancedthemselves from the practice, whileminimalizing its extent; privately, however,they more or less endorsed it. The grotesquepractice of mutilating defenseless childrenwould not be brought to an end by a paralyzingdebate. It was something that needed to beactively addressed before it was too late.

The programs that were broadcast on TV2 inthe autumn of 2000 were so remarkablysuccessful in placing the issue on thepolitical and public agenda that I don’t needto enlarge on that topic here. I will simplypoint out that one leading politician afteranother made bold and specific proposals.Opposition politician Odd-Einar Dørum proposedrequiring medical examinations of girls’genitals to prevent and uncover cases ofmutilation. Cabinet member Karita Bekkemellemcharacterized genital mutilation as “terror,”and wanted the Director of Public Prosecutionsto bring charges against imams who supportedit. Cabinet member Hanne Harlem also used theword “terror” and suggested that governmentfinancial support for Muslim congregationsthat promoted mutilation be reconsidered.

Karita Bekkemellem was the cabinet memberwhose portfolio included responsibility forgenital mutilation. In record time, sheintroduced a comprehensive action plan that

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involved an outlay of fifteen million kronerto prevent FGM by distributing information andby providing medical help to those alreadymutilated.

I was disappointed. You can’t eliminate aseveral-thousand-year-old custom with aninformation campaign. You can’t just waitaround hoping, in the name of humanism andhumanity, that “things will get better overtime” as long as children are being mutilatedhere and now. The problem has to be addressedresolutely. That was my position then, andit’s my position now. I think that the genitalmutilation of defenseless children who wereborn on Norwegian soil or who have grown up inNorway is one of the great scandals of ourtime. It’s scandalous that we know this isgoing on and silently permit it. I believedthen – and I believe even more strongly andwith even more foundation now – that there’sjust one way to bring this form of ritualabuse under control: by requiring regularmedical check-ups of all children’s and youngpeople’s genitalia, and by punishing parentsand others who are found to be responsible forany mutilation that is uncovered. Only byresponding to this practice with legal actioncan we fight it successfully.

The French example

Sweden was the first country in Europe topass a law specifically addressing genitalmutilation. It was introduced in 1982, butonly one case has ever been tried – and thetrial occurred in June 2006, during thewriting of this book. A father with a Somalibackground was found guilty of having arrangedfor his eleven-year-old daughter to be

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mutilated during her stay in Somalia. He wassentenced to nearly four years in prison andhad to pay the girl damages of almost 350,000Swedish kroner.99 Britain has had a law thatspecifically addresses, and punishes, genitalmutilation since 1985, but no one has everbeen prosecuted under it. Other major Europeancountries with laws that cover all kinds ofmutilation of children have never tried asingle criminal case of genital mutilation.Norway, then, isn’t alone in its failure.

It’s France that is in a class by itselfwhere the prosecution of genital mutilation isconcerned. More correctly, there’s onedepartment in France that’s in a class byitself. And there are two women whosecommitment is largely responsible for theexistence of this “French example”: LindaWeil-Curiel, a lawyer, and Emanuelle Piet, adoctor.

Milestones in France

Linda Weil-Curiel probably has France’smost comprehensive press archive of cases ofgenital mutilation in that country. When Ivisited her in Paris in 2003, I looked throughher archives and took notes. In 1979 the firstcase went to court – which is to say that itwas heard by a lower court that handles childabuse. An infant had bled to death in Paris.The focus in the trial was on the fact that achild had bled to death, and that this was notthe intended result of the action. The culturalpractice received almost no attention. Thecircumciser was given a one-year suspendedsentence.

But then, all at once, France awoke. In1982 a three-month-old baby named Bobo bled to

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death after a home mutilation on a kitchencounter. The circumciser understood that she’dmade a wrong cut and that the child was atrisk of bleeding to death, but the father, whowas of Malian extraction, refused to call forhelp, because he knew he’d been involved insomething illegal. Bobo died. But what couldthey do with a dead infant? They had fewalternatives, since Bobo had been born inFrance and, like all children in France, hadbeen closely followed up with infant check-ups. The baby’s corpse was put in a diaper andtaken to the hospital. At first the medicalpersonnel couldn’t ascertain the cause ofdeath: all the internal organs were intact.Then they took off the diaper. It was full ofblood. The autopsy showed that there washardly a single drop of blood left in Bobo’sbody. The baby’s death stirred broad debate,and has become a milestone in contemporaryFrench cultural history.

Over the next two years, two new tragediesoccurred – also involving babies who bled todeath. The deaths were the impetus forpreventive and investigative work as well asfor lawsuits. French and African womenorganized a movement against mutilation. In1991, for the first time, a circumciser wasgiven a prison sentence: a Malian woman wentto jail for five years for mutilating sixgirls in the same family.

In 1993, for the first time, a parent wassent to jail: a thirty-four-year-old Gambianwoman was given a four-year sentence, plus ayear’s suspended sentence, for havingmutilated her two daughters. In the same year,two fathers were sent to jail. One of them wasmarried to a circumciser.

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“I want to sit up there”

In February 1999, judgment was pronouncedin the most extensive lawsuit about genitalmutilation in French legal history. A womanknown as Mama Greou received an eight-yearsentence for having mutilated forty-eightgirls in Paris. The court also sentenced amother to prison for two years, while twenty-six other parents were given suspendedsentences ranging from three to five years.

One of the aspects of this lawsuit thatmade it a milestone is that for the firsttime, a victim of FGM had lodged a complaintagainst the perpetrators. Mariatou Koita, thentwenty-three years old, filed charges againstboth her own mother and Mama Greou. Mariatouhad been mutilated by Mama Greou when she waseight years old. At the trial, she was theprosecution’s chief witness.

Mariatou had been born in Paris in 1975.The next year came her sister Sira, and theyear after that a third girl, Koudjeta. Tenmonths later the mother had twins, a girl anda boy. They were born prematurely, and thetwin girl, Mariatou, and Koudjeta weretemporarily placed in a French foster home inthe same village.

Five years later the girls were flown backto their parents. Shortly after theirhomecoming, the mother took them to MamaGreou. When Mama Greou began to cut Maritou,the girl screamed: “Why are you doing this tome?” A few days later Mariatou tried to tella social worker about what had happened, butwas stopped by her parents.

The sisters came to believe that all ofthem would be mutilated. Not until she was in

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her teens did Mariatou fully understand whathad been done to her: in sex-education class,her teacher talked about genital mutilation.At around this time, Mariatou’s mother had yetanother baby girl. Mariatou tried desperatelyto talk her parents into sparing her. It wasin vain: a year later the girl was mutilatedby Mama Greou. In fact, Mariatou’s motherallowed her own bedroom to be used by MamaGreou for her “work” – not just on her ownchildren but on others’. One baby afteranother was brought to the family’s house andmutilated with a razor blade. At eighteenMariatou ran away from home, unable to live inthe house any more knowing what damage wasbeing done there to children. By this point,Mama Greou had already been given a suspendedsentence for mutilation. She knew very well,then, that her actions were criminal.

Mariatou reported both her mother and MamaGreou to the police. The investigationrevealed that Mama Greou had mutilatedchildren ranging in age from newborns to tenyears old. As payment, she took 250 to 500kroner for each baby she mutilated. She hadprobably performed several hundred mutilationsin Paris and its suburbs. Forty-eight of themwere documented. When the verdict waspronounced, the lawyer Linda Weil-Curiel askedif Mariatou, who was then studying law, if shewanted to be a lawyer. “No, I want to sit upthere,” she said, and pointed to the judges.

No law against genital mutilation

But let’s return to little Bobo, who bledto death in 1982. After her death, severalpeople called for the introduction of a lawspecifically banning genital mutilation. Weil-

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Curiel was totally against it. She felt inprinciple that there should not be lawsspecifically directed at people of foreignorigin – an “ethnic legal code,” as it were.She felt that everyone should be subject tothe same laws, and that there already werelaws on the books in France that made it acrime to damage body parts. (Norway, too,already had such laws in effect when FGM wasspecifically outlawed.) Weil-Curiel’s viewprevailed, and France still has no lawspecifically banning FGM. She also succeededwith her argument that genital mutilationshould not be treated under the law as childabuse, which is handled in lower courts.Mutilation consists of the destruction andremoval of a body part, and leaves a lastingwound; it should therefore be prosecuted inthe higher courts, where serious acts ofbodily harm are prosecuted and where thepossible punishments are far more severe. Shemade this argument: these are children who arevictims of an obvious act of physicaldisfigurement; they should have the samerights as a white child who has beenpermanently maimed. Her argument carried theday.

Most of the mutilation lawsuits in Francehave ended with the defendants being givensuspended sentences. Weil-Curiel considersthis a victory for the defendants, whopersuade the court to accept the argument thatin mutilating the child they had no intentionof doing harm or inflicting pain. But Weil-Curiel doesn’t agree with this reasoning. Theintention of those who mutilate a girl’sgenital, she argues, is to destroy the sexualdesire of the housewife she will grow up into.Many parents insist that they’ve had their

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daughters mutilated to ensure that theyconduct themselves in a seemly manner. Somesay explicitly that mutilation ensures that awoman will calm down sexually and be able toget along without sex if her husband is awayfor a while – thus freeing her husband fromthe worry that his wife will be unfaithful.Others maintain that a woman who isn’tmutilated will be too sexually demanding for aman. Since FGM destroys a woman’s sexualorgans, it’s the ideal biological safety belt.

Linda Weil-Curiel also says that parentsoften claim to be unfamiliar with the Frenchlaw against FGM. If they’d known about it,they say, they wouldn’t have mutilated theirchildren. Weil-Curiel rejects this claim. Thetopic has been widely discussed, and a well-organized information campaign has been inoperation since the 1980s. For my own part, Ican quote a Norwegian woman who was married toa Gambian from a tribe in which all the girlswere mutilated: “If people didn’t know thiswas forbidden, they’d ask the government toperform the operation for free at thehospital, just as they ask for their boys tobe circumcised at government expense.” Thereasoning is absolutely logical.

The lawsuits in France have concernedmutilations performed both in France and inimmigrants’ homelands. While in Paris in 2003,I attended a trial on mutilation. It was anepochal experience.

The accused, a mother named Mariya Kante,was thirty-eight years old. She had supposedlycome to France from Mauritania as a new wifeat the age of sixteen. Her husband, MohamediKante, age sixty-nine, was her cousin.Together they had seven children – four girlsand three boys. The mother was charged with

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having been a co-conspirator in the genitalmutilation of the three older girls, Coumba,Fatomata, and Kama. The crimes were uncoveredas a result of the abuse of one of thechildren, the girl Hawa, whom Mohamedi Kantehad with another wife. Kante’s two wivesargued a great deal, and for this reason thehusband sent his Malian wife and theirdaughter Hawa back to Mali. A couple of yearslater he brought Hawa back to Paris. She hadbeen abused, and in the hospital doctorschecked to see if she had also been genitallymutilated. The answer was yes. During thepolice interrogation, Mariya Kante admittedthat three of her own children, too, weremutilated.

At first the Kantes were given an eighteen-month suspended sentence for extremelygrievous abuse of Hawa. The reason for thesuspended sentence was that they had noprevious criminal record.

A mother in the witness box

Mariya Kante enters the witness box in acolourful African robe. She is wearing largepieces of gold jewelry in both her ears andaround her neck and wrists. She is illiterateand has a translator. The judge asks Mariyaseveral times if she understands why she hasbeen charged – that genital mutilation isextremely serious and damaging, and that it isforbidden by French law. She does not answerthe questions, and declares herself not guiltyof the charge. She says that he has donenothing wrong. Circumcision is her tradition.Besides, she says, she didn’t know that herdaughters were mutilated.

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Mariya claims to remember little. Thesession almost devolves into a culturaltragicomedy: she doesn’t know when she came toFrance; nor does she remember when she visitedMauritania, where, she maintains, the girlswere mutilated, one after the other. But sheinsists that she only went to Mauritania toshow the newborns to her family there. Her ownfather, a poor farmer, supposedly paid theairfare, and her husband supposedly knewnothing about these trips. “Are you sayingthis to protect your husband?” the judge asks.She says no. Nor can she explain why she nevertook a newborn son to Mauritania.

Mariya Kante’s mother is the villagecircumciser. Mariya says she herself was inanother village at the time when themutilations of her children must have takenplace. Not until after she had returned toFrance, she says, did she notice that thegirls were mutilated. The prosecutor attemptsseveral times to get an idea of how and whenthe circumcisions took place – unsuccessfully.But how could she leave her children with agrandmother who was a circumciser? Not evenin response to this question does Mariyamanage to come up with an even remotelylogical answer. Not even when it’s documentedthat all the children were included only onher husband’s passport – meaning that theycouldn’t have traveled to Mauritania with heralone – does the prosecutor manage to engageher in a reasonable dialogue. Everything shesays is imprecise, incomplete, andinconsistent.

The judge asks: why didn’t she mutilate theyoungest daughter, Tiguidé, born in 1992?Mariya says that it was not until Tiguidé was

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born that she was told at the Child HealthCenter about the prohibition.

The judge makes a determined effort to getMariya to clarify where she stands on theprohibition: “After you understood thatgenital mutilation is forbidden, why wouldn’tyou keep doing it?”

“Because it’s forbidden.”“But do you understand why it’s forbidden?”

continues the judge. “Because you go to prison,” she replies.“Have you understood why one goes to

prison?”“I respect the law,” she replies.The judge changes the question radically. “Do you think that it’s good or not good

for a child to be genitally mutilated?”“I think circumcision is best, because if

you don’t do it, there will be complicationswhen you grow up. Those who aren’t circumcisedcan have intimate contact with everybody.”

The judge asks further: “Does this meanthat for you, everybody who isn’t genitallymutilated is lost? Is it so categorical foryou?”

“Yes, that’s how it is,” replies Mariya.She says she fears daily for the future of heryoungest daughter, Tiguidé, who isn’tmutilated. She fears that “the devil will takeher daughter.”

“But for heaven’s sake, I’m French!”

Muhamedi Kante enters the witness box. He,too, is traditionally dressed – he’s wearing agreen robe with embroidery on the collar andhas sandals on his feet. A retired cleaningworker, he speaks very good French. The judgeasks him why his wife has never worked and why

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she can’t speak French. “She still can’t takethe subway alone because she can’t read,” saysthe judge, who wants to know why Kante’s wifeis so poorly integrated. Kante explains thisby saying that she has to take care of thechildren.

“So when you brought your young wife toFrance, it was just to keep your bed warm?”the judge asks. Kante doesn’t reply.

“Are you against genital mutilation?” thejudge asks.

“It has something to do with Islam,” Kantereplies. “I don’t know whether I’m for it oragainst it.”

Kante says he first became aware of the lawagainst genital mutilation in 1995, when itwas revealed that his daughters weremutilated.

“Do you know why it’s forbidden?” the judgeasks.

“No,” Kante replies.“Have you tried to understand why it’s

forbidden?”“No,” Kante says. “It’s religion. It’s

something all Muslims do.”“When your wife went to Mauritania with the

girls, was genital mutilation something youwere aware of?” asks the judge.

“I don’t know,” Kante says.“Do you know that your wife is genitally

mutilated?” “Yes.”“Have you had sex with a woman who isn’t

genitally mutilated?” “I don’t know.”“Is it of interest to you how women

experience sex?” the judge asks. Kante shrugs.“Is it positive or negative that your

daughters are genitally mutilated?”

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“I don’t know.”Like his wife, Kante isn’t interested in

helping to clarify when the supposed trips toMauritania took place, who bought the tickets,or how the children were able to travel whentheir names didn’t appear on his wife’spassport. In the end, the prosecutor almostmanages to establish that the reason why theKantes are throwing a smokescreen over thesematters is that all the girls were in factmutilated in Paris. The judge, obviouslyfurious over Kante’s unwillingness tocooperate, asks him why he doesn’t go back toMauritania now that he’s retired.

“But for heaven’s sake,” Kante repliesindignantly, “I’m French!”

Witnesses and experts

A series of experts now enter the witnessbox – psychiatrists, doctors, social workers,school personnel, and police officers. MariyaKante’s half-sister also testifies.

Several doctors describe the process ofmutilation the girls went through. It involvesclitoral amputation and removal of the labiaminora. This requires at least three or fourrounds of cutting. Because of the violent painand the inevitable strong resistance by thechild, it takes two or three people to holdthe victim down. As a rule, the child doesn’trecall the operation when she grows up, eitherbecause she was an infant at the time orbecause the experience was so painful that thememory is repressed. All of Kante’s daughtershave been examined and discovered to bemutilated. “You don’t need to be an expert totell whether a girl or a woman is genitallymutilated,” says pediatrician Mselati Jean

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Claude. “It’s impossible not to see it withthe naked eye.” The girls don’t rememberbeing mutilated; they’ve told the pediatricianthat the mutilations were done for theirfuture husbands.

In her testimony, Emanuelle Piet says that“everyone knows mutilation is illegal. Thenews of the verdicts spread from home tohome.” The great majority of the mutilations,she says, take place in France. She explainsthat the mutilations themselves, which almostwithout exception are performed withoutanesthesia, inflict such violent pain that theshock in itself can cause a child to die.

A psychiatrist who has examined Mariyadescribes her as a pleasant, poised, lovingand caring woman. How can she accept genitalmutilation? The answer, believes thepsychiatrist, is this: she’s bound by herethnic tradition. The obligation to mutilateher daughter’s genitals is non-negotiable. Bymutilating her children, she has also repeatedher own history – she’s done to them what herown mother did to her. This “ethnic law”supersedes French law, and internal justicewithin the ethnic group is extremely strong:it’s all but impossible to violate the “ethniclaw” and continue to live as a member of thegroup.

A Senegalese-French woman who is a socialworker describes the way in which a youngperson typically discovers that she has beengenitally mutilated. She visits a socialworker and says she believes she isn’t normal.A medical exam is performed, and reveals thatshe has been mutilated. This is new to her,and she reacts to it with intense sorrow anddespair. The social worker says that she talksto young women whose boyfriends have left them

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because they don’t function sexually. Youngpeople, she says, support the law againstmutilation and the prescribed punishment. ButKante’s now half-grown girls don’t feelmutilated, and neither the girls nor theirparents can understand why genital mutilationis a punishable offense. The one possibleexception is the youngest of the girls, who isnow fifteen years old. She says that shedoesn’t think she’ll want to mutilate her ownchildren.

School officials describe the girls as wellintegrated. A principal who has known thefamily for fifteen years characterizes them asthe best integrated African family at theschool: “I’m very surprised at this case. Thisis the last family I would have expected tohave this problem.”

Mutilated in Paris

Linda Weil-Curiel, who has assisted thevictims in almost all of the criminal casesinvolving genital mutilation in Frenchhistory, shows excerpts from a documentaryabout genital mutilation in order to ensurethat the judge and jury understand the natureof the operation. Mariya Kante leans forwardto get a better look at an infant who’s beingheld down by three women while a fourth womancuts the child’s sexual organ several timeswith a razor blade. The screaming and thesight of the bloody, writing little body areindescribable. For the first time during thetrial, Mariya Kante seems interested. Shefollows the film intently and doesn’t so muchas wince.

Weil-Curiel believes that the Kantesalready knew in the 1980s that genital

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mutilation was forbidden. It was in 1982, whenlittle Bobo died, that Mariya had her firstdaughter. And she was told about the lawduring her children’s medical check-ups.

Summing up the prosecution’s case

The prosecutor sums up the case; themembers of the jury are warned against lettingthemselves be seduced by the defendants’cultural background: “We’re talking about anextreme mutilation. As described by theexperts, it’s a criminal act. We cannot closeour eyes to this violent crime in which thereis proven amputation of the clitoris. Frenchsociety used to overlook rape. We don’t dothat any more. Rape is punishable. So isgenital mutilation.”

The prosecutor maintains that when Mariyatook the girls to her mother, who is acircumciser, she must have known they would bemutilated, and that it’s impossible “to ignorethis point.” He adds that whether theprocedure took place in Mauritania or in Parisdoesn’t matter: in either case, Mariya hascontributed to an act of mutilation. Theprosecutor believes that “a cultural view” ofthe circumstances shows that if the girls werein fact taken to Mauritania, it was so thatthey could be mutilated. (The boys had no needfor the trip, because they could becircumcised legally in France.) At the sametime, the prosecutor argues that the genitalmutilation undoubtedly took place in Paris.

The most important point, in theprosecutor’s view, is this: Mariya Kante knewthat genital mutilation was against the law,but her fealty to tradition led her to ignorethe prohibition. The prosecutor supports this

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claim by pointing out that Mariya Kante’shalf-sister in Paris already knew about thelaw in 1982: “She is accused because she knewwhat she was risking. The only thing shefeared was prison. This shows how important itis that we put the law into practice.”

He points out that there are severalthousand West Africans in France. Many of themcontinue to practice FGM. In thesecommunities, the ethics and practices of thehomeland hold sway and are passed on fromgeneration to generation. “Only when there’stalk of prison or of children dying of genitalmutilation,” says the prosecutor, “do thecommunities seem to react.”

As for the family’s good characterreferences, he says: “What is inside peopleand what is a façade can be diametricallyopposite.” He points to the harsh abuse ofHawa, which went on for two years.

Mariya Kante is given a three-yearsuspended sentence and three years’ probationfor mutilating her daughters in Paris. Inaddition, the youngest daughter, eleven-year-old Tiguidé, who is not mutilated, will beregularly examined to prevent her from beingmutilated. Mariya Kante is also sentenced topay 15,000 euros in support to the youngest ofthe mutilated daughters, Kama, age fifteen.The sum is to be paid out when the girl turnseighteen. The two other girls won’t receivepayments, since the legal condition forsupport is that they must be underage.

An indelible impact

The two-day trial had an indelible impacton me. The most striking impression wasproduced by the French-Senegalese social

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worker when she talked with warmheartedsympathy about the shock, sorrow, and deepinner pain with which teenage girls receivethe news from a doctor that they’ve beenmutilated for life – girls who, up to “thelast moment,” have no inkling of what was doneto them when they were little. As babies, theyhadn’t known what was being done to them – andhadn’t been able to report it to anyone. Ababy can’t tell tales. This is, indeed, oftenthe main reason why these operations areperformed on infants: parents migrate to acountry where mutilation is forbidden, andchoose to have the job done when theirdaughters are too young to serve as witnesses.So logical – and so grotesque.

The Kantes’ almost total uncooperativenesson the stand, and their unwillingness torecognize the nature of the injustice to whichthey’d subjected their children, also made adeep impression on me. The father, who hadlived in France for over thirty years, hadworked full time until he reached retirementage. He spoke fluent French. Yet when it cameto fundamental values, he seemed almosttotally unintegrated into French society.Ditto his wife. Neither of them was willing tomake the slightest effort to cooperate on anylevel. When the videotape showing themutilation of a little girl was screened,there was hardly anybody in the courtroom whodidn’t turn away or close his or her eyes. Thelittle body struggling desperately to escapethe razor blade, the strong adult hands makingsure that she didn’t have a chance of escapingthe ritual abuse, the baby’s screams – it wasall horrible. And Mariya Kante leaned forwardwith interest and studied the images without

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so much as a wince. For the first time duringthe entire trial, Mariya Kante was “present.”

The teacher’s and the principal’s surprisethat this “well-integrated” family had “thisproblem” reminded me of all the young childrenI’ve met in Norway who superficially seem verywell integrated but whose families may subjectthem to the same amount of pressure to marryas the parents of young women whose low levelof integration is easy to recognize.Appearances can be misleading.

After the trial, Linda Weil-Curiel told methat some parents regret having mutilatedtheir children. They simply didn’t realize howcruel genital mutilation was – didn’t realizewhat kind of pain and damage they wereinflicting upon their children. They were,they say, only motivated by custom and by thelegal traditions of their own ethniccommunities. During the trial, they realizewhat a terrible injustice they’ve subjectedtheir children to, and they regret it deeply.Other parents, however, don’t change theirattitudes at all: they neither regret whatthey’ve done nor feel that they’ve doneanything wrong. M. and Mme. Kante, Weil-Curielbelieved, fell into the latter category.

For me, the most gratifying part of theverdict was the protection that was given tothe youngest girl, Tiguidé – the assurancethat she would be examined annually until shegrew up in order to prevent mutilation. Weil-Curiel also pointed out that the compensationawarded to the child would have an extremelyimportant preventive effect. Kante and otherimmigrants are highly motivated by financialfactors. Awarding compensation not only hurts– it says something about power: the one whohas a right to money has power.

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Almost unbelievable

On the way out of the courtroom I run intoone of the doctors who testified, EmanuellePiet. She has some terribly interestingexperiences to relate. She is a doctor in thedepartment of Seine-Saint-Dénis, which isnortheast of Paris and has a sizable WestAfrican population, and she works particularlyclosely with the health stations. In the mid1980s, she warned that small children werebeing mutilated in the department. In 1987,therefore, she initiated a study to map fivehundred West African girls under six yearsold. All of their mothers had been genitallymutilated. Piet put several measures intoeffect. Some of the parents whose childrenwere mutilated were prosecuted. She informedthe parents thoroughly about the damagingeffects of the procecure and about the lawagainst it. And she introduced systematicmedical check-ups of all children’s sexualorgans, regardless of their sex or ethnicorigins, beginning with their first check-upas newborns and continuing until they reachedschool age. She included all children in thecheck-ups, because some instances of sexualabuse can also be discovered through suchcheck-ups. These check-ups, it is important topoint out, are simply a matter of so-calledclinical observation: as the pediatrician inthe case against Mariya Kante put it, it’simpossible not to notice genital mutilationwith the naked eye.100

Ten years later, Piet carried out anothermapping of five hundred West African girlsunder six years old at the health station.Only seven girls proved to have been

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mutilated. A new round of lawsuits followed,and the information work and medical check-upscontinued. In 2000, Piet performed a thirdstudy of five hundred West African girls inthe department. Hold on to your seat: not asingle girl was mutilated. One might be led tobelieve that the reason for this gratifyingresult was that parents who still wanted tomutilate their children had stopped takingthem in for medical check-ups. “No,” saidPiet, “the turnout at the health stations isjust as good as before. Especially becausemoney talks.” For in France, you see, you haveto display your child’s health card, with avalid stamp from his or her last medicalcheck-up, in order to get an increase in yourchild benefit allowance. It’s that simple.

It’s therefore not the French state itselfthat has the right to call itself thejurisdiction in Europe that best protectsgirls against genital mutilation. That honourbelongs to the department of Seine-Saint-Denis. And those who deserve the credit forthis distinction are an unrelenting lawyer andhuman-rights champion, Linda Weil-Curiel, andan equally determined advocate for children,Dr. Emanuelle Piet.

Will Norway learn its lesson?

France’s experiences were a crucialinspiration to those of us at Human RightsService when we argued – and produceddocumentation to support our argument – thatNorway should introduce medical check-ups andactively enforce current laws. We did thisunder the second Bondevik government, whichwas a minority government – meaning that thereal power lay in the Parliament. We had

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conversations with all the members of theCommittee on Local Government and PublicAdministration, which is responsible forintegration. The committee members representparties from one end of the political spectrumto the other, and all of them respondedenthusiastically to our proposals. But how toget them to take meaningful action? How toconvince them to follow Weil-Curiel’s andPiet’s example? With financial support fromthe organization Fritt Ord (Free Word), weinvited Weil-Curiel and Piet to Norway. At aFebruary 2005 meeting with the committee, theydescribed their work to an audience thatlistened carefully and asked good questions.Three months later, on 29 May, a majority ofthe members of Parliament, including membersof the Labour, Progress, Center, and SocialistLeft parties, adopted a resolution instructingthe government to discuss how medical check-ups, that is to say “clinical observation ofall children’s sex organs,” could beintroduced in Norway in order to prevent anduncover genital mutilation, how parents couldbe held responsible, and whether the check-upsshould be made obligatory. The government wasspecifically referred to Weil-Curiel’s andPiet’s work in France. Yes, we at HRS werejubilant.

But our joy didn’t last long. Thegovernment completely locked up – revealingjust how illogical and inhumane “good-thinking” people can be. The cabinet member incharge of integration, Erna Solberg, and herparliamentary secretary, Cathrine Bretzeg,spoke harshly about our proposals in onenational media organ after another. In theirview, the clinical observation of girls’sexual organs would be “demeaning for tens of

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thousands of girls” and “enormouslyinsulting.” They said that “it is extremelysurprising that … all girls should have toshow their sexual organs so that a small groupin society will be reached,” and that “thepublic health service will become a threat andan enemy.”101 Referring to their owndaughters, the government’s representativesinsisted that they personally would not doanything to bring the health service into linewith contemporary reality – namely, the factthat children are being genitally mutilatedand sexually abused.

The fact that boys’ sexual organs undergoroutine check-ups, which don’t just involve“the naked eye” but the palpation of theirscrotums to ensure that their testicles havedescended, was utterly overlooked. Alsoignored was the fact that health authoritiesrecommended regular checkups, until puberty,of the testicles of newly immigrated boys.

The statements by Solberg and company werea nearly incomprehensible reminder that thegrim taboos of earlier times with regard togirls’ and women’s sexual organs were stillalive and well. And what had become of theidea of solidarity with the most vulnerableamong us? But despite the government’srepugnance, they were now obliged to discussthe Parliament’s resolution. After thegovernment had made clear its opposition, thequestion was this: Will the government use anytactic to forestall the resolution, includingarguing that no new cases of mutilated girlsin Norway had been identified in recent years?That was absolutely a possibility.

Trip to Gambia

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Two months after the 2005 parliamentaryresolution, then, I’m in the living room of aNorwegian citizen on Africa’s West Coast, inKoto, Gambia. Through sources with close tiesto the Gambian community in Oslo, I know thatthis man belongs to the Serahule tribe, inwhich almost 100 percent of the girls aremutilated. He has six daughters under elevenyears old, all born in Norway. The four oldestgirls were sent to Gambia two years agowithout their parents. He and his wife havebeen separated for five years, but he’s hadthree more children during this period, inwhose entries in the national registry he’snamed as the father. I was told before thetrip that he has two additional wives inGambia. He’s here on summer vacation.

The man sitting opposite me has beenconvicted of cheating the social-securityoffice. He also belongs to a congregationwhose imam totally supports mutilation.There’s good reason to assume that all of hisfour daughters have been mutilated duringtheir time in Gambia. The man knows nothingabout my suspicions on this score, or about myknowledge of these other unimpressive factsabout him. With us in the room are thejournalist Astrid Meland, who wants to coverthis story for Dagbladet’s website.102

The oldest girl speaks very good Norwegian,while the two youngest, aged five and eight,don’t speak it at all. The youngest is acharming beauty and seems to be lost in herown thoughts. Let’s call her Awa. I put littleAwa on my lap and stroke her back and chatwith her. Awa sits as still as a lit candle.

Her father is an intense, nervous, restlessperson whose glance wanders around the room aswe talk. He speaks decent enough Norwegian

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after nearly twenty years in Norway. He saysthat the girls are in Gambia to learn aboutGambian culture. What this actually means, heis unable to explain. The girls will be therefor a few more years, he says, but he won’tspecify how many. The two youngest girls backhome in Norway – one of the four months old,the other two and a half – will also come toGambia when they get a little bigger. Theplan, he explains, is to bring them to Gambiawhen the four other daughters are sent back toNorway.

The two-story house contains more than ahundred square meters of floor space. ByGambian standards, it’s a palace. But it’sstifling, gloomy, and sparsely furnished –indeed, quite simply, empty. The man, welearn, has three other such houses.

The father tells us proudly that all hisgirls attend Koran school four days a week; infact, they’re going to school tomorrowmorning. Meland and I ask if we can accompanythem to the school. It’s agreed that we’llmeet them early the next day.

Something about the Norwegian-born girlsdoesn’t seem right. Neighbour children – someof whom are in the house with us, some of whomare playing out in the street – are lively andspontaneous, like most Gambian children. But“ours” are withdrawn, and it doesn’t seem tobe a matter of shyness. The oldest girl,especially, seems to me clenched andsceptical. During the many hours’ long visit,I notice that not once does the father or hissecond wife direct any sign of affectiontoward the children – not a single lovingsmile or glance. Nor do the children inviteaffection – not in any way at all. What’s thisabout?

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In response to a discreet question, someonein the house confides in me that theNorwegian-born girls are circumcised. It’simpossible to know whether this informantactually has specific knowledge about thematter or whether this person simply takes itfor granted that all Serahule girls in Gambiaare mutilated. This source’s explanation forthe girls’ mutilation is this: “All girls haveto be circumcised in order to be able tomarry.”

With so many people around who understand alittle or a good deal of English, and becausethe two oldest Norwegian-born girls, aged nineand eleven, can speak a bit of English, it’shard to inquire further.

The next day Meland and I knock on the dooragain. From the first minute, the girls are,if possible, even more reserved than they werethe day before. It’s impossible to get anordinary conversation going. They seem totallyout of contact. Little Awa, age five, is theexception. She comes immediately over to mewhen we enter the backyard. Without a word,she presses up tightly against my left sideand looks out into space. Not a word, not aglance. With her whole self, however, she’sasking for something. She wants more cuddling.

An imam teaches the children at the Koranschool. He says that the circumcision of girlsis “a good thing.” Several of the oldestgirls, aged around thirteen to fifteen, tellus with utter candor whether they’recircumcised or not, how old they were whenthey underwent the ritual, and whether they’refor or against it. In Gambia, FGM is so commonthat there seems to be nearly total opennessabout whether one is mutilated or not. Forexample, one mild-mannered girl of thirteen

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says that she’s circumcised, but doesn’tremember when it happened because she was soyoung at the time. It was her parents, shesays, who told her it had been done to her.The youngest girls, particularly in theseconversations, are about the same age as theoldest Norwegian-born girl, who is eleven.Since similar conversations with theNorwegian-born girls seem to be absolutelyimpossible, given their reserve with us, wedon’t even try.

Three generations of mutilation

Who are these women who mutilate smallchildren? What are they thinking? In a visitto the town of Sangang, not far from thecapital, Banjul, we got a picture of the kindof person in whose hands Norwegian-born girlscan end up.

In this town almost everyone belongs to theMandinka tribe, in which virtually all thegirls are mutilated. Among the inhabitants isa thin woman of sixty or so named Binta.Sitting on a slanted, worn-out chair in hervery mean house of no more than twenty squaremeters, Binta talks about her work. Once ayear, in the month of January, a number ofgirls – ten, fifteen, maybe twenty of them –are brought together to be mutilated. They’retaken out into the jungle where she does thejob with a razor blade. She claims to use anew razor blade for every girl in order toavoid causing pain. The payment is about sixkroner per girl. She maintains that no girlshave bled during the fifteen years she’sworked as a circumciser. Everything about whatgoes on in the jungle is secret, she says witha raised index finger: only the girls who are

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to be mutilated and women who are alreadymutilated are allowed to be present when theritual takes place.

Binta took over the job as circumciser fromher own mother, as is traditional. Her familyhas been in the business for countlessgenerations, or, as Binta says, “Always.” Onthe bed nearby sits a young woman in her midtwenties. She is Binta’s daughter. Bintaconfirms without hesitation that she took arazor blade to her own daughter. On thedaughter’s lap is the circumciser’s nine-month-old granddaughter, who was circumcisedby Binta six months earlier. Three generationsof women in the room, three generations ofmutiliations.

The circumciser’s daughter confirms thatshe will take over the job when her motherretires. Both mother and daughter have greatproblems understanding such questions as: Dothey think that one day circumcision willstop? They look at each other with surprise.They seem to consider the question totallyabsurd. Absolutely unthinkable. Girls must becircumcised. That’s how it is. To make thegirls “pure,” Binta explains. And if parts ofthe sexual organ are not cut away, it becomes“narrow and it becomes difficult to givebirth,” she continues.

“But what about women in the Woloff tribe?They’re not circumcised, and they don’t haveproblems giving birth?”

Neither the young nor the old woman seemsto grasp the problem.

Meeting Binta, her child, and hergrandchild made me feel powerlessness –period. Plainly, Gambia has a long way to gobefore girls will be able to escape being thevictims of one of the world’s worst customs.

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This means that Norwegian-born girls ofGambian parents may, for many years to come,have their futures sealed by ladies likeBinta.

“Completely disciplined”

But what about the four sisters fromNorway? What has happened to them? Almostentirely by accident, some importantinformation emerges only hours before ourreturn trip to Norway. The source is someonein the girls’ neighbourhood. The informationis so sensitive that I have to keep thesource’s identity hidden, since that personmight be in mortal danger if his or heridentity were disclosed.

The source says that the man had two wivesin Gambia until last year. The other wife, whois the girls’ mother, is the first wife. Sheis furious that her husband has marriedseveral women. In 2004 she managed to forcehim to divorce wife number two, called the“middle wife” in Gambia, the wife he had backin his hometown. The first wife, in Norway,also tried to get him to divorce the thirdwife, called the “last wife” (the one we metduring our visit to the home in Koto); butthen the man sought help from a sorcerer who“saved” him. The man has two children with themiddle wife, the one from whom he is nowdivorced; they live with his parents in thevillage. These children, under Norwegian law,have an absolute right to Norwegiancitizenship because their father is aNorwegian citizen. The man, then, has ninechildren altogether.

The last wife has responsibility for thefour Norwegian-born sisters in Gambia. The

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source says that she doesn’t care about thechildren, which the source ascribes to theunfriendly relationship between her, the lastwife, and the girls’ mother, who is the firstwife. The last wife wants to take over therole of the first wife – that is, she wants tobe the one who gets to live in Norway. Thesource expresses deep concern for the fourgirls, and says that when they came to Gambiain the summer of 2003, they talked onlyNorwegian among themselves, and could onlyspeak a little of their tribal language. Atthat time, they had been outgoing andtalkative. Not now. During their first visitto Gambia they reacted negatively to a numberof things; they turned down the Gambian foodthey were served, and refused to sit on thefloor and eat with their fingers. Their fatherfelt they had become too Norwegian, and shouldbecome Gambian girls; so he “disciplined” themseverely, the source says, and refused toallow them to speak Norwegian. The source saysthe man is “a bad man and a bad father,” anddescribes the first wife, back in Norway, as“a hard woman.”

The source adds that the father has toldother people in Gambia that the circumcisionof girls is forbidden in Norway. After ourfirst visit to his home in Koto, says thesource, the father threatened his daughterswith physical punishment if they should tellanyone that they were genitally mutilated.

According to the source, the mutilationoccurred early in the autumn of 2003. All ofthe girls were taken to their parents’hometown in the interior of Gambia. They cameback after about a week. The girls had been“completely disciplined,” as the source said.There was no resistance left in them. In

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accordance with tradition, the genitalmutilations were celebrated in a ceremony inthe house in Koto.

Reported for genital mutilation

Human Rights Service filed complaintsagainst the parents of the four Norwegian-borngirls for a number of actions that were ormight be against the law in Norway:contributing to genital mutilation; violationof the Education Act (on the grounds that thegirls’ schooling did not satisfy the Norwegianschool system’s subject requirements);violation of the Child Benefits Act (since weassumed that the parents did not tell social-security officials in 2003 that they had takentheir two smallest children, then three andfive years old, out of the country); andviolation of the Convention on the Rights ofthe Child (since Norwegian officials weren’tgiven the opportunity to find out from thechildren how they felt about being separatedfrom their parents). We filed a complaintagainst the parents for violating the criminalcode regarding parents’ obligations tochildren, on the grounds that they hadactively prevented the children’s integrationinto Norwegian society. And we filed acomplaint against them for possibly deceivingthe social-security office, since there wasevery reason to believe that the separationbetween the man and his first wife was a shamconcocted for financial reasons and that thecouple really lived together.

The police in Oslo immediately sought totake the girls into custody, but ran into awall. The children were outside of Norway, andthe Children Act is not valid beyond Norway’s

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borders. Nor had the police found a reason toarrest the father.

The investigation is still underway. Out ofconsideration for the work of the police, Ican’t say anything more specific here thanthat the girls’ father, who was to havereturned to Norway in September 2005, remainedin Gambia. As of 1 August 2006, the mother ofthe girls is still safely lodged in a largepublic-housing unit in Oslo. She is supposedto have six children, but only two smallchildren are living with her now. She isregistered with the social-security office asa single provider and still collects paymentson this basis, just as she did before wereported the family to the police. A source inGambia told us as late as the spring of 2006that the children still suffer from a lack ofparental care on the part of both the fatherand his second wife.

I’ll admit that I’ve often wanted to visitthe mother in Oslo and tear her to bitsverbally. She knows very well that herdaughters are having a rough time of it inGambia. She’s the one who holds the cards,because she’s the one who is the family’s soleprovider. If she turns off the money tap fromNorway to her husband in Gambia, there’slittle he’ll be able to do. She can demandthat the children be brought home to Norway.But she knows very well that if she does so,she risks a damning conviction for havingcontributed to her daughters’ genitalmutilation. Better to allow one’s innocentchildren to remain in their prison in Gambia,then, than to go to jail in Norway oneself forone’s sins?

Some nights I have painful dreams aboutlittle Awa. I admit that I’ve often fantasized

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about going back to Gambia, taking the law inmy own hands, and bringing all those girlshome.103

Silence reigns

The 1995 Norwegian law against genitalmutilation has been sleeping soundly foreleven years now. Only a couple of complaintsfiled, not one indictment, not one charge, notone conviction – even though there’s goodreason to fear that thousands of girls (in acountry of only 4.5 million people) areaffected by this custom. How many morethousands have been mutilated in Sweden,Denmark, Britain, Germany, the Netherlands,Belgium, Italy, France, and Spain? Where isthe EU? Why this silence? And what about allthe girls who are mutilated in other parts ofthe world – approximately two million a year?Where is the UN? Why this silence?

Is the EU silent because the children inquestion have non-European roots? Are theirparents being treated differently because oftheir “different cultural and religiousbackground”? Or does the EU refuse to actbecause the very brutality of genitalmutilation makes it uncomfortable to take on?Does the UN hold back because the children aregirls – and because girls’ sexuality hasalways been subordinated to boys’ sexuality?

In Gambia, where little Awa now lives, thecountry’s president, Yahya Jammeh, haspublicly threatened people or organizationsthat actively oppose genital mutilation. Whyis the international community taking such apassive attitude toward such a head of state?Why hasn’t he been charged with crimes againsthumanity? But perhaps the most important

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question is this: Why don’t they take a zero-tolerance approach to such a horrible crime?

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6

It’s also about Islam

Mina, Samira, little Awa, and all thechildren, young people, women and men withimmigrant background whom I’ve mentioned inthe previous pages, whether named or unnamed,have one thing in common: they all have rootsin the Muslim world. To a greater and greaterdegree, the public and private debate onimmigration and integration is a debate aboutIslam. We rarely discuss challenges related tothe integration of Hindus, Sikhs, Jews, orBuddhists; nor do we often witness debates onintegration in which the persons involvedrefer to themselves as Hindus, Buddhists,Jews, or Sikhs. The picture is the samethroughout Europe. Why is it Muslims andIslams that are at the center of this publicdiscussion? What is it about Islam thatcreates conflicts on so many levels ofsociety?

Islam doesn’t just have one face. It’s ahighly diverse religion that is practiced andinterpreted differently from country tocountry and from one ethnic group to another.In Islam, culture and religion are woventogether. Customs that existed before Islam’sintroduction into a culture either fade awayor are strengthened by Islam; meanwhile newpractices are established and legitimized inIslam’s name. With Islam, it’s impossible to

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distinguish categorically between religion andculture. And it’s wrong to claim categoricallythat cultural practices such as family-arranged marriage, genital mutilation, honourkilling, and the oppression of women do notalso, generally speaking, have something to dowith Islam.

There’s good reason to assume that thefather of little Awa would emphaticallyjustify the mutilation of his daughter asbeing rooted in both Islam and culture, justas orthodox Christians in Ethiopia defend itwith reference to their religion. It’s alsoprobably safe to assume that Mina’s fatherused Islam and culture as arguments formarrying off his daughter, just as well-offpeople in Norway once used their religion asan argument for marrying off their innocentyoung daughters. Similarly, many Muslims claimthat honour killings, such as the murders ofAnooshe and Fadime, are legitimate on bothreligious and cultural grounds, just asexecutioners in the Middle Ages invoked divinesanction when they burned witches at thestake. Most likely the father of Samira inSomalia sees Islam as his beacon, just as acertain version of Christianity is the guidingstar for parents who withdraw their childrenfrom public schools and enroll them inconservative Christian academies.

Part of the explanation for Muslims’conflicts with a secular democracy like Norwaycan be found in the pillars of the religion. Akey factor, especially in the context of thisbook, is Islam’s teachings about women andsexuality.

Two works in particular have helped me tounderstand Pakistan, other Muslim countries,and Muslims in Norway and Europe. One of them

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is the 1992 study Den muslimske familie: enundersøkelse av kvinners rett i islam (The Muslim Family: AStudy of Women’s Rights in Islam) by Tove Stang Dahl, alate Norwegian professor of women’s law. Theother, written by the internationally famousMoroccan professor and sociologist FatimaMernissi, is Beyond the Veil: Male-Female Dynamics inModern Muslim Society (1985). Both Stang Dahl andMernissi went to the historical sources ofIslam to investigate Islam’s view of women andits regulation of relations between women andmen, as well as the laws and norms thatregulate life in the Muslim family.

Controlling women’s sexuality

When Muhammed began his missionary workamong the tribes on the Arabian peninsula inthe seventh century A.D., women had a greatdeal of power to make decisions about theirown sexuality. A woman didn’t belong to herhusband; she and her children were part of atribal community. She could have severalhusbands; she could divorce; and she coulddecide which man was to be considered thefather of her child. The children belonged toher and to her tribe; the men came and wentwith the trading caravans. It was thusimpossible for a man to exercise day-to-daycontrol over his wife. A tribe’s honour andprestige were not tied up with women’ssexuality. At that time, in fact, Arabs werehighly promiscuous.

During this period the Arabian peninsulaunderwent considerable social changes.Commerce blossomed, leading to changes in thesocial structure. This bred social unrest andinsecurity, especially in population centerslike Mecca, where Muhammed began his

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missionary work. The reason for the insecuritywas that tribal leaders were beginning toforsake the role of material and financialbenefactors and protectors. The increasingprosperity awakened the tribal leaders’ desirefor financial and material gain. Women andchildren had no right of inheritance at thattime, but women did receive their smallportion of the tribe’s goods and treasures. Asthe financial and social system began tocrumble, women and children, in particular,grew vulnerable.

It was at this time that Muhammed camealong with his new project: the family as asubstitute for the tribe. Muhammed’s successin conquering the Arabic peninsula over aperiod of about twenty years can be explainedlargely by these changes. Making the family asthe new backbone of society restored norms,values, and security.

Muhammed was especially preoccupied withcontrolling women’s sexuality. The prospect ofsecuring control over women’s bodies increasedthe likelihood that Arabic men would acceptthe family as the new social unit. With thefamily as a fundamental unit of society, a mancould pursue an independent career and achievefinancial self-sufficiency. For a man,therefore, it was decisive to ensure that hiswife’s children were his full progeny,children who would someday be his heirs. Thekey question thus became: how to regulatefatherhood? One answer became Islam’sexplicit prohibition on sex outside ofmarriage. The second became the rule that awoman, after her divorce or upon her husband’sdeath, would have to wait for a period of fourmonths and ten days, the so-called idda, beforeshe could marry again, in order to avoid

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uncertainty regarding the fatherhood of anychild she might have.

But how to satisfy the social needs thatwere so important to the Arab tribes?Muhammed replaced the tribal community withthe community of the faithful, the so-calledummah. All those who accepted Muhammed and hisdoctrines, no matter what their formerreligion or their tribal or racial identity,could become a part of the ummah. The sharedfeeling of community in the ummah wasstrengthened by faith and by the commonstruggle for expansion – i.e., holy war.

Bottom line: when the family became the newbackbone of society, women’s sexual andmarital freedom went out the back door.

The sexually dangerous woman

Islam warns against love and affectionbetween man and woman. Why? Because a man wholoves a woman risks failing in his mostimportant duty: total devotion to Allah. ForAllah has a sole and exclusive right to aman’s attention. As Mernissi says, theMuslims’ God “is known for being jealous”(1985:175). Everything that can come betweenthe believer and devotion to Allah istherefore a threat.

Islam views women’s sexuality as powerfuland therefore dangerous. The woman is thetempter, the man the victim. Therefore shemust be separated from men and closed out ofactivities beyond the home. The sexual powerthat Islam ascribes to women constitutes theentire basis for Islam’s regulation ofrelations between women and men, and betweenwomen and the Muslim community as such.104 ForMuhammed, control of sexuality was also the

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key needed to lock the door to the sexualliberation of pagan Arab culture.

In Christian history, there is a deep-seated tradition of viewing sexuality assinful; since the time of Jesus, celibacy hasplayed an important role in a wide variety offaith traditions. In more recent times,Western culture has tended to view men assexually active and women as sexually passive,a perspective that is strongly antithetical tothat of Islam. Freud, who of course had agreat influence on modern Western thinkingabout these matters, conceived of women’ssexuality in a way that contrasts profoundlywith Islam’s basic view of the subject. Hedescribed women as passive, masochistic, andinclined to be frigid, and viewed femalepassivity as destructive. Muhammed and earlyMuslim theologians also regarded femalesexuality as destructive – not, however,because women are passive but, as Mernissiexplains (1985:34-41), because they’re verymuch the opposite of passive.

Abu Hamid al-Ghazali (1050-1111), who isconsidered the most important and influentialtheologian in Islam’s history, claimed that nopower is a greater threat to Muslim societythan women’s sexual power, and that women andSatan are therefore two sides of the samecoin. Mernissi believes that Ghazali’s workreflected the essence of what Muhammed haddone several centuries earlier: Muhammedcreated the necessary circumstances for men’sdevotion to Allah by establishing optimalcontrol of “the temptress,” and also ensuredthat men had optimal access to sex (1985:33).

In Islam, it’s a husband’s religious dutyto satisfy his wife sexually in order to keepher from committing adultery. Ghazali provided

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detailed sexual guidelines – for example, aman must have sex with his wife at least everyfourth night. Why every fourth night?Because, according to Ghazali, a man can havefour wives.105 A husband must also be sure togive his wife the time she needs to achieve anorgasm.

What about the man’s satisfaction? TheMuslim man has full right to have his sexualneeds satisfied within marriage. Thus a wifecan’t refuse to sleep with her husband. If sherefuses, he can punish her by refusing tosupport her, and she will also be punished inthe hereafter. Ghazali even suggested that aman’s right to sexual satisfaction extends sofar that he can have sex with his wife even ifshe’s menstruating. But since intercourseduring menstruation is viewed as unclean andis thus forbidden in Islam, Ghazali proposedthat a menstruating wife cover herself betweenthe navel and the knees and masturbate herhusband.106

Belief in a man’s absolute sexual rightsis, in my experience, very much alive today inIslam, even among the Norwegian-born childrenof immigrants in Norway. An example: twoteenage Muslim sisters, both born in Norway,were married off against their will at adouble wedding. That same evening and in thesame house, the marriages were consummated.Years later, in reply to a question I askedthem, they said that at no time since then hadeither of them ever denied her husband sex.They said the very idea was almostunthinkable. The message they’d been given bytheir mother before marrying was that they“must never deny your husband what he wants.”Jeanette, who works for Human Rights Service,was told the same thing when she was married

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off at sixteen in Pakistan. Not even when shewas repeatedly raped by her husband did herparents support her. Her husband, in theirview, was entirely within his rights.

There are verses from the Koran as well asthe hadith, the collections of sayingsattributed to Muhammed, that affirm the wife’sabsolute subordination to her husband. Forexample, sura 2, verse 223, reads in part:“Your women are a field for you, so go to yourfield as you wish….” This Koran verse isinterpreted by many to mean that a husband hasthe absolute right to satisfy himself sexuallywhenever he wants. Stang Dahl comments asfollows on this verse: “One goes to one’scornfield as one decides, when one wants, andone tills it as one wishes. One has fulldominion over it” (1992:146).

Why does Islam focus so intently on malesexuality? Because once a man is sexuallysatisfied, it’s much easier for him to givehimself entirely to Allah. It’s also easierfor him to concentrate on developing hisintellect – a virtue in Islam. As bothMernissi and Stang Dahl point out, polygamyand simple, fast divorce were introduced tocreate a situation ideally designed to providea husband with sexual satisfaction.

As for Muslim women’s subordinate sexualrole in marriage and the demand for absolutesexual obedience, it’s appropriate to pointout that it wasn’t until 1974 that rape withinmarriage became a “visible” offense in Norway.Not until that year did a Supreme Courtdecision clearly state that the possibility ofrape can’t be excluded just because theparties are married or living together.107

Islam doesn’t preach equality between womanand man. A girl is subordinate to her father;

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a wife is subordinate to her husband; afatherless widow is subordinate to herbrothers or sons. The person ordering thewidow around may be a brother who’s youngerthan her, or her own young son, as I’vewitnessed myself in both Pakistan and Norway.After a woman of my acquaintance was divorcedin Norway, for example, her oldest son, agedtwenty-one, took over as head of thehousehold; he made the financial decisions andassumed authority over his mother and his twosisters.

The social and marital freedom womengenerally enjoyed prior to Muhammed’srevelations can’t be found in any Muslimcountry today. On the contrary, a woman whowants to divorce without her husband’sblessing can expect to be punished, or evenmurdered, which was Anooshe’s fate. Since thetime of Muhammed, the idea that a woman shouldbe able to decide who should be considered thefather of her child has been unthinkable.Muhammed introduced the severest possiblepunishment for sex outside of marriage. I alsowant to comment on what appears to be awidespread myth – namely, the claim that Islamgave rights to women that raised their socialstatus. This is only a partial truth. Yes,women received inheritance rights, which infact amount to half of a man’s inheritancerights, and Muhammed also condemned thepractice of buring infant girls alive, to namea couple of points that are often broughtforward as “evidence” for the improvedconditions of women under Islam. But womenalso lost the right to make decisions abouttheir own bodies and their children. And theseparation of the sexes strongly limitedwomen’s ability to have a life outside the

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home. A striking example of this is Muhammed’sfirst wife, Khadija. When Muhammed marriedher, she was a rich widowed businesswoman inMecca – a status that speaks volumes about thekind of freedom Arab women enjoyed in pre-Islamic times. I can also mention a friend ofmine in Lahore, the fashion designer YasminKhan. She lives day and night under armedguard for which she herself pays. Islamistsregard her as a threatening example to otherwomen because she’s unmarried and financiallyindependent. Other women, they fear, mightfollow in her liberating footsteps.

Thanks to Muhammed’s elevation of thefamily as an institution, his introduction ofcurbs on sexual behavior, and hisestablishment of polygamy and easy divorce formen, women’s right to make independentdecisions about their lives was severelyreduced. With the advent of Islam, in short,women lost their freedoms.

The obedient woman

One indication of the strong position ofpolygamy in today’s Muslim world is that onlyTurkey and Tunisia forbid it. The acceptanceof polygamy by the European Council for Fatwaand Research (ECFR), which instructs Muslimsin Europe about Islamic law and morals,108

reflects the nearly unanimous theologicalagreement about this practice on the part ofMuslim scholars.109

The scholars’ position is almost entirelysupported by the example of Muhammed. Muhammedlived polygamously, and the Koran justifiespolygamy. Today, however, secular Muslimfeminists reject this justification, notingthat the Koran only allows a man to marry up

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to four women if hen can treat them all equally. Withthis stipulation in mind, they quote sura 4,verse 128: “You will not be able to handleyour wives equally, however much you attemptto do so.” The Muslim feminists argue thatwhen you put these two Koranic injunctionstogether, they add up to a prohibition onpolygamy. Alas, feminists’ interpretations ofIslamic scripture have never been viewed asauthoritative.

A woman’s total subordination to herhusband is characterized by both Mernissi andStang Dahl as a master-slave relationship. Theman has no moral obligation to his wife. Shecan’t demand loyalty, but he can demandobedience. In sura 4, verse 34, we read: “Menare superior to women on account of thequalities with which God has gifted the oneabove the other, and on account of the outlaythey make from their substance for them.Virtuous women are obedient, careful…”

Under Islam, a woman’s obligation to obeyher husband is an absolute commandment. For aman, it is likewise a religious duty to givehis wife orders. His key religious duty,moreover, is to support and protect her. Whenhe fulfills this duty, she should respond withobedience. How broadly Muslims accept thisrigid set of mutual obligations can beillustrated by a conversation I had with awoman doctor in Islamabad. At first wediscussed her unhappy marriage. Despite theunhappiness, however, she was pleased that herhusband “permitted” her to work, as she putit. In this context she also said thefollowing: “The money I earn I put in my ownpocket. For it’s his obligation to supportme.” To this I replied that her husband’sobligation to support her was accompanied by

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her obligation to obey him, and that acceptingthese strictures was not the way to get whatshe really wanted out of her marriage –namely, respect and a role in making everydayfamily decisions. This idea seemed to beimpossible for her to consider. His non-negotiable obligation was to support her.“Islam says so,” she insisted, and theconversation stopped there.

Another illustration of the widespreadacceptance of the idea that wives owe husbandsobedience is that some women, when they marry,make sure to have specific rights written intotheir marriage contracts. Among these rightsare permission to continue one’s education, towork outside the home, to visit one’s familyat certain times and intervals, or to shop inthis or that store without a chaperone. For ayoung Norwegian-born Muslim woman married to aman from her family’s homeland, the duty toobey can force her into a position ofpowerlessnessness in the face of brutal power,and compel her to succumb to his pressure togive up the education, the job, and the sociallife she had before he came to Norway.Religion historian Kari Vogt also focuses onthe importance of obedience in marriage:“Through the marriage contract, the womancomes under the man’s authority, control, andprotection.” Vogt also refers to the demandfor “sexual availability.” Disobedience andrebellion can cause a woman to lose her rights(2005:118ff).

Muslim women’s subordinate position is alsothe crucial reason why they don’t have theright to marry non-Muslims: it’s taken forgranted that children in a marriage willfollow their father’s faith, since he’s themaster of the home and chooses the family’s

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religion. And it’s important for children tobe Muslims, because Islam should expand notonly through war, but also throughreproduction. It’s for this reason that aMuslim man has the right to marry non-Muslims,as long as they’re so-called “people of theBook” – that is, Jews or Christians.

The prohibition against Muslim women’smarriage to non-Muslims remains strong amongthe great majority of Muslims, in Norway andEurope as well as in the Muslim world. Theconvert Anne Sofie Roald writes in her book AreMuslim Women Oppressed? that most Muslim womenwith whom she discussed the subject reject theidea of marriage to a non-Muslim man. Some saythat such marriages are “sinful,” while otherssay that they would risk expulsion from theircommunities as well as their families if theywere to marry non-Muslims. Roald says thataccording to her own interpretation of Islam,Muslim women can marry non-Muslim men; herargument is that “in the Koran there is nodirect prohibition against marriage betweenMuslim women and men from the ‘people of theBook,’ as there is in regard to marriage withpagans” (2005:127).

In my experience, hardly any personal issueis more sensitive for Muslims than thequestion of marrying outside the faith. I’vemet Pakistani Muslim women in Islamabad whobelong to the Western-educated elite, and whohave married Western men with Christianbackgrounds. All the men have converted toIslam, if only on paper. In cases where aMuslim man marries a non-Muslim woman, it’salso quite common for the woman to convert,whether in reality or only on paper. Talkingto many Norwegian Muslims, both scholars andlaymen, I’ve encountered highly negative

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attitudes toward the idea of Muslim menmarrying women from other religions – eventhough there’s evidence in the Koran ofmarriages between Muslim men and Christian andJewish women.

Issues of obedience and sexual availabilityaside, how should the Muslim man treat hiswife? Answer: with respect and justice. Andhow can she earn the respect of those aroundher? Stang Dahl: “Elements that are crucialin determining whether a woman can be said tobe a success in life are whether she marries,gets a good man, and has children” (1992:53).

Man – a sexual beast

Islam’s view of the human male is that he’slittle short of a notorious sexual beast whowill throw himself at any woman who isn’t“decently” covered in public, and who requiresoptimal access to several wives and the rightto a quick divorce.

This view, along with the requirement offemale chastity, figures importantly in AyaanHirsi Ali’s explanation of the developmentalstagnation of the Muslim world and Muslims’integration problems in Europe. Hirsi Alinotes Muslim cultures’ extreme preoccupationwith girls’ virginity and the demand forfemale sexual purity. All responsibility forsexual morality, she emphasizes, is placed onwomen’s shoulders: “From a very young age,girls are surronded by an atmosphere ofmistrust. They learn early that they areuntrustworthy beings who constitute a dangerfor the clan. Something in them drives mencrazy” (The Caged Virgin, p. 21).

This monotonous fixation on girls and womenas temptresses and sex objects is supported by

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sura 24, verse 41, an oft-cited verse of theKoran: “And tell the believing women to subduetheir eyes, and maintain their chastity. Theyshall not reveal any parts of their bodies,except that which is necessary. They shallcover their chests, and shall not relax thiscode in the presence of other than theirhusbands, their fathers, the fathers of theirhusbands, their sons, the sons of theirhusbands, their brothers, the sons of theirbrothers, the sons of their sisters, otherwomen, the male servants or employees whosesexual drive has been nullified, or thechildren who have not reached puberty. Theyshall not strike their feet when they walk inorder to shake and reveal certain details oftheir bodies.”

Sexualizing relationships

The segregation of the sexes and theveiling of women – the intention of which isto desexualize the relationship between thesexes – usually result in the exact opposite.As Mernissi puts it, sexual segregation leadsto “the sexualizing of human relations”(1985:140).

The sexualization of men-women relations inMuslim cultures can also be illustrated by theways in which unrelated men and women addressone another. To desexualize such encounters,they employ kinship terms. For example, when aman of about my own age or younger waits on meat a store in Pakistan, or drives me in a cab,I call him “brother.” If the man isconsiderably older than I am, I call him“uncle.” If he is even older, I call him“grandfather.” This is a means of indicatingthat a sexual relationship between us is

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impossible. Similarly, men use family titleswhen addressing women. If a woman is sexuallyharassed, she may say: “Don’t you have asister? Haven’t you got a mother?” The pointof such questions is to play for empathy bylikening oneself to the man’s immediatefamily; they are also attempts to desexualizethe situation.

My experience in both Norway and Pakistanis that the thoroughgoing sexualization ofhuman relations, in combination with ignoranceand taboos, gives rise to tragedies. It canlead to assaults on children, and especiallyto abuse within extended families.

Mina’s family is an example of this. Duringthe first couple of years I knew Mina, itemerged that another daughter, in addition tothe youngest one, had supposedly been sexuallyabused by a relative. The assailant, accordingto the girl, was an uncle. It also emergedthat the girl, in all probability, had beenabused by a male relative several yearsearlier during a stay in Pakistan. Some timelater, in the spring of 2006, Mina contactedus again with more dramatic news: a thirddaughter, she said, had been sexuallyassaulted several times. First she had beenattacked by an uncle during an overnight visitwith relatives; then another uncle hadpurportedly raped her. This had taken place ayear earlier, but she hadn’t dared to reportit until now, for she’d seen how her youngersister was treated when it came out that herfather had sexually assaulted her.

After learning of this latest assault, Iasked Mina whether she herself, in herchildhood, had been subjected to sexual abuseby a relative. She said she had. I asked herdirectly about this sensitive subject because

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in my experience, most young Muslim women inNorway who’ve been in conflict with theirrelatives have been sexually assaulted at sometime or another. Most were abused as childrenor teenagers by relatives, while some wereabused by religious leaders or private tutorsduring stays in their families’ homelands.

One day in 2003, two girls who were relatedto Mina showed up at my office. They told methey’d’ been sexually abused by two of theiruncles. The reason why they were telling mewas that one of them, as a result, wassuffering psychological damage that was havinga negative effect on her marital life.

This is, of course, extremely uncomfortableinformation to bring up in public. But itshouldn’t be a surprise that sexual assaultson children take place within Muslim extendedfamilies. In the West we’re accustomed toexposés of sexual abuse of women and childrenin closed communities rife with sexual taboos,such as the Catholic Church and variousProtestant sects. In Pakistan, the abuse ofchildren in extended families (as well as inIslamic boarding schools and other suchplaces) is a familiar story, too. In the mid1990s an organization in Islamabad set upevening discussion groups for victims ofassault.110 The organizers told me that thegroups had attracted a great many adults whoneeded to share their pain and sorrow overwhat they’d been put through as children. Theorganizers said that they’d been contacted notonly by women but also by many men who’d beenvictims of sexual assault as children. Friendsof mine in Pakistan have told me that theynever allow their children to be alone withservants or outsiders because they’re

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concerned about the possibility of sexualassault.

Several factors, I think, can account forthe sexual abuse of children within Muslimextended families. As Mernissi points out, thesexualization of human relations is a resultof sexual segregation. The generalsexualization of relations, I think, is also afactor. Opportunities for normal socialinteraction with members of the opposite sexonly occur, as a rule, within families. As aresult, it’s difficult for romanticrelationships to spring up out of everydayencounters between men and women – since therehardly are any such encounters. The sexualfrustration this can lead to – especiallyamong young unmarried men, but also amongmarried men in unhappy family-arrangedmarriages – renders girls and young women inextended families vulnerable to assault. Theview of women as sex objects – sex objects,moreover, who are personally responsible forensuring that men are not tempted by them –can also be a factor. As was true in Norway atone time, there is also a widespread lack ofrespect for and understanding of children’sintegrity, feelings, and needs, plus agenerally low level of respect for girls andwomen. Another part of the explanation, Ibelieve, is the lack of respect that boys andmen often have for their sisters and femalecousins. The fact that boys are also subjectedto sexual assaults, usually by non-relatives,can also be explained by segregation: men caneasily socialize with boys who are not relatedto them.

I believe it would ease many people’s livesif assaults, especially on small girls by

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their relatives, were placed on the politicalagenda in Norway.

Passing on traditions of assault

Islam’s view of sex and of women lies atthe heart of the challenges involved in theintegration of Muslims and the denial offundamental rights and human dignity to Muslimfemales. Islam seeks to achieve optimalcontrol of sexuality, seeks to ensure thatgirls are married off as virgins and becomefaithful wives. It’s to this end that Muslimgirls are kept out of swimming classes anddenied the opportunity to go camping trips andschool expeditions. It’s to this end thatMuslim girls, especially, take part to a farsmaller extent in outdoor activities thanother people.111 It’s to this end that Muslimgirls are sent back to their parents’homelands during the years before and afterpuberty. And it’s to this end that the age ofmarriage is generally far lower for Muslimgirls than for other girls.

Islam and family-arranged marriages go handin glove, since love between men and women andpre-marital romance are seen as threats toMuslim society. There’s also direct support inIslamic law for the use of force in marriage.Several “classic texts,” as Kari Vogt pointsout (2005:116), give a father or grandfatherthe right to marry a daughter or granddaughteroff with force.

The strict segregation of the sexes is alsoa major reason for the generally rock-bottomemployment rate among Muslim women.112 In mostprofessions, and at most workplaces, they’d bebeyond their husbands’ and male relatives’

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sexual control. Plus a fact, women’semployment is prevented by their obligationunder Islam to obey. A man can deny his wifethe right to work, in addition to which Islamimposes upon her the responsibility forkeeping the home and taking care of thechildren.113

In the name of “optimal sexual control,”girls are genitally mutilated. This custom ispracticed in around half of the countries thatare dominated by Muslims, and is not practicedby the majority population in any countrydominated by any faith other than Islam. It’swrong, then, to categorically maintain thatgenital mutilation doesn’t have anything to dowith Islam. True, the Koran doesn’t mentionthe circumcision of women or girls, a customthat arose thousands of years before Islam wasfounded; but there’s a story about Muhammedinstructing a woman who circumcised girls tolimit the operation, and another about himdescribing sex as an encounter between twocircumcised sexual organs, which is consideredan expression of approval for the practice.FGM has indeed come to be seen as one ofMuhammed’s customs, part of his sunna – whichis why two of the four forms of genitalmulitation (as we saw in Chapter 5) are called“sunna circumcision.”

The two centuries after Muhammed’s deathsaw the formation of groups of religious andlegal experts who interpreted Islam. Thesegroups led to four schools of law within SunniIslam. All four describe the circumcision ofgirls. The Shafi school puts so much emphasison Muhammed’s statements that it considers thecustom obligatory. The Maliki, Hanafi, andHanbali schools, while not regarding it asobligatory, recommend it. It’s therefore

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correct to say that in countries where FGM iswidespread, it’s viewed as a matter of obeyingIslam’s teachings. As Anne Sofie Roald writes:“In those countries where this custom existedprior to Islam, it has been maintained by theIslamic schools of law” (2005:165). Islam’sgeneral acceptance of FGM is also in harmonywith the desire to control women’s strong anddangerous sexual desire. And it’s additionallyunderscored by the fact that the president ofthe European Council for Fatwa and Research(ECFR), Yusuf al-Qaradawi, recommends thepractice.114 Al-Qaradawi, who is consideredone of the leading theologians in the SunniMuslim world, is the key figure behind one ofthe world’s most important websites forArabic- and English-speaking Muslims.115 He’salso highly respected by the IslamicAssociation in Norway.116

If you look at the spread of genitalmutilation in the world, it’s obvious that thecustom has followed in Islam’s footsteps. Thisis illustrated especially by the fact that itspread across the Indian Ocean from EastAfrica to Indonesia and Malaysia and becameestablished among various peoples who hadembraced Islam’s teachings. When orthodoxChristian Ethiopians argue for FGM, they can’tseek to legitimize it with reference toChristian law or statements by Christianprophets. And if it were true, as some claim,that Islam categorically rejects FGM, youcould argue with full justification that, ifso, Muslim leaders have failed spectacularlyto put a stop to it among the faithful.

The honour killing of girls and woman isanother phenomenon that today occurs mostly inthe Muslim world – and has now been importedinto Muslim communities in Europe. The motives

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for such murders almost always have somethingto do with female sexuality or “disobedience”– such as Anooshe’s availing herself of theun-Islamic right to divorce in Norway.Suspected adultery is another major reason forsuch murders.

According to classic Islamic law,extramarital sex is supposed to be punishedwith whipping and/or stoning to death. Islam’sstrong emphasis on authority also plays a rolehere. Muslims are enjoined to obey the oldestmen in their families – and, as we’ve seen,the duty to obey in Muslim cultures isintimately related to the concept of honour.The duty to obey, the concept of honour, andthe individual’s weak position under Islamcombine to create an atmosphere that’s ripefor the legitimization of honour killing. ManyMuslim religious leaders support honourkilling; so do the laws in a number of Muslimcountries, where the honour killing of“immoral” women is considered valid in theeyes of both cultural tradition and Islamictheology. It’s important to stress here thatneither the Koran nor other Islamic writingsencourage honour killing; tragically enough,however, a number of Muslims nonetheless viewsuch killing as a religious duty – as could beseen clearly in Olenka Frenkiel’s 1999 BBCdocumentary Murder in Purdah, in which meninterviewed in a Pakistani village assertedthat they were obliged under Islam to kill womenin their families who brought dishonour uponthem.

When a Christian woman from an Arab cultureis the victim of an honour killing, it can bemuch harder to connect the murder to religion.There’s nothing in the New Testament thatlegitimizes such a killing; it must, rather,

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be understood primarily in a cultural context– an Arab context. That the kind of honourkilling which occurs in much of the Muslimworld today has never existed in Westernculture strengthens the argument that suchexecutions can’t easily be connected toChristianity. On the contrary, there’s not onecountry that’s dominated today by Christiansin which the native Christian populationpractices honour killing.

In Norwegian debates about forced marriageand honour-related violence, there areconstant references to the concept “medievalattitudes and values.” The intention ispartly to suggest that in Norway, too, ourtreatment of girls and women was once foundedon an extremely patriarchal honour code of thesort that can be found in some immigrantcommunities today. But this is an unfair wayof characterizing medieval Norway. Indeed, theattempt to draw parallels is absolutelymisguided. In all of known Norwegian history,back to pagan times, the status of Norwegianwomen has never been as low as it is today inthe communities and territories discussedhere. This has been pointed out by GroSteinsland, a professor of religious history,who told Aftenposten on November 15, 2005, that“If we look at phenomena like honour killing,the sanctioning of physical punishment ofwomen, as well as the right to divorce, it canalso seem that women’s position in manyrespects was stronger in Norway in the year900 than it is in some immigrant groups in2005.” When it comes to the reference to theMiddle Ages, Professor Ole Jørgen Benedictowpointed out in an op-ed entitled “TheSlandered Middle Ages” that Norwegian law inthe Middle Ages expected that “marriages would

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be entered into voluntarily and with consent,and that forced marriage provides a foundationfor annulment. Honour-related violence, honourkilling, and forced marriage are infringementsbeyond any legal acceptance” (Aftenposten, 20April 2005).117

Islamic law has also established itself onNorwegian soil. In 2003, the “Declaration fromthe Bridal Couple before Testing of theMarriage Terms,” which all brides and groomsin Norway have to sign, was abridged toinclude a clause asking the bridal couple torecognize each other’s equal rights todivorce.118 The reason for this alteration isthat women have limited divorce rights underIslamic law; in order to even have areasonable hope of securing a divorce, aMuslim woman must be able to prove that herhusband was impotent at the time of theirmarriage, that he’s been mentally ill foryears, or that he hasn’t supported her forseveral years, is violent, or has preventedher from practicing Islam. Even if one or moreof these conditions can be documented, it’sstill far from certain that a Muslim courtwill grant a divorce.

A Muslim bride and groom who sign aNorwegian marriage contract are also wed inthe presence of a Muslim congregation and signa Muslim contract specifying the terms oftheir marriage. This contract is consideredbinding both by Islamic authorities and by theMuslim community, and for believers it’s farmore binding than the Norwegian civilcontract. Today, if a Muslim woman wants todivorce, Norwegian law, of course,acknowledges her absolute right to do so; buther husband can hold her to their Muslim pact,and thereby force her to remain as married as

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ever. The annex to “The Declaration from theBridal Couple” is meant to strengthen a Muslimwoman’s right to dissolve her marriage in theface of a husband, family, and Muslimcommunity that may oppose her decision.

A comprehensive system

As we have seen, Islam isn’t only areligion; it’s a set of laws, a social system,and a moral code. Indeed, it’s a comprehensivesystem of norms that provides believers with acomplete framework for life. The system ofnorms – sharia – is universal, in the sensethat it applies to all Muslims no matter wherethey live in the world. Sharia is considereddivine law, and far exceeds the scope ofsecular law, for it covers all aspects oflife, including private and public conduct,religious rituals, hygiene, and approvedcustoms. Sharia is divinely ordained, itsrules and obligations having supposedly beenrevealed by Allah and quoted verbatim in theKoran. In addition, there’s Muhammed’s so-called exemplary custom, his sunna – that isto say, both his actions and pronouncements asrecorded in the so-called hadith. Shariadeveloped during the three centuries afterMuhammed’s death, and its fundamental elementsremain essentially the same to this day.

Why is all this relevant to today’s Norwayand Europe? Precisely because many Muslims doindeed regard sharia as divinely ordained.Like many believing Christians, believingMuslims would place religious commandments andprohibitions above Norwegian law. This isn’tessentially problematic in the case ofChristians, since the Old Testament, in whichbrutal punishments are set down in Mosaic law,

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is regarded by the great majority ofChristians as a historical document whoseprescriptions are no longer binding. (Theexception is found among very minorfundamentalist groups.) It’s the NewTestament message of charity that counts. Norwould it be easy to extrapolate the TenCommandments into a full body of law.119

Sharia, by contrast, represents a majorchallenge for Norway, Europe, and the Muslimworld. Consider, for example, the fact thatwhile Muhammed set down a blanket prohibitionon eating pork, he didn’t prohibit FGM.

Sharia also prescribes brutal punishments,such as the amputation of thieves’ hands andfeet and the whipping and stoning to death ofadulterers – punishments that are still inforce today in countries like Saudi Arabia,Sudan, Nigeria, Iran, and Afghanistan. Shariaalso offers instructions and guidelines forprayer, dress, permitted and prohibited food,and much more. If you wanted, you could liveby sharia in every detail of your activityfrom the time you got up in the morning untilthe moment you went to bed at night.120

Islam and human rights

Of Islam’s three categories of law, it’sfamily law that is central and that isfollowed by most Muslim countries. Family lawregulates marriage, divorce, child custody,and inheritance. Women are discriminatedagainst in every area of family law – forexample, in regard to the bridal gift (mahr),which treats women’s sexuality as a“commodity” that’s paid for in the marriagecontract, as Kari Vogt puts it, and that gives

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the man the right to full control over her(2005:118).

In addition to Islamic family law andcriminal law (the latter being far less widelyimplemented in Muslim countries than theformer), sharia includes laws pertaining toreligious liberty and freedom of expression.In relation to the international community andhuman rights, the Islamic world’s Achillesheel consists in its stands on women’s rights,forms of punishment, religious liberty, andfreedom of expression. When the UN’sDeclaration on Human Rights was drawn up,major Muslim member nations took part in itsformulation. When the final version wasapproved in 1948, only Saudi Arabia votedagainst it, mainly because it guaranteedreligious liberty. But in the years since, asnew UN conventions on human rights have beenadopted, an increasing number of Muslimcountries’ governments have refused to makethem legally binding within their borders. AsKari Vogt says: “They reject the laws oraccept them only with drastic reservations….The objections that are raised are always thesame: everything that touches on religion andsex is controversial. This has to do withwomen’s legal status, questions about equalitybefore the law, plus all questions concerningreligious freedom and freedom of expression.Islamic criminal law is also problematic fromthe perspective of human rights” (2005:112).

The Muslim opposition to the Declaration’sprovisions about women is summed up as followsby Moroccan scriptural scholar MuhammedNaceri: “The Universal Declaration of HumanRights was for complete equality for men andwomen. For us, women are equal to men in law,but they are not the same as men, and they

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can’t be allowed to wander around freely inthe streets like some kind of animal.”121

How unwavering Muslim countries are intheir view of sharia was clearly articulatedin the Cairo Declaration on Human Rights inIslam, the Islamic world’s own human-rightsdeclaration.122 It begins by maintaining thatMuslim nations are superior: “God has made theIslamic fellowship of believers the bestnation.”123 It further states that the “divinecommandments” stem from holy books and fromMuhammed, “the last prophet.” The declarationincludes the following statements:

“It is prohibited to take away lifeexcept for a Shari’ah-prescribedreason.”

“Safety from bodily harm is aguaranteed right. It is the duty ofthe state to safeguard it, and it isprohibited to breach it without aShari’ah-prescribed reason.”

“Every human being is entitled toinviolability and the protection ofhis good name and honour during hislife and after his death.”

“Men and women have the right tomarriage, and no restrictionsstemming from race, colour ornationality shall prevent them fromenjoying this right.”

“Woman is equal to man in humandignity, and has rights to enjoy aswell as duties to perform….. The

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husband is responsible for thesupport and welfare of the family.”

“Parents and those in such likecapacity have the right to choosethe type of education they desirefor their children, provided theytake into consideration the interestand future of the children inaccordance with ethical values andthe principles of the Shari’ah.”

“Both parents are entitled tocertain rights from their children…in accordance with the tenets of theShari’ah.”

“The State…shall guaranteeeducational diversity in theinterest of society so as to enableman to be acquainted with thereligion of Islam and the facts ofthe Universe for the benefit ofmankind.”

“Islam is the religion of unspoilednature. It is prohibited to exerciseany form of compulsion on man or toexploit his poverty or ignorance inorder to convert him to anotherreligion or to atheism.”

“Every man shall have the right,within the framework of Shari’ah, tofree movement and to select hisplace of residence whether inside oroutside his country and, ifpersecuted, is entitled to seekasylum in another country. The

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country of refuge shall ensure hisprotection until he reaches safety,unless asylum is motivated by an actwhich Shari’ah regards as a crime.”

“Everyone shall have the right toenjoy the fruits of his scientific,literary, artistic or technicalproduction and the right to protectthe moral and material interestsstemming therefrom, provided thatsuch production is not contrary tothe principles of Shari’ah.”

“There shall be no crime orpunishment except as provided for inthe Shari’ah.”

“Everyone shall have the right toexpress his opinion freely in suchmanner as would not be contrary tothe principles of the Shari’ah.”

“Everyone shall have the right toadvocate what is right, andpropagate what is good, and warnagainst what is wrong and evilaccording to the norms of IslamicShari’ah.”

“Information is a vital necessity tosociety. It may not be exploited ormisused in such a way as may violatesanctities and the dignity ofProphets, undermine moral andethical values or disintegrate,corrupt or harm society or weakenits faith.”

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The Declaration’s last two articles state:“All the rights and freedoms stipulated inthis Declaration are subject to the IslamicShari’ah.” And: “The Islamic Shari’ah is theonly source of reference for the explanationor clarification to any of the articles ofthis Declaration.”

The Cairo Declaration can hardly be calleda human-rights declaration; it is, rather, a“sharia rights declaration,” whose purpose isto protect God, not man. Utterly absent fromit, for example, is any hint of political orcivil rights. “Rights” would appear to meanthe right to be Muslim – and the duty toremain Muslim. The Declaration’s purpose is tospecify the individual’s obligations under thedivine sharia.

Thus the Declaration, in its discussion of“the right to marriage,” mentions religion butnot race, colour, or nationality – since undersharia a woman is free only to marry a Muslim.Thus the Declaration – in accordance withsharia – forbids criticism of Islam andpermits the taking of human life. Thus theDeclaration threatens those who leave Islamwith punishment – since sharia prohibitsapostasy from Islam. Thus the Declaration saysthat women and men have the same dignity, butnot that they’re equal – since sharia imposesupon them specific roles and obligations. Thusthe Declaration prohibits free thought inscience and art – lest the divine sharia frombe revealed for what it is: a set of rules,laws, and norms formulated by human beings ina time when there was no respect for theinviolability of the individual; a time whenthe individual was, indeed, only anindissoluble part of the tribe.

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The UN on stagnation and lack of freedom

This unshakable view of Islam and sharia asmankind’s liberation and salvation has hadcatastrophic consequences for individuals aswell as for society. Three times since theturn of the century, the UN has publishedreports on development in the Arab world.124

The reports examine the last thirty years’development, or lack thereof, in the ArabLeague’s twenty-two member countries. Thereports, written by Arabs, have shocked bothArabs and the international community, forthey have shown that social, political, andeconomic conditions in Arabic countries werefar worse than had been thought.

The UN has determined that the Arab worldsuffers from three basic failings: a lack offreedom of expression, a lack of knowledge,and a lack of women’s emancipation, whichamounts to a veritable waste of half of thepopulation’s resources. An authoritarian styleof childrearing serves to suppress curiosityand hunger for knowledge, the report says.Arab society encourages collective thinkingand invites passivity and a low level ofsocial involvement. Both Islam and Arabpolitical systems crush individuals’ self-confidence and sense of independence.

The Arab countries’ oil reserves aresignificant, and many of these countries areamong the world’s richest. It’s nonethelesshere that you’ll find the world’s highestunemployment rates. Economic development can’teven be described as limping along, accordingto the UN’s reports. The total gross nationalproduct of all the Arabic countries puttogether is just slightly higher than Spain’s.

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One in five Arabs lives on less than twodollars a day. In the world, on average, ittakes around ten years for people to doubletheir income; in the Arabic world today, itwould take 140 years. According to the UN,when it comes to the freedom of its citizens(and especially its women), the Arab regioncomes at the very bottom of the list, evenlower than the poorest parts of sub-SaharanAfrica.

A major symptom of this underdevelopmentand lack of freedom is the fact that half ofthe young people in the Arab world want toleave it. The dream of migration is especiallyconnected to poor educational opportunitiesand a lean Labour market. Of 280 millioninhabitants, sixty-five million areilliterates. Ten million children don’t attendschool. During the last millennium, the Arabworld has translated the same number of booksfrom other parts of the world that Spain doesannually. Strict censorship is one reason whya bestseller in the Arab world rarely has aprint run of more than five thousand copies.Only one percent of the world’s scientists canbe found in the Arab world. The brain drain ismassive.

The UN’s 2003 report says that Islam has atradition of encouraging knowledge andtolerance. But today’s Muslim world isdistinguished by an alliance betweenoppressive political systems and reactionaryinterpreters of Islam with hostile attitudestoward development and progress. “CertainMuslim educational institutions,” the reportsays, are viewed as impediments to developmentand modernization.125 And then comes thecriticism that is perhaps the hardest for theArab League to take: the Arab UN reporters

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believe that modernity and development are notcreated by mixing politics and religion in theway that the Cairo Declaration on Human Rightsdoes. The UN points to the need for newperspectives, such as a focus on “the creationof paradise on earth and the enjoyment of theearth’s bounties.” Or, as Ayaan Hirsi Aliputs it: there must be an end to the idea that“life on earth is merely a transitory stagebefore the hereafter” (The Caged Virgin, p. x).

The report points to concrete areas inwhich the Arab countries need to improve:“curiosity, reason, science, the senses,vision and feelings.” As for religion, thereport concludes that Arabs must return to “acivilized, moral and humanitarian vision”;that religion must be given “independence frompolitical authorities, governments, states,and radical religious-political movements”;and that “intellectual freedom” must berecognized and “the right to differ indoctrines, religious schools andintepretations” preserved. 126

When I studied the UN reports on the Arabworld, my thoughts turned several times toPakistan, and especially to the schools inLittle Norway where so many Norwegian citizensreceive their education – where children areraised in religious conformity; where there’sprecious little in the way of intellectualcuriosity and independent thinking; wherevisions and emotions are suppressed; wherechildren are fed with their mother’s milk onthe idea that they should subordinatethemselves to parents, teachers, religiousleaders, and other authorities; where they’retaught, both in words and by the example ofwhat they see every day in their gender-divided surroundings, that women are second-

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class citizens; and where boys and girls learnthat “life on earth is only a passage to thebeyond,” and that the only legitimate way tolead one’s life is to subordinate oneselfuncritically to Allah, Muhammed, the Koran,and sharia.

As in the Arab countries, development inPakistan has gone in one basic direction:backwards. There has been increasing culturalstagnation and disintegration, and increasingspiritual confinement owing to Islam’s growinginfluence on the life of society.

Reading the UN reports, I recalled what Ihad candidly told Dagbladet on 3 August 2006, inmy first interview on integration problems. Iexplained what I saw as crucial obstacles tothe integration of Muslims into Westernculture: Islam’s oppressive view of women, itsall-embracing ideology of purity, and thesexual segregation that results from thesethings and that closes women out of the publicsquare. I was far more correct than I realizedat the time.

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7

The Muslims’ Challenge:

What Went Wrong?

In the previous chapter we saw that the

Arab part of the Muslim world, in particular,has decayed in learning and is now, by prettymuch all societal measures, a backwater. Whatwent wrong?

A major explanation for this decline, theUN reports indicate, is Islam’s negative viewof women. This is also the thesis of the bookWhat Went Wrong? Western Impact and Middle EasternResponse (2002) by the man who may be theleading expert on Islam today, historianBernard Lewis. The following is principallybased on Lewis’s account of Islam’s period ofgreatness and decline.

After Muhammed’s death in the year 632, hisfollowers conquered most of the world that wasthen known to Europe, including parts ofEurope itself. Over the course of little morethan a century, Islam subdued an area largerthan the Roman Empire. The Islamic kingdomstretched from Christian North Africa in theWest to Hindu India in the east. In the year711, the Muslim army crossed the Straits ofGibraltar and captured Spain.

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Islam’s rapid expansion was based on theKoranic principle of jihad – in a belligerentsense, not in a sense of personal striving tofollow the way of Allah and struggle againstevil. The expansion also owed much to the factthat the Arab tribes had managed to cometogether under a single language, a commonculture, and a shared political system.Everyone was held in Islam’s embrace; everyonehad received the calling, final and perfectfor all eternity. Muslims were also motivatedby the need to transcribe the Koran, collectthe hadith, and interpret both. These tasksinspired immense energy and incentive.

From India, the Muslims borrowed thedecimal system. They translated into Arabicthe ancient Greek philosophical works ofAristotle and others. Philosophy, science, andart blossomed. There was progress in bothmathematics and medicine. Islam became theworld’s greatest military and economic power.During these first centuries after Muhammed’sdeath, in short, Islam was at its zenith. Thisera is called Islam’s Golden Age, and duringit large areas of Europe, developmentallyspeaking, lagged far behind the Muslim world.

Not until around the year 1000 did Europestart to awaken. In both Spain and Italy, theMuslims were gradually pushed back, and theCrusades, which were a response to the Muslimconquests of Jerusalem and the “Holy Land,”began in 1095. The wars went on for centuries,and by the end of the 1400s Europe’s Muslimrulers had pretty much been driven from thecontinent. These conflicts, however, are notcentral to this book. What is central to it isthe question of why the Muslims declined fromgreatness into backwardness.

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Islam’s decline

The answer has a lot to do with thepreviously mentioned theologian al-Ghazali.Ghazali sabotaged the close relationshipbetween Islam and Greek philosophy – aphilosophy that stands for self-realization,reason, critical reflection, rationality, andscience. Ghazali believed that the Koranshould be understood literally. In and ofitself, this was nothing new; but when aleading figure of his caliber preached such aview, it had crucial significance. Reason wastossed out in favour of belief. Ghazalirepresented irrationality, force, sacrificefor the sake of the collectivity – valuesthat, as world history has shown repeatedly,lead to oppression and dictatorship, povertyand cultural stagnation.

During these first centuries afterMuhammed’s death, Islam underwent a period ofinterpretation and formation at the hands ofmany legal scholars. But in the tenth centuryA.D., most scholars closed the door on furtherinterpretation of the texts, which is known asijtihad. They introduced the principle calledtaqlid – the doctrine of following one’spredecessors, that is to say the classicalMuslim jurists (Stang Dahl 1992:47). ForIslam, this marked the end of the road. Theanswers to all of life’s questions, small andlarge, both on the individual and societallevel, had already been worked out for alltime; henceforth, Muslims would simply echo,and live by, the divine truths that earlierreligious authorities had set down once andfor all. Ghazali, then, didn’t put an end toijtihad singlehandedly.127

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Another factor Lewis points to ascontributing to Islam’s decline is thatMuslims, during these first centuries,regarded Europeans as stupid, backward, and(not surprisingly) bestial. In additional,they viewed the countries of Europe as thelands of the infidels, where they would prefernot to travel. “The doctors of the Holy Lawfor the most part prohibited such journeys,”Lewis writes (2002:37). The Muslims thus hadvery little to do with the unconquered portionof Europe – which is to say the greater partof it. As a result they remained largelyunaffected by Europe’s scientific awakening,technological progress, and journeys ofdiscovery. By the time of the Renaissance(which began in the late 1300s) the Europeanshad made significance progress in science andart; they took over the Muslims’ scientific,technological, and cultural heritage, even theMuslims’ desire for knowledge from without wasdying out. In the Islamic world, writes Lewis,“independent inquiry virtually came to an end,and science was for the most part reduced tothe veneration of a corpus of approvedknowledge” (2002:78).

Not until the 1700s, and after manymilitary defeats and much lost territory, wereMuslims’ curiosity about and desire forEuropean knowledge awakened. They wanted tocatch up with Europeans’ military advancesprecisely in order to renew their struggleagainst Europe’s armies. They went to Viennaand Paris to learn. But for them, according toLewis, acknowledging that the Europeans’progress was connected to “the underlyingphilosophy and the sociopolitical context ofthese scientific achievements” was highly

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problematic (2002:81). Relations between thesexes in Europe posed a special challenge.

The Enlightenment of the 1700s wasabsolutely crucial to Europe’s furtherblossoming. It was a time of liberation forthe individual and of rebellion against socialoppression and dictatorship. The Enlightenmentattributed critical reason and freedom to theindividual. Citizens were given rights thatthe state committed itself to ensuring. Thisled, in turn, to greater freedom of expressionand a growth in the life of organizations. Thechild born of this long process was Europeandemocracy. The Enlightenment was also crucialfor the development of women’s rights.

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No Golden Age for women

Muslims’ view of the relations between menand women in Europe can be illustrated by anexample from 1665, when a Turkish envoyvisited Vienna and reported on an“extraordinary spectacle.” Lewis quotes him:“Whenever the emperor meets a woman in thestreet, if he Is riding, he brings his horseto a standstill and lets her pass. If theEmperor is on foot and meets a woman, hestands in a posture of politeness. The womangreets the emperor, who then takes his hat offhis hed to show respect for the woman. Afterthe woman has passed, the emperor continues onhis way. It is indeed an extraordinaryspectacle” (2002:65). The position of womenwas, according to Lewis, “one of the moststriking contrasts between Christian andMuslim practice.” Muslims who visited Europespoke “with astonishment, often with horror,of the immodesty and frowardness of Westernwomen, of the incredible freedom and absurddeference accorded to them.” They also saidthat European men didn’t exhibit jealousy ofwomen’s “immorality and promiscuity”(2002:66).

There are three groups that according toIslamic law and tradition should not enjoylegal and religious equality: slaves,infidels, and women. In one crucial sense,women are entirely at the bottom. A slave canbe freed, and an infidel can convert to Islamand become a full citizen. “Only the woman wasdoomed forever to remain what she was – or soit seemed at the time,” writes Lewis(2002:69). When Europeans acquired strengthand influence and also colonized parts of theMuslim world, they used their influence to

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secure rights for Christians, a change bywhich Jews, too, profited. The struggle tofree slaves was carried out with weapons inhand. But the Europeans showed no interest inputting an end to Muslims’ oppression ofwomen; indeed, careful not to offend Muslimson this score, they followed “conservativesocial policies” in regard to women (2002:69).This history recalls the situation in today’sEurope, where politicians fail to use theirpower – to use the law – to lift Muslim womenout of their inequality.

From the perspective of women’s rights,calling the first centuries after Muhammed’sdeath Islam’s Golden Age is misleading. In theMuslim world, women have never had a GoldenAge. It was during the so-called Golden Age,in fact, that not only Islam took shape, underthe influence of leading theologians, but alsothe role of women in Islam. A notoriousstatement from the so-called Golden Age of al-Ghazali – a statement that tells us a greatdeal about women’s status under Islam and thatis frequently cited in literature on Islam andwomen – is this: “She should stay home andwork at spinning, she should not go out often,she must not be well informed, nor must shetalk to the neighbours, and only visit them ifit is totally necessary. She should take careof her husband and respect him both when he ispresent and when he is away, and try tosatisfy him in all things. She must notdeceive him or nag him for money. She must notleave the house without his permission, and ifshe receives this permission, she must gounnoticed. She should dress in old clothes anduse empty streets and alleys, avoidmarketplaces, and make sure that no strangeris able to hear her voice or recognize her.

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She must not speak to any of her husband’sfriends even in case of an emergency.…The onlythings she should worry about are her virtue,her home, and prayers and fasting. If a friendof her husband comes on a visit while he isaway, she must not open the door or answerhim, in order to protect herself and herhusband’s honour. She should accept what herman gives her as sufficient to her sexualneeds at any time.” Ghazali goes on to warnmen against women, because the latter’s“dissimulation is enormous and their evilinventions are dangerous; they are immoral andill-natured …It is a fact that all tests,accidents, and sorrows that affect a man comefrom women.”128

Woman-friendly voices, but…

The earliest example of advocacy forwomen’s rights by a Muslim was found by Lewisin an 1867 article by Namik Kemal: “Our womenare now seen as serving no useful purpose tomankind other thsan having children; they areconsidered simply as serving for pleasure,like musical instruments or jewels. But theyconstitute half and perhaps more than half ofour species. Preventing them from contributingto the sustenance and improvement of others bymeans of their efforts infringes the basicrules of public cooperation to such an degreethat our national society is stricken like ahuman body that is paralyzed on one side.…Manyevil consequences result from this position ofwomen, the first being that it leads to a badupbringing for their children” (2002:70).129

Kemal’s criticism didn’t lead to anyimprovement in the situation of Muslim women.But a book published a few years later, in

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1899, created more of a stir. Entitled Woman’sLiberation, it was written by a young Egyptianjurist, Qasim Amin, who had lived in Paris andwhose French lover had apparently had acertain influence on him. He wanted to improvewomen’s position through education,employment, and social participation. Hisboldest suggestions were to remove the veil,reinterpret the Koran’s view of polygamy, andchange divorce laws that made it easy for men(but not women) to dissolve a marriage. A freesociety demands that all its citizens be free,Amin believed. He attempted to ground hisarguments in Islamic belief, but his book ledto “a very strong reaction from thetraditionalist establishment in Egypt andelsewhere,” Lewis says (2002:71). Over thirtypolemical books were written attacking him.Amin was later called “the father of Egyptianfeminism.”

During this epoch, there was some positivemovement in the Muslim world, largely thanksto European influences. The right to ownslaves was abolished, and concubinage wasforbidden in most regions. In Tunisia, Turkey,and Persia under the Shahs, polygamy wasforbidden, while some other countries putlimits on it. But the most important form thatprogress for women took in the 1900s had to dowith personal finances. According to Islam,women have a right to own property, and duringthis period this right was widely granted. Thewars fought by the Ottoman Empire in the earlytwentieth century created a need for moreworkers, which led to the introduction ofwomen into the workforce (just as would lateroccur in the West during World War II); andsince the Ottoman men were at war, their wivesalso had to take care of day-to-day finances.

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As a result of all this, more and more womenbegan to study; some also began careers asteachers and nurses. But it wasn’t long beforea reaction set in. Militant Islamists stronglyopposed (among much else) women teachers, aconcept which violated their principle ofsexual segregation.

The founder of the modern Turkish state,Kemal Ataturk, spoke warmly in the 1920s ofthe complete liberation of women, which he sawas the route to modernity. His woman-friendlyideology went hand in hand with his republic’sfocus on the expansion of political rights. Inother Muslim countries, however, politicalrights were a non-issue. Most of thesecountries were governed by the military or bya single dictatorial party, and in most ofthem, such as Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, themajority of the population enjoyed very littlefreedom.

Women’s rights have fared the worst inplaces where fundamentalist groups have hadsignificance influence on the government orhave governed outright, a situation of whichIran and Afghanistan are the most obviouscontemporary examples. Most Muslim countriestoday particularly pine for technologicalmodernization. Their motives aren’tnecessarily noble; often it’s a matter ofneeding to lubricate the engines of war, or(in the most extreme cases) of wanting tocommit terrorist acts. It’s precisely herethat we can isolate a crucial factor inIslam’s inability to adapt itself to themodern world. Western technology is acceptedbecause it’s necessary; but women’s liberationisn’t. Women’s liberation is seen as a matterof Europeanizing, of Christianizing. As Lewispoints out, conservative Muslims view women’s

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liberation as “a betrayal of true Islamicvalues,” as something that “must be kept fromentering the body of Islam” (2002:73).

The history of Muslim attire illustratesvery well the difference between what’s seenas necessary modernization and what’s viewedas unhealthy Europeanization. By the 1800s,Muslims had modernized their armies byequipping soldiers with Western-inspireduniforms. These changes were militarilyuseful: they made it harder for deserters toskip off unidentified. Then Muslimswesternized the attire of public servants.Today in the Muslim world, men in major citiesand in government positions are almost alwaysdressed in Western-inspired clothing. Only thetie is omitted, since it’s seen as distinctlyWestern, and probably because it reminds somepeople of a cross. But, as Lewis says, thewomen are never “compelled to adopt Westerndress or to abandon traditional attire.Indeed, if the matter arose at all in publicrelations, it was in the form of aprohibition, not a requirement” (2002:75). Inshort, Western clothing on men is modernity;Western clothing on women is Europeanization. Andsince Europe is Christian, Europeanization issynonymous with religious decadence andfalling away from true Islam. The majorexception is in Turkey, where Kemal Ataturkmade it illegal for women to cover up. Todayit’s still illegal there for female governmentworkers or university students to wear veils.The same is true in Tunisia.

Signs of opposition to women’s“Europeanization” can still be observed amongthe majority of Muslims in Norway. Most of themen wear Western clothing (though without a

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tie), while most of the women dress accordingto the codes of Islam and their homelands.

Scapegoats, yes; self-scrutiny, no

Muslims have found one scapegoat afteranother to explain their civilization’sregression. First it was the Mongolians,because of their invasions in the thirteenthcentury. Then the Arabs and Turks blamed eachother. The Persians have pointed fingersvariously at the Arabs, Turks, and Mongolians.In recent times, with nineteenth- andtwentieth-century French and Britishcolonialism, Western imperialism was,naturally enough, offered up as the principalreason for Islam’s decline. Lewis doesn’tconceal the fact that the colonial erainfluenced the Arabs politically,economically, and culturally, and “changed theface of the region and transformed the livesof its people” (2002:153). But the Arabs’stagnation had definitely begun long beforecolonial times, and was in fact a decisivefactor in the region’s colonization.

In today’s Muslim world it is not onlypolitical leaders who rage against the West;the commonfolk do, too. In Pakistan, theirtargets are the U.S. and Britain. (They lookdown on Western women as well.) They accusethe U.S. of imperialism, while placing much ofthe responsibility on the British, as formercolonial lords, for everything that’s gonewrong in their country. The Muslims, whoconquered much of the subcontinent by thesword only shortly after Muhammed’s death, arenever blamed. Westerners, they often say,treat women disrespectfully: Western womenhave to work and are immoral and promiscuous.

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They often cite the high divorce rate asevidence that Western women are the victims ofcynical exploitation.

On his list of reasons for the Muslim rageat the West, Lewis also includes the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the Western supportfor corrupt and oppressive regimes in theMuslim world.130 The real reason for thatrage, however, lies in the West’s fundamentalvalues, especially its secularity and its viewof women. This-worldliness, capitalism,democracy, individualism, sexual equality:these are the West’s true-born children, andthey have been adopted around the globe. It’sthis fact that rouses the Islamic world tosuch violent ire – for these Western valuesare intensely antithetical to the values thatare the very essence of Islam. It’s thestruggle for values that fuels Muslim rageagainst the West. It makes Muslims feel thattheir religion should be even more fullyprotected, and it leads them to dive headfirstinto the role of victim. As a result, theMuslim world loses even more ground,politically and socially. And this, in turn,leads Muslims to engage in cultural self-exaltation and to scour their scriptures foranswers to the challenges they face both inprivate life and in society generally. For ifIslam holds within itself the absolute anddivine truth, it must – mustn’t it? – alsocontain the recipe for creating a good andpowerful society.

The fact that the medicine that’sinevitably prescribed is greater doses ofIslam – and of more “correct” Islam – is alsoconsistent with what I’ve experienced incountless personal conversations in Pakistan.I’ve discovered that even for celebrated

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feminists, Islam is the principal startingpoint for a discussion of any social problem,including the oppression of women. And indiscussing these problems, they employ Islamicargumentation – citing, for example, a hadithwhich says that “paradise lies at mother’sfeet.” This same hadith is also served up as“evidence” of how highly Islam values women.The Islamization of society and law,especially under the Pakistani dictator Ziaul-Haq, is defined as negative Islamization.We’re thus meant to understand that there’ssuch a thing as a positive Islamization – onethat would involve a focus on other scripturalprescriptions and other interpretations of thefaith as it originally existed. When youdiscuss social challenges with educatedMuslims, only rarely do the solutions theypropose not incorporate Islam. And youconstantly hear this: “We’re not good enoughMuslims. Islam says….” – followed by areference to true Islam, an Islam in which (forexample) the role of women is defined more orless literally, in which moderation is putforth as a solution, where deference andhumility on the part of individuals arerecommended. And each point will beaccompanied by specific scriptural citations.It seems to be impossible for Muslims toacknowledge that it’s precisely Islam’sdominant role in their society that is thereason for its miseries. Such an admission, itappears, would be too humiliating. It’s easierto blame others –the U.S., Israel, the Westgenerally.

Today, the U.S. is the leading scapegoat inthe Muslim world. Yet as Lewis puts it, theAmerican influence in the region is “aconsequence, not a cause, of the inner

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weakness of Middle-Eastern states andsocieties” (2002:153). It’s striking thatformer British colonies that aren’tpredominantly Muslim, such as Singapore andHong Kong, have thrived in the post-colonialera, while such Muslim ex-colonies as Pakistanand Gambia have not. Note, too, the contrastbetween India and Pakistan – two countrieswhich were ruled by the same colonial lordsduring the same period.

In his book Terror and Liberalism, the left-wingAmerican writer Paul Berman notes that thescapegoating of America in the Muslim world isa paradox, for “in all of recent history, nocountry on earth has fought so hard andconsistently as the United States on behalf ofMuslim populations” as the U.S. Among otherthings, Berman points to the intervention inSomalia “which was intended to feed the Muslimmasses” as well as “to crush the Muslim fewwho stood in the way” (2003:17). Similarly, aPakistani who writes under the pseudonym IbnWarraq points out in his book Why I Am Not aMuslim (2003) that the U.S. has more oftenintervened “on behalf of Muslims than againstthem. The U.S. protected Saudi Arabia andKuwait against Iraq, Afghanistan against theSoviet Union, Bosnia and Kosovo againstYugoslavia, and Somalia against the warlordMuhammed Farah Aidid.”

Even as people in the Muslim world blameits political and social wretchedness onforces beyond its borders, they churn outreams of ardent rhetoric about a return to“true” Islam. One manifestation of thisenthusiasm for “true” Islam has been therecent growth of Islamist groups. For at theheart of the Islamist movement is the dream ofrestoring pure Islam – or of restoring (to

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quote the Cairo Declaration) Islam’s“uncorrupted nature,” which means turning awayfrom all the values that the West stands for.

The rise of political Islam

Today’s Islamism is nothing new. Islamichistory offers many examples of “sectarianmovements with political ambitions,” and oftenwith violent traits. By the 600s, politicalopponents were already being executed, and inthe century following the year 1000 several“feared terror groups” were established,according to Kari Vogt (2005:239). The bestknown political group that was founded in thetwentieth century, and that continues to beimportant today, is the Muslim Brotherhood inEgypt. The Brotherhood first came on the scenein 1928. The major motive for its founding wasKemal Ataturk’s secularization of Turkey,which roiled the Muslim world. Ataturk’sliquidation of the remains of the caliphate,the Ottoman Empire, was met with consternationby political Muslims, especially the man whowould come to found the Brotherhood, Hasan al-Banna. Al-Banna’s vision, according to PaulBerman, was precisely the opposite: toresurrect the caliphate and restore theIslamic world’s seventh-century Golden Age(2003:83). The Brotherhood’s founding wasunderstood as a reaction not only to Ataturk’svirtually blasphemous act of throwing thecaliphate overboard, but to the importation ofWestern values that was facilitated by Britishcolonization. The Brotherhood believed thatthe sociopolitical problems of Egypt and theArabic world were rooted in the separation ofstate and religion.

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In addition to Hasan al-Banna, the keyfigures in the rise of political and militantIslam during the last century were the Indo-Pakistani Abu Ala Mawdudi, the Egyptian SayyidQutb, and the Iranian Ayatollah Khomeini. Inthe context of this book, al-Banna, Mawdudi,and Qutb are of particular interest – Mawdudi,because the politico-religious movement hestarted on the subcontinent before World WarII was firmly established in Norway in 1974 asa result of Pakistani immigration; Qutb andal-Banna, because their heir is the leadingEuropean-born Muslim ideologue in today’sEurope, Tariq Ramadan.

The Brotherhood began primarily as amissionary movement, but quickly turned itshand to “revolutionary subversion,” accordingto Paul Berman (2003:86). Its explicit goalwas a sharia-run Egypt, an Egypt in whichIslam and the state would be clad in a new,more modern attire. Hassan al-Banna’sideology, according to Kari Vogt, wasformulated in these words: “Political power isIslam’s nature, for if the Koran provides alaw, that presupposes a state that can enforcethe law” (2005:246).

Appealing as it did to a politicallyoppressed people with significant socialneeds, the Brotherhood grew quickly into amass movement. By around 1940, it had abouttwo thousand branches spread across Egypt,plus additional branches in other Muslimcountries such as Jordan, Syria, Sudan, Iraq,and Lebanon. As a result, it gainedconsiderable political power. Precisely forthis reason, it was banned by Egypt’s seculargovernment. In 1949 al-Banna was killed,probably by order of Egyptian authorities.Egypt’s leader, Gamal Abdel Nasser, then

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lifted the ban, only to be assassinated. Hismurder was attributed to the Brotherhood, andthe movement was once again banned.

From Qutb to al-Qaradawi

At about this time, Sayyid Qutb (1906-1966), an Egyptian, was studying in the U.S.In 1951, he returned to Egypt and joined theBrotherhood. Paul Berman characterizes Qutb as“the movement’s leading thinker – the Arabicworld’s first important theoretician of theIslamist cause” (2003:85). Qutb’s last andmost radical book, Milestones (published in1964), is Islamism’s most widely read anddiscussed polemic. Among Qutb’saccomplishments was his development of theidea of jahiliyya, the pre-Islamic pagan society,which he, as an Islamist, had definitelyexperienced in the woman-friendly,capitalistic, secular, and democratic U.S. InMilestones he passionately takes on all jahiliyyasocieties, including godless Communistsocieties and capitalist societies (which, inhis eyes, were also godless). In short, heassailed all societies that aren’t founded onIslam’s divine principles and toward which onetherefore shouldn’t show the slightestloyalty. In one work after another, hepreached sharia and a literal interpretationof the Koran and explained, down to the lastdetail, the divine rules governing suchmatters as divorce, the remarriage of widows,marriage outside one’s own religion, and thekind of clothing Allah prefers. His explicitlyarticulated goal was to bring the whole worldunder Islam. And to attain Islamic worlddomination, it wasn’t sufficient just toengage in verbal jihad; the repeal of man-made

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laws and the establishment of Allah’s dominionon earth could only be accomplished through acombination of verbal and armed jihad. Qutb’sbook Milestones is regarded at the Brotherhood’smanifesto, and is often compared to AdolfHitler’s Mein Kampf. For today’s terrorists,Qutb, with his hatred for the West’s “moraldecline,” is a major inspiration.

The Brotherhood is believed to be therichest and most influential Islamicorganization in the world today. It likes topresent itself as peaceful, but it viewsviolence as a legitimate political means. Itgoal is to spread totalitarian Islam aroundthe entire world. Today, its ideologicalleader is the president of the EuropeanCouncil for Fatwa and Research, Yusuf al-Qaradawi. This is the same man who, as we haveseen, has proclaimed fatwas about the genitalmutilation of girls. He has also proclaimedfatwas to the effect that Muslim woman canonly marry Muslim men, that polygamy ispermitted, that the veil is compulsory, andthat homosexuals should be punished in thesame way that Islam punishes sex outside ofmarriage: with whipping and stoning to death.A much-quoted statement of al-Qaradawi’s isthis: “With Allah’s will, Islam will return toEurope and Europeans will convert to Islam.Then they will be able to spread Islam to thewhole world.” He then adds these reassuringwords: “I guarantee that this time theconquest will not take place by the sword butwith the help of conversion and ideology.”131

Because of terrorism charges, al-Qaradawi fledfrom Egypt and settled in Qatar.132

Tariq Ramadan and Euro-Islam

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Tariq Ramadan is the grandson of theBrotherhood’s founder, Hasan al-Banna. He’salso the son of Said Ramadan, who took overthe leadership of the Brotherhood from al-Banna, his father-in-law. Said Ramadan fled toEurope in 1958, as thousands of other membersof the Muslim Brotherhood did around 1960,because their political ambitions led togovernment persecution.

In the more than forty years since then,the Brotherhood’s members have establishedwell-organized networks of mosques, charitableassociations, and other groups in Europe, withfinancial backing from Arab governments. Ofall the European nations where the Brotherhoodhas put down roots, they go deepest inGermany,133 though the organization is alsowell-established in both Britain and France.In Sweden, the Brotherhood is among theleading Muslim organizations.134 Andthroughout Europe it has managed to forgeclose ties to political leaders. The examplesare many. I will mention only illuminatingevent. In 2004, the then mayor of London, KenLivingstone of the Labour Party, literallyembraced the Brotherhood’s ideological leader,Yusuf al-Qaradawi. Because al-Qaradawisupports Palestinian and Iraqi suicidebombers, he’s denied entry into the U.S. ButLivingstone, who is nicknamed “Red Ken,”described al-Qaradawi as a religious scholarwho “preaches moderation and tolerance” andsaid it was an “honour” to be visited by him.This happened at a London meeting that wasattended by about 250 European Muslimdelegates. Al-Qaradawi, the meeting’sprincipal attraction, held a lecture aboutMuslim women’s right to wear hijab. The visitoccasioned criticism, especially by gay

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people, owing to al-Qaradawi’s death fatwa forhomosexuals; but Livingstone apologized to al-Qaradawi for the criticism and characterizedit as “hysteria” – and even invited al-Qaradawi to make another political visit toLondon.135

Tariq Ramadan’s father, Said Ramadan, issuspected of having had institutional andeconomic ties to terror networks.136 Onereason for these suspicions is that theRamadan family in Switzerland is closelyassociated with the Islamic bank in thatcountry, Al-Taqwa, which is used by al-Qaidato finance terror. Said Ramadan was, as ithappens, one of the bank’s founders.137 He wasalso a founder of the Muslim World League inSaudi Arabia, which has sent billions of Saudioil dollars to fundamental Muslim groupsworldwide. The league seeks to spread toEurope the Saudi ideology of Wahhabism, whichis extremely conservative and puritanical.138

Said Ramadan also drew the attention ofinternational intelligence services because ofthe center that he founded in colLabourationwith the Brotherhood in Switzerland, theIslamic Center of Geneva. The doctor andterrorist who is Osama bin Ladin’s right hand,Ayman al-Zawahiri, is supposed to have usedthis center as a base after he was releasedfrom an Egyptian prison for participation inthe murder of President Anwar Sadat in 1981.Al-Zawahiri then fled Egypt.

The European-born Tariq Ramadan, then, isthe child and grandchild of the Brotherhood’scentral figures. Educated as a philosopher,Tariq Ramadan is described by European criticsas the leading European Islamist ideologue ofour time. He is the founder of so-called Euro-Islam, a form of Islam that is, he maintains,

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a non-fundamentalist version of Islam, andthat he argues will enable new generations ofMuslims in Europe to practice Islam in modernsecular states.139 Ramadan has considerablepolitical influence, and enjoys the respect ofleading Muslims in Norway.140 He is deniedentry into the U.S. because he is suspected ofhaving ties to al-Qaida.

In a number of important books andarticles, leading European experts on Islamismhave revealed Ramadan to be an Islamist insheep’s clothing.141 For many observers, thesingle episode that most vividly illuminatedhis “message about European values” occurredin 2003. It began when Ramadan’s brother,Professor Hani Ramadan, was suspended by theSwiss government from his position as asecondary-school teacher. The suspension was areaction to the support that Hani Ramadan hadexpressed in several articles for therequirement under sharia law that adulterersbe stoned to death – which, as Hani Ramadanexplained, was not simply a matter ofpunishment but of “purification.” This causeda scandal – which Tariq Ramadan took to ahigher level when, in a prime-time debate withFrench foreign minister Nicolas Sarkozy on theTV channel France 2, he refused to reject hisbrother’s argument.

Jens Tomas Anfindsen, a philosopher who isthe editor of the Norwegian websiteHonestThinking.org, lives in Switzerland andmonitored the broadcast on France 2. In an op-ed that appeared in Dagbladet on 13 July 2005,he recounted the French TV program and thereactions that followed. Sarkozy’s unambiguousopposition to Islamism, as described byAnfindsen, contrasted dramatically with

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Norwegian politicians’ – and journalists’ –passivity in the face of Muslim extremists.

“It was Saturday,” wrote Anfindsen, “and itwas prime time. Tariq Ramadan was to meetFrance’s foreign minister, Nicolas Sarkozy, ona popular discussion program on France 2. Thenewspapers had warmed up the audience for thisbroadcast several days in advance. Somescattered, feeble voices attempted to sowdoubt about Ramadan’s credibility. Ramadan,they said, was an Islamist in sheep’sclothing, an ingratiating version of hisgrandfather, founder of the feared MuslimBrotherhood. But the great majority ofcommentators found these complaints monstrous:who, after all, chooses his own grandfather?Few wanted to put much weight on the fact thatRamadan’s brother, Professor Hani Ramadan, hadargued in several articles for stoning as apunishment for adultery, and in one specificcase had actually defended the stoning of aMoroccan woman. Who, after all, is hisbrother’s keeper? But Sarkozy had taken noteof it. Sarkozy’s voice boomed over severalmillion TV sets: ‘Monsieur Ramadan, yourbrother has defended, explained, and foundgood reasons to support stoning ofadulteresses. Stoning a woman, is thissomething monstrous or not?’ Three times, inslightly different versions, Sarkozy asks thisquestion; and three times French TV viewersare able to see that Ramadan will notunambiguously reject the death penalty bystoning. What we hear him say is that he wantsa temporary moratorium – a moratoire – for theapplication of Islam’s criminal law. Moratoireis a precise legal term that means,specifically, an amnesty that applies for aperiod of time, but that will then be revoked.

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One word: moratoire. This word was a turningpoint in Tariq Ramadan’s life.”

Commentators, Anfindsen explains,identified Ramadan as an enemy of society:“Ramadan tried several times to convincepeople that he had been misunderstood, but itwas useless. Even though he’s since saidseveral times that he does not think Islamiccriminal laws should apply nowadays, he’salways made this conditional on certainfactors; he’s always kept open the possibilitythat Islam’s criminal law would be applicablein an Islamic society.”

Tariq Ramadan is very influential amongyoung Muslims in Europe today. He comes acrossas a modern man in Western clothing and agifted speaker who can juggle Islam andWestern philosophy. He draws thousands ofspectators to events in France and elsewhere,and fills auditoriums in Oslo. One of hismessages is that Muslim citizens have a right– and, from a Muslim perspective, anobligation – to demand that their presence andidentity to be acknowledged. And what doesthis acknowledgment mean in practice? Thisrevealing statement by Ramadan appeared in theDanish newspaper Berlingske Tidende on 6 February2004: “It can, in the future, mean that thecontent of certain laws must be re-examined.Western law is not absolute, timeless, oreternal. Therefore Muslims who are now Westerncitizens, and at home in the West, mustinvolve themselves in legal questions and makeproposals that will enable them to develop andshape for themselves a balanced Westernidentity.” Such quotations are a regular partof the diet Ramadan serves up, and haveinduced one of his strongest critics, theSyrian-born professor and Islam researcher

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Bassam Tibi of Gõttingen University, to issuevery clear warnings about him. Tibi isespecially concerned about Ramadan’s politicalinfluence in Europe – for example, his role asadvisor to the EU Commission. Tibi believesthat Ramadan doesn’t speak of an Islam that isdetached from politics: “…if one listenscarefully to what he says, and what he wantsto achieve, it is not Euro-Islam. He speaks ina way that is supposed to mollify those whoare scared of political Islam, and thus callit Euro-Islam. But European Islam involves theseparation of political and spiritual Islam.And this is not the language he speaks.”142

It has also been shown that Tariq Ramadanhas close ties to a number of fundamentalistEuropean organizations that can be found onthe watch lists of various countries’intelligence services. He is, moreover,closely tied to al-Qaradawi and is a spokesmanfor the European Council for Fatwa andResearch. Naturally enough, Ramadan adviseshis followers to heed al-Qaradawi on religiousquestions. Ramadan’s image as an ideologue isfurther damaged by his current membership onthe board of the Islamic Center of Geneva – aboard led by his brother Hani.

I’ve mentioned al-Qaradawi’s not verypleasant views, in particular his attitudestoward girls and women. How does Tariq Ramadanfit into this picture? Hardly anyone inScandinavia has studied Tariq Ramadan moreclosely than the Danish writer Helle MereteBrix. As Brix told me in July 2006, Ramadanbelieves that the sexes should be separated,that Muslim women should marry only within theumma (the fellowship of Muslim believers),that Muslim women should wear the veil (as

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Ramadan’s French wife does), and that polygamyis a legitimate option.

There is, in other words, good reason tobelieve that Ramadan views sharia as a divineand eternally valid set of laws – just as hisgrandfather believed and his mentor al-Qaradawi preaches. The fact that he’s made hisgrandfather’s words his own, in book form,supports this claim: “Islam’s rules comprehendthe whole of life – for Islam is faith andworship, fatherland and nation, religion andstate, spirituality and action, Koran andsword.”143

Ralph Pittelkow, a Danish author andpolitical commentator, calls Ramadan aSalafist. Salafism means returning to pure,unfalsified Islam by attending directly to theholy scriptures and to Muhammed and his firstgeneration of Muslims.144 Pittelkow says thisabout Ramadan: “His reformism falls withinIslam’s foundational principles. Even wheredemocracy and human rights are concerned, hedoesn’t attempt to alter the essentialelements of the Islamic view. When he callsfor Muslims in European countries to respectdemocracy and human rights, his argument ispragmatic: the basis for such arguments isthat Muslims, according to the Koran, have anobligation to respect agreements that havebeen entered into. Ramadan reasons from thisthat a Muslim who has settled in a Europeancountry has thereby agreed to accept thatcountry’s political system and understandingof human rights. If one does not respect thecountry’s political system and laws, this istantamount to violating the message of theKoran, of sharia” (2002:116-118). InPittelkow’s view, Tariq Ramadan is opposed inprinciple to democracy: “In principle, Ramadan

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is an opponent of secular democracy (‘theWestern model’) – that is, a democracy that isfounded only upon the human being and hisrights without God being involved in thesystem of political governance.”

Paul Berman, too, has taken note of TariqRamadan’s Islamistic sympathies: “Anyone whoreads Qutb, or, from our own time, TariqRamadan, will notice that these authors, thegreat Islamist theoreticians, the ultraradicaland the not quite so radical, are very touchywhen it comes to women’s rights – clearly asore point with them” (2003:237).

In September 2005 and May 2006, TariqRamadan came to Norway at the invitation ofthe Islamic Association to give lectures. Thisgroup was the sole organizer of the Septemberevent, while the weekend seminar in May was acolLabourative effort between it and theSaudi-based Muslim World League – the above-mentioned extremist organization thatRamadan’s own terror-suspect father helpedfound.145

Mawdudi

One major Islamist intellectual left bothhis spiritual and physical footprints onNorwegian soil. His name was Abu Ala Mawdudi(1903-1979), and he was the greatest Muslimtheologian in the history of the subcontinent.Mawdudi has left a considerable religio-political influence in today’s Pakistan,having left his mark, for example, on theeducation of children in the schools.Mawdudi’s thinking is also reflected in thereligious instruction offered to children atthe Islamic Cultural Center in Norway. Thismosque was founded more than thirty years ago,

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and has direct ties to Jamaat-i-Islami, thePakistani religio-political party that Mawdudihimself established. Mawdudi is thus theIslamic Cultural Center’s lodestar.

Mawdudi’s ideology is almost identical tothat of the Muslim Brotherhood, and it arose,as did the Brotherhood’s, as a religious andpolitical protest against a society influencedby the values of the British colonialgovernment. Mawdudi founded the Jamaat-i-Islami party, which is to say the IslamicAssociation, in 1941, six years before thedivision of India into India and Pakistan (nowIndia, Pakistan, and Bangladesh). It is nowPakistan’s largest religious party.

Mawdudi produced a good deal of religio-political literature. His book Purdah and theStatus of Women in Islam (1939), which celebratesthe veil, is considered “a masterpiece” whenit comes to degrading the status of women.Among the book’s current fans are Sauditheologians.146

For Islamists like Mawdudi, the question ofwomen and families is central to therealization of their political vision. KariVogt describes the Islamic vision and women’sessential role in it as follows: “In theIslamic state the family is at the center –the family administers the true Islamicvalues. The issue of women was thus givengreat attention and is an important part ofIslamic propaganda.” The way women lead theirlives is therefore “itself the symbol ofIslamic morality” (2005:250ff). Purdah includesa detailed explanation of why a woman’s eyesare an “erogenous zone” that can lead toprostitution. The same goes for perfume. Andalso her voice, which is the devil’s agent,and the sound of the heels of her shoes. In my

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experience, with the exception of the latedictator Zia ul-Haq, nobody is hated bywomen’s rights activists in Pakistan more thanAbu Ala Mawdudi.

Sayyid Qutb and Abu Ala Mawdudi areconsidered the major Sunni Muslim ideologuesof the twentieth century. Kari Vogt notes thatboth men “had a sovereign ability to formulatea simple and powerful message. They developedthe idea of Islam as ‘a third way’ – theMiddle Way between Marxism, which unilaterallyaddresses itself to material needs, andChristianity, which limits itself to spiritualmatters. Islam concerns itself with the wholeperson, with ‘the human in balance,’ it issaid. Mawdudi’s motto is that ‘Islam is anall-encompassing ideology.’ He therebysuggests that society has not been Islamizeduntil all of life and all social and politicalinstitutions are governed by Islamicprinciples. The goal is to develop not only anIslamic state with an Islamic body of laws,but also an Islamic economy, Islamicscientific theory, Islamic science, and so on”(2005:245).

I believe that the idea of Islam as a“third way” between purely material Marxismand spiritual Christianity is what draws somany converts to Islam. Trond Ali Lindstad andLena Larsen are former members of Norway’sWorkers’ Communist Party who became Muslims.Anne Sofie Roald is another far leftist whowent over to Islam. One after another of theseconverts has exchanged an extreme politicalideology – but one that lacks a key element,the spiritual – for another extreme, whichembraces both the material and the spiritual.In the preface to her book Are Muslim WomenOppressed?, Roald writes this about her

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conversion: “The strict limits on what ispermitted and what is forbidden, how oneshould think and how one should not think,were also attractive.…One of the reasons why Ibecame a Muslim was ‘the Islamic system’ withits fixed limits” (2005:9-10).

Since its establishment, Jamaat-i-Islamihas had extremely limited electoral support.Not until after the most recent nationalelection in Pakistan, in 2002, were they evenrepresented in the National Assembly. Thishappened as a result of the merging of thereligious parties under the umbrella groupMutahida Mujlas Aamal. This alliance nowgoverns the North-West Frontier Province, andhas prohibited all music in publictransportation and advertisements that includephotographs or drawings of human beings.

Now, as in his own time, Mawdudi’s ideashave had a major impact in Pakistan,especially among politicians and religiousleaders. His influence manifested itself in atruly catastrophic fashion under the Ziadictatorship. As Vogt writes (2005:244),“General Zia ul-Haq’s comprehensiveIslamization process during the years 1977-1988 was the first attempt to realizeMawdudi’s vision of an Islamic state.” Zia’sIslamization process became especially violentwith the introduction of the Hadood Ordinance– a criminal law, based on the Koran andhadith, that prescribes amputation as apunishment for stealing, whipping as apunishment for drinkers and gamblers, andwhipping or stoning as a punishment forprostitutes. Under the Hadood Ordinance, awoman’s testimony counts for half as much as aman’s.

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It’s important to emphasize that neitheramputation nor stoning as a means ofpunishment appeals to the soul of thePakistani people. No amputations have everbeen carried out; no doctor has ever wanted tostep up and do the job. Nor has anyone beenstoned to death. Whipping, however, wasfrequently employed during Zia’s regime.147

Nevertheless, the Hadood Ordinance remainsfirmly entrenched today and has hadparticularly ghastly consequences forPakistani women. Under this law, a woman whoreports a rape has to supply four honourablemale Muslim witnesses.148 If she can’t, she’llbe prosecuted for extramarital sex – since bymaking the accusation she’s admitted to havingsex outside of marriage. It’s in the verynature of such cases that the evidentiaryrequirements for proving rape are virtuallyimpossible to meet. As a result, about 75percent of the females in Pakistan’s prisonsare there because they’ve confessed toextramarital sex – most of them being rapevictims. There was thus widespread celebrationon 8 July 2006, when President PervezMusharraf let out on bail 1300 Pakistani womenwho’d been imprisoned for alleged infidelity.They were released as the result of a changein the law that made it possible for women tobe bailed out of prison.149 It’s clear thatthe president wants to repeal both the HadoodOrdinance and other holdovers from Zia’sregime, but conservative religious forces haveprevented it.

According to Vogt, Mawdudi argued that“Islam stands for democratic ideals”(2005:250). Given that he was the godfather ofthe Hadood Ordinance and the author of thefemale apartheid manifesto Purdah, one must

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conclude that his “democratic ideals” are on afull collision course with what the UN,Norway, Europe, and other parts of the worlddefine as democratic ideals.

Jamaat-i-Islami’s basic goal is not tostrengthen democracy, but to carry out aworldwide Islamic revolution. The party isfighting to introduce sharia at all levels ofsociety, and opposes every attempt to repealthe Hadood Ordinance. It actively supportspolygamy, and argues that a wife shouldsubordinate herself to her husband in everyregard – that, for example, she can never denyhim sex unless it’s physically impossible forher to perform. The party also vigorouslyopposes any liberalization of Islamic familylaw, especially laws designed to improvewomen’s divorce rights. Similarly, they opposethe use of contraceptives. In accordance withMawdudi’s spirit of sexual apartheid,moreover, Jamaat-i-Islami firmly advocates thecovering of women.150

Several key figures in the party also arguethat parents have the right to refuse to let adaughter marry, if her choice of spouseconflicts with their interests. Notsurprisingly, the party strongly opposes theincorporation of the UN’s Women’s Conventioninto Pakistani law.

The party’s base in Norway, the IslamicCultural Center (ICC) mosque in Oslo, has 2077members. Statistics from the regionalcommissioner for the municipalities ofAkershus and Oslo show that the mosquereceived something over a million kroner ingovernment support in 2005. An examination ofthe literature and other materials availableat the mosque’s library leaves little doubt asto its ideology. The library contains items

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that were published at the main headquartersof Jamaat-i-Islami in Pakistan and thatreflect Jamaat-i-Islami’s views of women,martyrdom, and jihad. In these materials,Mawdudi is the central figure, along with theparty’s highly regarded leader in Pakistan,the Islamist Qazi Hussain Ahmad. Some of theliterature – for example, a Mawdudi-influencedpamphlet entitled Polygamy in Islam – was publishedin Norwegian by the mosque itself. None of theliterature available in the library iscritical of the ideology of Mawdudi or Jamaat-i-Islami.151

The ICC is not alone in this regard. Takethe Oslo-based Idara Minhaj ul-Quran (IMQ)mosque, which is characterized by a somewhatmilder and more spiritual ideology, has 3898members, and in 2005 received over two millionkroner in Norwegian government support. It ispart of a worldwide religio-political networkthat is based in Pakistan and has branches inabout seventy-five countries, including theScandinavian kingdoms.152 The movement alsohas its own political party in Pakistan, AwamiTehrek, whose leader, Tahirul Qadri, is alsothe head of the Minhaj ul-Quran movement.153

Qadri and Jamaat-i-Islami’s leader, QaziHussain Ahmad, have virtually identical viewsof women, as you will find out if you visitthe IMQ’s Oslo library. Here you can read thetraditional view of why women should not havedivorce rights equal to men’s, why hijab andpolygamy are correct from the perspective ofIslamic law, why Islam preaches the necessityof sexual segregation, and why Muslim womenshould not marry non-Muslim men. There is noliterature at the library that reflects otherviews.154 In 2000 it became very clear justhow closely tied IMQ is to Tahirul Qadri when

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the congregation’s imam was fired. Why?Because he didn’t follow Qadri’s philosophydown to the letter: “Dr. ul-Qadri in Pakistanis our religious leader. We follow hisphilosophy, use his books and videos, and wecannot accept an imam with anotherphilosophy.”155

In today’s Norway there are just under 100Muslim congregations.156 I haven’t found asingle one that preaches sexual equality. Notone congregation or imam in the country hasever publicly questioned the Koran’s dictatethat Muslim women can only marry Muslim men.157

None has ever publicly questioned the severesharia-dictated limitation on women’s right todivorce. Yes, some Muslim community leaderssay that forced marriage is forbidden andcontradicts Islam’s teachings. But these sameleaders won’t say publicly that they believefriendly social contact between the sexesshould be permitted, let alone suggest thatit’s a good thing and a prerequisite for thecommunity’s growth and development. On thecontrary, they encourage Muslims to practicesexual segregation – which, as we’ve seen,creates the conditions that lead toinvoluntary marriage.

The kind of Islam that’s practiced inNorway is, indeed, a mirror image of the Islamthat’s preached in the homelands of Norway’sMuslims. It’s an Islam that has never givenwomen a Golden Age or glory days. It’s anIslam that, as we can see in Bernard Lewis’sbooks and in UN reports on the culturally,socially, and economically underdeveloped Arabworld, doesn’t respect basic human rights –especially women’s rights, free speech, andreligious freedom. It’s an Islam, in fact,that is the principal cause of the miserable

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condition of today’s Muslim world. It’s anIslam, furthermore, that has been importedinto Europe and that is a big part of thereason why Norwegian citizens today are beingsubjected to involuntary marriages and genitalmutilations. Similarly, it explains why theparents of tens of thousands of children andyoung people believe their progeny shouldn’thave to grow up with our “defiled” world view– and why thet consequently send them to theMuslim world to be brought up.

The negative developments within Islam arethe main reason for the high levels ofemigration from the Muslim world. What’sabsurd is that the very aspects of Islam thatare responsible for this emigration are takenalong in the emigrants’ backpacks and plantedby them in Muslim communities in the West. Andhow do Muslim leaders in Europe respond toMuslims’ integration problems? The answerthey give is the same one given byconservatives throughout the Muslim world:More Islam! A return to true, pure Islam – that’sthe medicine. The tragic absurdity of it allis painfully obvious.

“Render unto Cæsar that which is Cæsar’s…”

The Western world managed to secularizeChristianity and establish democracies withpopularly elected governments and man-madelaws. Is there something in Christianity’snature that has made this possible – anelement that Islam lacks?

First, some facts about the spread ofdemocracy around the globe. The organizationFreedom House annually measures the levels ofdemocracy in the nations of the world. Today,according to Freedom House, more than three-

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quarters of the countries in the non-Muslimworld – but only one-quarter of the countriesin the Muslim world – are democratic. FreedomHouse classifies countries according to thedegree to which they’re democratic, labelingthem as “free,” “partly free,” or “unfree.”Its picture of the Muslim World is notcomforting. In 2006, only three of forty-sixcountries with a Muslim majority were definedas “free”: Indonesia, Mali, and Senegal.Twenty were “partly free”; twenty-three were“unfree.”158

Experts such as Paul Berman and the Danishphilosopher Kai Sørlander have pointed outthat the Reformation, Renaissance, andEnlightenment, and thus the establishment ofsecular democracies, were made possible bycertain basic aspects of Christianity. Someobservers even believe that these aspects areessential to the formation of seculardemocracy. I will only mention a few keypoints here. One is that Christianity respectsconscience. Another is that it recognizes aright to rebel. This began with rebellionagainst God Himself. In Genesis, Jehovahorders Abraham to sacrifice his son Isaac, andAbraham, far from obeying reflexively,questions the command. From the very beginningof the Western religious tradition, then,there has been room for scepticism and doubt –which, in turn, allow for the possibility ofrebellion. Islam lacks these attributes. TheKoran tells the same story, but places noemphasis on Abraham’s questioning andresistance. In the Koran’s version, Abrahamhears God commands and prepares to obey;there’s no hint of struggle or rebellion. AsPaul Berman says, “In Islam, submission isall. Submission to God allows Islam to create

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a unified, moral, and satisfying society – atleast potentially, even if the flesh-and-bloodMuslims in any given era have forgotten theirreligious obligations. Submission is the roadto <sicla> justice, to a contented soul, andto harmony with the world” (2003:44ff).

Another commentator observes thatChristianity is not a law-giving religion,while Islam and sharia are one and the same.Sharia and jihad have always been pillars ofIslam; Jesus’s words about letting Cæsar beCæsar and letting God be God have enabledChristians to distinguish between the worldlyand the spiritual. Monotheism in Christianityis also weakened by the Trinity. As the DanishIslam expert Mehdi Mozaffari points out, theChristianity of the Trinity is “a kind offootnote monotheism: the text deals with onlyone God, but on the same page in the footnotesit still says three!…Such a state of affairsis unthinkable in Islam. Not only becauseIslam is a hard monotheistic religion, whichis centered round Allah and Allah alone, butbecause it’s also a religion in which rituals,ethics, and laws are intimately connected.It’s very difficult to separate theseintimately connected elements. It means thatIslam, consisting of a holy, law-giving bookand its proclaimed political ambitions,exhibits more opposition to democracy thanmany of the existing religions.”

Islam is thus not particularly reform-friendly or good at adapting to moderndemocracy – as demonstrated by the powerfulforces working to spread Islamocracy insteadof democracy: “some of Islam’s laws areutterly opposed to the Universal Declarationof Human Rights. It begins, according tosharia, with the fact that people are not born

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alike. Women are half of men…Nor can a Muslimleave Islam or convert to another religion,since Islam decrees the death penalty forapostasy, etc.”159

The Danish philosopher Kai Sørlander notessome distinguishing differences between thecentral figures of Christianity and Islam,Jesus and Muhammed. While Jesus wasn’tpolitically active and didn’t preach aboutpolitics, Muhammed was a political, juridical,and military leader. While Jesus passively lethimself to be led to the Cross and preachedthat his followers should turn the othercheek, Muhammed employed raw power andphysical violence. Muhammed also drew up clearguidelines as to how society should beorganized politically. The fact that Muhammed,in his lifetime, also managed to establish athoroughly Islamized society, which is stillviewed today as the perfect society thatMuslims should strive to emulate, makes thedevelopment of democracy and secularizationdifficult.160

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8

Around Europe

You’re sitting at the computer intenselyseeking answers to the questions of daily life– both large and small. For example: Can Ipluck out the hairs just above the top of mynose? I know it’s not permitted to shape theeyebrows by plucking out hairs, but what aboutthose hairs just above the top of the nose?Is it un-Islamic vanity to remove these hairs?

You send the question out into space. Youmight be sitting anywhere on earth. Thecomputer from which this particular questionwas sent out happened to be in Denmark. Thetwo young women who wrote the question, andwho wear veils, received their reply from anauthority who was reputed to know his Koranand be intimately acquainted with the detailsof Muhammed’s life. His reply: yes, it’spermitted to remove these particular hairs,but not the rest of the eyebrows.

The girls breathed a sigh of relief. They had other questions. Such as: Is it

really true that Muslim women don’t have theright to drive a car? Saudi women, after all,aren’t allowed to drive, and Saudi Arabia isthe cradle of Islam. Is that law correct,then, according to the holy books – or not?And the answer comes back: It is okay to drive a

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car! Islam says so. It’s the Saudis who havemisunderstood.

Islamic youth awaken

For many young European Muslims, this kindof Q. & A. about Islam is an everydaysituation. This particular example is borrowedfrom a report in the Danish weekly Weekendavisenabout two young Danish-Turkish sisters.161 Icould just as easily have taken examples fromwebsites in Norway, such as islam.no andkoranen.no, at which young people pose similarquestions to experts. These Danish girls arepart of the new awakening among youngEuropean-born Muslims. They’ve thrown offtheir jeans and fully covered themselves inproper Muslim fashion, in jilbab, meaning thatall their hair is hidden under a hijab, andthe shapes of their bodies are concealed by awide coat. After reading on the Internet thathead covering is required, the girls tossedout their Western clothing. They’ve alsostudied a number of websites about Islam’srelationship to music. It turned out that mostof the experts on these sites believe thatmusic is prohibited, or haram. The girlsunderstand why music is haram – many songlyrics, after all, are about sex. So they’vediscarded music, too.

The girls’ parents, born in a Turkishvillage, have never been as preoccupied withIslam on a daily basis as their daughters arenow. For them, Islam has been a weekendactivity. Or at least it was, until theirdaughters’ awakening. The girls have nowtalked their mother into praying five times aday. They explain how they managed this: “Wesay to her that ‘mother, you also have to

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think of your life in the hereafter. This lifehere is so short.’ And so she prays with us.”The girls have also had their way in regard tofamily social gatherings and weddings: men andwomen are now separated.

The girls’ father gets a little tired oftheir fixation on religion and all the rulesand details that the family now has to payattention to. He feels that dancing and musicare fine and that women and men should beallowed to eat together. And he’d rather gofishing on the weekend with his Danish friendsthan attend mosque, which his daughters say isin his best interests. At the same time, he’salso a bit proud of them – proud that they’vebecome so preoccupied with religion. So whenthey asked him to drop the family’s annualsummer vacation back home in Turkey, he letthem have their way. This year, instead, thefamily is going to Cairo to visit theideological center of the Muslim world, Al-Azhar University.

The idea for the above-mentioned article inWeekendavisen originated in a study which showedthat fully 6 percent of young Danish Muslimsaged fifteen to twenty said Islam played animportant role in their daily life. For youngpeople aged twenty-one to thirty, 58 percentsaid the same, while only 25 percent ofMuslims aged fifty-one to sixty did so. Thepattern was similar when the interviewees wereasked about Islam’s importance to their viewof Danish society and about various religionand political questions. Almost four times asmany Muslims aged twenty-one to thirty thanMuslims aged fifty-one to sixty said Islam wasimportant to their political views.162 Theresearchers concluded that integration hasfailed. This study also demonstrated the

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importance of introducing some nuance into theconclusion of the previous chapter, where Ipointed out that Muslims emigrated to Norwayand Europe because their original societiessuffered from social, cultural, political, andeconomic underdevelopment, thanks largely toIslam’s influence. The Danish study indicatesthat young Muslims born in Denmark forgeconnections to Islam that are much closer thantheir parents’ connections to it. My ownobservations suggest that the same is true ofyoung Muslims in Norway. Their Islam isn’treally the kind of demotic folk religion thatmost of their parents brought along with themwhen they left their homelands; it’s much morea matter of being preoccupied with the literalword of the Koran.

The close relationship of young people toIslam is also well documented in theNetherlands, which has a Muslim population ofaround one million. Han Entzinger, a sociologyprofessor at Rotterdam University, has studiedthe sense of identity among third-generationDutch Muslims, most of them the grandchildrenof immigrants from Morocco and Turkey and mostaged between eighteen and thirty (2003). Themajority of young people in this studyconsidered Islam their most important sourceof identity, followed by their grandparents’homelands. These young people also admitted tohaving far more conservative values in regardto family and child-rearing than their Dutchagemates. Entzinger, who is the leadingintegration expert in the Netherlands, saysthe following about this finding: “It isstriking that they don’t identify at all withthe Netherlands as a nation, even though theyhave lived here all their lives. This revealsitself clearly in their knowledge about (for

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example) Dutch politics. Many of the youngpeople know more about what’s going on intheir homelands.”163

The same patterns are found in Germany,which has a Muslim population of about 3.5million. Well over two million of them areTurks, a group that began immigrating toGermany in significant numbers in the 1960s. A1997 study by the German sociologist WilhelmHeitmeyer showed that many young German-Turksexpress hostility toward Europe and the West.One in three of those interviewed by Heitmeyerwanted Islam to be the national religion inevery country; over half said that Muslimsshouldn’t adapt to Western society, but liveaccording to Islamic rules; more than a thirdwere prepared to use violence against non-believers if they felt it would be a serviceto the Muslim community; almost 40 percentbelieved that Zionism, the EU, and the U.S.are threats to Islam.164

Britain has a Muslim population of over 1.5million. A 2006 survey by the Daily Telegraphshowed that 40 percent of these Muslims wantsharia to be introduced in parts of Britain.They were especially eager to see divorce,child custody, and inheritance casesadjudicated according to sharia. Twentypercent felt sympathy for the suicide bomberswho attacked London on 7 July 2005. Onepercent believed that this terrorist actionwas “correct.”165 A similar survey in 2005,shortly after the July attack, showed that sixpercent of Muslims – that is, about 100,000people – believed it was “completelyjustified,” while 24 percent felt a degree ofsympathy with the suicide bombers’ motives.Eighteen percent said that they had little orno loyalty to the country they lived in.

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Thirty-two percent agreed that “Westernsociety is decadent and immoral, and Muslimsmust try to put an end to it,” and one percentof these people believed that violence is alegitimate means of attaining this goal. YoungMuslims were considerably more hostile towardWestern society than older Muslims.166 LeadingBritish Muslim organizations confirm thatgirls and young women embrace Islam far morestrongly than do their parents – and the Islamthey embrace is far stricter than theirparents’. A visible sign of this in the publicsquare, according to Muslims, is girls’increasing use of strict head coverings.167

In 2006, the first survey of Muslimattitudes in Norway was carried out. It showedthat 14 percent wanted sharia to beintroduced, as opposed to two percent of thepopulation generally. Fourteen percent ofNorwegian Muslims said they did not knowwhether sharia should be introduced in Norway,as opposed to four percent of the populationgenerally. Which parts of sharia they had inmind was not specified. The groups thatsupported sharia most strongly were women,those with low levels of education, and thosewho were actively religious. Six percent ofthe Muslims surveyed believed that theterrorist bombs in London and Egypt could bejustified, as opposed to one percent of thepopulation generally. Young Muslims and thosewith low levels of education were least likelyto oppose the terrorist bombings.168

I haven’t noticed any similar studiesrelated to identity and loyalty among otherreligious groups in Europe, such as Hindus,Jews, Buddhists, Sikhs, and Christians.

The surveys mentioned here show that manyMuslims – and especially young Muslims – feel

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very little sense of belonging to the societythey live in. Quite simply, integration seemsto be going in the wrong direction. Whatbrought this about? The answers can be foundlargely in the immigrant-packed neighbourhoodsin major European countries – neighbourhoodsof a type that that we’re beginning to seetake shape in Norway. I’ve chosen to look moreclosely at four countries (Sweden, Germany,France, and Denmark) which can give us an ideaof what kinds of developments can be expectedin Norway in the near future – provided, thatis, that Norway doesn’t become the Europeanexception by successfully bringing off real,broad-based integration.

Sweden: goodbye to the “people’s home”

Sweden’s immigrant population isproportionally much higher than that of mostEuropean countries. According to StatisticsSweden, the total population is somewhat over9 million. The Swedish Integrationsverket(which was dissolved in 2007) calculated thatapproximately every fifth citizen of Sweden isan “immigrant,” which is to say either animmigrant or the child of an immigrant. Over400,000 of these people are supposedlyMuslims. Sweden hasn’t been keeping records ofthe country’s immigrants since 1985, and in2005 researchers revealed a major discrepancyin the census. The official numbers may be offby as much as 100,000, meaning that theSwedish population may be under 9 million.Studies by public health officials andStatistics Sweden show that a number ofimmigrant groups have unusually low deathrates and much higher life expectancies thannative Swedes. Fertility and employment among

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immigrants seem be to be significantlyunderreported. This leads to unreliabledemographics and employment statistics. It’salso suspected that many people who haveactually moved out of Sweden have not reportedthis to the authorities, so that they maycontinue to receive various forms ofgovernment support. Such support may continueto be paid out because Sweden lacks rulesrequiring that people who have left thecountry or settled in it report these facts tothe authorities. Another factor leading todiscrepancies in the census is the fact thatolder people who have died during stays intheir homelands are not reported to theauthorities as being dead so that theirfamilies may continue to receive theirgovernment payments.169

The development of ghettoes, also calledenclaves, has exploded in Sweden.170 Probablythe most closed enclave in all of Scandinaviais Rosengård in Malmö. Almost half of thoseliving in this southern Swedish city areimmigrants; in the Malmö neighbourhood ofRosengård, over 90 percent of the residentsare of non-Western origin, most of them Arabs.

I regard Rosengård as the antithesis ofintegration, and the neighbourhood stands as amonument to Sweden’s misguided immigration andintegration policies. In Rosengård one canlive one’s entire life without having anycontact with mainstream Swedish society – thesocial-services departments excepted.Rosengård is thus a glaring example of whatthe Swedes call “outsiderhood,” and has forthis reason been widely discussed ininternational media, both in Europe and theU.S. It’s especially the high crime rate, thealmost lawless conditions, and the high level

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of Islamization that has caused laymen,writers, and professionals alike to sound thealarm. The specialist who has studiedRosengård most closely is the Swedish socialanthropologist Aje Carlbom, who spent threeyears there doing field work. In his view,there are three factors in particular thatexplain why Rosengård has become a Muslimenclave. One is the deindustrialization thatbegan in the 1970s and that caused immigrantsto fall out of the Labour market because oftheir low level of education. (Today about 10percent of the women and under 20 percent ofthe men in Rosengård have jobs.) A secondfactor is the extremely high levels ofimmigration: relatively speaking, Sweden hasreceived far more refugees than other Europeancountries, and fetching marriages have beenvery common; since authorities have madelittle effort to regulate these marriages,large, culturally homogenous groups have beenable to establish themselves. The third factoris Swedish ideology, which takesmulticulturalism to another level, with“tolerance for foreign cultures” (in Carlbom’swords) being viewed as “the highest ofvalues.”171

In Rosengård, the residents have access tocultural amenities of the sort available intheir homelands and are able to communicatewith the employees at government offices intheir own language. They don’t need to learnSwedish or acquire knowledge about mainstreamSwedish society. Classes in public schools (asis true elsewhere in Malmö and, for thatmatter, elsewhere in Sweden) are taught inArabic. Mosques have become the main meetingplaces: there, children can attend Koranschool, get help with their homework, and are

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given clothing and food. Muslim day care andMuslim private schools are also available.Many Muslim children in this neighbourhood,including some who were born in Sweden, havegrown up speaking only Arabic. Parents whofear that their children will be influenced byWestern morals place them in religiousinstitutions so that they may receive, asCarlbom puts it, “the ideological ‘vaccine’that is necessary to keep them on the rightpath – the path of Islam.”

In enclaves like Rosengård, Islamists havefirm control over the residents and conditionsare ripe for the spread of politicized Islam.One hardly ever sees a woman in Rosengård, forexample, who is not carefully covered. Aswe’ve seen from the UN reports on the Arabworld, the Arab residents of Rosengård comefrom countries with serious social, economic,and democratic problems; and they bring thoseproblems with them when they migrate to Swedenand settle in an enclave like Rosengård. Theircondition becomes one of “globalmarginalization”; they inhabit a “no man’sland” where a meaningful existence is hard tocome by. Such a marginal life leads many tomake a life project of Islam. “The religion,”writes Carlbom, “is used to organized theirentire life.”

Rosengård has turned its back on Sweden.The social problems have exploded, not onlyhere but in Malmö generally. A series ofarticles in Aftonbladet in September 2004contained an almost unbelievable tidbit: thepolice admitted openly that they didn’t havecontrol over Malmö. Brutal crime is ravagingthe city. When the police are called to (forexample) deal with a violent incidentinvolving immigrants, they themselves require

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police protection. Ambulance personnel haveorders to put off helping anybody until thepolice are in place to protect them from themob. “We come to help and they spit on us,”says one ambulance worker. “It’s hard to workwhen you have to have eyes in the back of yourhead all the time.” Similarly, firefightersare attacked when they try, for example, tosave a burning mosque.172 Public transport hasbeen significantly reduced, since driversdon’t dare to enter neighbourhoods likeRosengård. In 2006 it was decided to closedown a middle school which had been set onfire several times. Teachers had been savagelyattacked, in some cases by students wieldingpistols, and the authorities saw no way ofturning the situation around.173

Knives and other weapons are widely used,and passersby rarely dare to get involved whensomebody is assaulted in the street, fearingthat they, too, will become victims. One ofthe articles in Aftonbladert’s above-mentionedseries quoted a woman who had fled war-tornAfghanistan in 2003: “For twenty years, whileI lived in Afghanistan, there was war – andthere’s war here, too. I’m scared to go out,and I’m scared to let the children out.” Anemployee of the Skåne police department putsit this way: “Everyone who works in thejudicial system can see that it’s gettingworse and worse – more violence, worseviolence.”

On 7 September 2005, the newspaper Expressenfocused on violent crime in Malmö, andoutlined the incidents that had taken place inthat city over a twenty-four-day period inAugust 2004. It was an endless litany ofbrutal assaults, knifings, robberies, andrapes. One telling statistic was that the

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number of rapes in Malmö had quadrupled duringthe previous decade.

The situation in Malmö is not unique inSweden. In just fourteen years, the number ofso-called “outsiderhood” areas in the countryhas risen from three to 136.174 Certainneighbourhoods in Gothenburg and Stockholmcould be described in essentially the sameterms as Rosengård. What’s especially alarmingis the drastic increase in the number of rapesreported in Sweden. Rapes of children almostdoubled between 1995 and 2004, from 258 to 467per year; in 2004, seven rapes were reportedper day, for a total of approximately 2600rapes a year.175 A government study shows thatamong the perpetrators of serious acts ofviolence, rapes, and murders, men withbackgrounds in the Middle East, North Africa,and Turkey are strongly overrepresented, whilethe victims of rape are mostly Swedish, abouthalf of them being children or young girls.176

The increase in gang crime in immigrant-heavy neighbourhoods is also unsettling. Insome areas, according to a 2005 report,residents consider the situation sothreatening that they believe the onlysolution is to move. It’s been revealed thatgang recruiting is going on in Kurdish,Turkish, and Persian community organizations;among the reasons why people join gangs are alack of belief in the future, family problems,group pressure, identity problems, andjoblessness.177 In Gothenburg, the authoritieshave warned people in immigrant-heavy areasnot to go out after dark; in Stockholm, thechief of police has specifically warned womenagainst venturing outdoors in the evening inunlit areas. Half of the women say that theyno longer dare to walk alone in unlit places;

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among girls aged fifteen and sixteen, the fearof walking alone in unlit places is evenstronger: eight of ten don’t dare.178

Immigration has also cost Sweden dearly ineconomic terms. Several calculations show thatthe government’s expenses amount to tens ofbillions. Economics professor Bo Söderstenmaintains that in 2003, immigration cost twoto three percent of the Swedish gross nationalproduct, or about forty to fifty billionkroner.179 Another calculation from 2002 showsexpenses of 33 billion kroner per year.180

In the 2005 book Exit folkhemssverige – ensamhällsmodells sönderfall (Exit the People’s Home of Sweden:The Downfall of a Social Model), sociology professorJonathan Friedmann and others write thatSweden’s situation won’t improve, but willonly get worse, thanks to a combination ofhigh unemployment and high levels ofimmigration. The book’s authors figure thatthe Swedes will be a minority in their owncountry by 2056.181

Sweden thus faces obvious economicchallenges that point toward nothing less thana national breakdown. A 2002 report shows thatthe children of second-generation non-Westernimmigrants have four times as high a risk ofunemployment as Swedish children. At thattime, the employment rate was 50 percent fornon-Westerners aged sixteen to sixty-fouryears, and 80 percent for ethnic Swedes in thesame age range. The report also shows thataround 50 percent of the social-servicesoutlays in Sweden are paid to families withnon-Western backgrounds.182

It also appears that Islamists have gottenan especially strong foothold in Sweden.Sweden’s Muslim Association, which with its70,000-odd members is the country’s largest

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Muslim congregation, demands special laws forMuslims in several areas. In a 2006 letter tothe political parties represented in theSwedish parliament, the association demandedthat Muslims have their own national holidaysand time off for vacations and sundry Islam-related activities, such as Friday prayers.The letter also demands that imams bepermitted to teach in the public schools, thatgirls and boys have separate swimming classes,that Muslim congregations be granted interest-free loans for the construction of mosques,and, especially, that divorces between Muslimsbe contingent on the approval of an imam – theargument for this being that it’s importantfor women to stay married and thereby keepfamilies together.183

In 2003 it was reported that anti-Semitismis flourishing in Muslim communities.184 In2002 alone, the Swedish security policeregistered 131 anti-Semitic crimes; this isassumed to be the tip of the iceberg. Jew-hatred is especially widespread among Muslimand Arab schoolchildren.

In my view, Sweden is one of Europe’sclearest examples of the fact that levels ofimmigration have been far too high inrelationship to countries’ ability to ensurethat the large new groups become integratedinto mainstream society both economically and(especially) in terms of values. There hasbeen a lack of realism on the part of thosewhose job it is to oversee immigration. It hasgone much faster than integration. The mainreason for Sweden’s naïve open-door policy, Ibelieve, is its neutrality in World War II:consciously or subconsciously, Swedes aredetermined to make up for that failure byshowing generosity to Muslims. One particular

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result of this generosity is that Sweden hasbeen less and less able to guaranteefundamental security to its women andchildren.

Germany: An extension of Turkey

In other European cities, the generalpattern is that immigrants’ native cultureshave become established in their newcommunities, and that the larger the groupsgrow and the longer they live in the country,the more poorly they’re integrated.

A striking example of this is Turks inGermany. Life in the Turkish enclaves is livedalmost entirely in accordance with Turkishnorms and values. One socializes with one’sown; community associations and politicalgroups are organized according to ethnicorigins. The lower one’s income andeducational level, the more likely one is tolive as a “Turk.” The members of the firstgeneration identified mainly with their nativeregions in Turkey; immigrants from a givenregion would settle in the same part of town.The generations born in Germany, however,developed another identity, thinking ofthemselves as Turks in Germany or as Muslimsin the Christian world.185 As in Denmark, manysecond- and third-generation Turks havedeveloped religious attitudes that are farmore conservative than their parents’.

Islamist organizations work consciously toensure that German-Turks retain their sense ofattachment to Turkey and grow more attached toIslam. Living in enclaves, screened off frommainstream society, Turks in Germany are farless likely to find work. Islamistnationalists consciously play on Islam and

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ethnic isolation.186 The largest Islamistorganization in Germany, Milli Görüs, is aTurkish export; represented in most of thecountries of Europe, it has a hand in runningone-fifth of Germany’s 2,500 mosques, fromwhich its Islamist message is spread.187

The multicultural ideology that hascharacterized German immigration policylikewise helps impede integration. ManyGerman-Turks who aren’t particularly religiousidentify strongly with their homeland; many,in other words, are physically present inGermany, but their identity and loyalty bindthem to Turkey. Turkey has, in short,established itself in Germany. This means thatthe honour culture – especially the control ofwomen’s chastity – has put down deep roots inthe enclaves.

The honour culture appears to have had aparticularly unpleasant impact in Germany. Inno other European country, it seems, does theestimated number of honour killings exceedthat in Germany. Necla Kelek, born in Istanbuland trained as a sociologist in Germany, saysthat during every month between 1997 and 2004,on average, thirty women in Germany were thevictims of honour killing; most of the victimsare reportedly Turkish women.188 This figureis so very high that I admittedly wonderwhether it’s correct. It’s astonishing, in anyevent, that such an astronomical estimatehasn’t caused a commotion in Germany andthroughout Europe.

A murder that did arouse a considerableamount of consternation in Germany was that oftwenty-three-year-old Hatun Sürücü, who in2005 was shot down in a Berlin street by heryoungest brother, then eighteen. In 2006, hewas sentenced to ten years in prison; his two

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older brothers were prosecuted for conspiracy.The oldest brother was said to have obtainedthe weapon, and the middle brother was said tohave lured Hatun to the scene of the crime;but the court did not manage to prove thesefacts. When the verdict was pronounced, thefamily celebrated and displayed the victorysign to spectators and the media. The youngestbrother had most likely been chosen to executehis sister because under German law he wouldreceive a far milder sentence because he wasonly eighteen.189

The execution of Hatun caused nationwideire because she was, like Anooshe and Fadime,a young woman who’d managed to raise herselfup against all odds and integrate in recordtime into European society. Hatun grew up inan enclave in Berlin, hidden from mainstreamsociety. At the age of only fifteen she wastaken to Turkey and married off to a Kurdishcousin.190 At sixteen, pregnant, she left herhusband. The next year she had a son. Shefinished grade school at an institution foryoung mothers and trained to be anelectrician. Her friends and helpers describea young, oppressed woman who raised herself upand flowered. Hatun was about to take herfinal exam and begin work as an electricianwhen the shots were fired at her and herfamily’s “honour” restored. The publicconsternation further intensified when it cameto light that most of the Turkish students ata school near the scene of the execution –many of them the German-born grandchildren ofimmigrants – expressed support for Hatun’smurder. Some openly praised it: Hatun, theysaid, had behaved like a German – i.e., shewas a tramp – and therefore the murder wasjustified. On a radio program, a young Turkish

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woman said the same thing: Hatun deserved tobe killed because she had taken off her veil.In Germany, little attention has been paid tothe lives of girls and women in the enclaves.Hatun’s murder, however, led to a politicaldebate about immigration and the growing roleof Islam in Muslim communities.191

The sociologist Necla Kelek has writtenbooks about the widespread oppression ofTurkish women in Germany. She herself haslived in an enclave – she characterizes theenclaves in Berlin as “the new Berlin Wall” –and is well acquainted with the German-Turkish“honour culture.” She believes that as manyas fifteen thousand girls aged fourteen toeighteen are imported annually as the spousesof Turkish men in Germany. Many are pouredright into the ghetto as slaves to their in-laws. They don’t learn German; on thecontrary, they live in anti-German isolation.The fact that these young, culturally isolatedwomen are given the primary responsibility forchild-rearing recalls the criticism made bythe Namik Kemal back in 1867: that women arekept ignorant, and the first negativeconsequence of this is “a bad upbringing fortheir children.” As the UN reports about theArab world also indicate, the oppression ofwomen is a crucial ingredient in the recipefor driving a society both culturally andeconomically into the gutter. Kelekcharacterizes the importation of Turkishbrides as “suffocating” and calls for a newimmigration policy that will put an end to thepractice.192

As in Malmö, the poor integration of thegeneration that is now growing up has beenmanifested in violence and disorder atimmigrant-dominated schools. The use of knives

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and other weapons is daily fare. Many teacherssay that they don’t dare to teach withouthaving their mobile phones turned on, so thatthey’re ready at a moment’s notice to call foremergency help. From time to time, police haveto physically protect teachers. Many students,for their part, say that owing to theirconcerns about ethnic conflicts among theirclassmates, they don’t dare go to schoolunarmed.

Sexual assaults in France

France’s Muslim population of between sixand eight million constitutes about ten totwelve percent of the country’s population.193

As the French enclaves have grown, violenceagainst women in them has not only increasedbut also become increasingly grotesque.Throughout the 1990s, this problem waswreathed in silence. The turning point came in2002, when a young Tunisian-French woman,Samira Bellil, published I gruppevoldtektenes helvete(In the Hell of Gang Rape).194 In the book she tellshow she was repeatedly gang-raped, which firsthappened when she was only fourteen years old.Her own boyfriend offered her to his friends.According to Bellil, this is not at all anunusual practice. What was sensational wasthat Bellil’s book marked the first time thatanybody publicly acknowledged how vulnerablegirls are to gang rape in Muslim enclaves.Samira Bellil made the rounds of radio andtelevision studios, explaining that Muslimgirls keep silent about being raped becausethey know that if they tell their families orfriends, they’ll be blamed for being raped.Bellil talked about how girls are forced towear the veil and how they can’t go out after

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dark without a male relative along to provideprotection – since a girl or woman aloneoutside at night is defined as a non-Muslimand therefore deserving of rape. When theyheard what the brave Samira had to say, theforgotten girls of France’s Muslim enclaveswere virtually struck dumb.195

That same year, France was shaken by amurder. On 4 October, seventeen-year-oldSohane Benziane, who was of Tunisian origins,was burned to death in a basement room outsideParis. The nineteen-year-old murderer, whoalso had a North African background, was herex-boyfriend. It was said that he had luredSohane into a garbage room in the basement,and that when she had refused to obey hisorders he had tortured and raped her. Then hehad doused her with gasoline and set fire toher. He was sentenced to twenty-five years inprison; a co-conspirator received seven years.At the trial, the prosecutor said that thevery idea of a young women being burned alivehad set France back “several centuries.” Headded: “Her death has become the symbol of themost extreme kind of violence againstwomen.”196 Sohane’s sister said: “They used toburn garbage heaps and cars – now they burngirls.”197

Sohane’s murder became more than a symbol.It led to a historic awakening in France.Inspired by both Samira Bellil and SohaneBenziane, six girls and two boys led a groupof marchers who, starting out in Paris inFebruary 2003, walked from city to city,insisting that politicians wake up and noticewhat was happening to the country’s immigrantwomen and girls. They knocked on mayors’doors; they talked to journalists. And, almostto their own surprise, they were given a

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respectful hearing. More and more peoplejoined the pilgrimage; soon there were over athousand participants. When it ended onInternational Women’s Day, 8 March 2003, thesix girls and two boys had grown into a throngof 30,000. This action resulted in theformation of the now internationally famousorganization Ni Putes ni Soumises (Neither Whoresnor Oppressed); Samira Bellil became itsgodmother.198

The next year, yet another murder setFrance back “several centuries.” AfterGhofrane Haddaoui, a twenty-three-year-oldFrench-Tunisian woman in Marseilles, rejecteda proposal from a French-Tunisian young man onthe grounds that she was already engaged to bemarried, the young man flew into a rage and,with a friend, stoned her to death. Ni Putes niSoumises held a march through the streets ofMarseilles, protesting against (as one signput it) “fundamentalism that imprisonswomen.”199

In recent years, several multiple-rapetrials in France have left strong marks onthat nation’s consciousness. One of the trialsconcerned the apparent rape of a thirteen-year-old girl by eighty-eight boys and youngmen over a period of four months; anotherrelated to the rape of a a girl of fifteen byeighteen neighbourhood boys. Sentences rangedfrom five to twelve years. In the latter case,what shocked the authorities most were thereactions of the boys’ mothers. One of themsaid this about the sentence: “You call thisjustice. Seven years’ prison for a little oralsex. It’s the girl who should be behindbars.”200 A lawyer who has represented victimsof gang rape characterizes the situation inthis way: “We’ve allowed a subculture to

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develop with its own codes and references thathave made sexual violence a banality.”201

In France, Islamist organizations like theMuslim Brotherhood have formed extensivenetworks that receive considerable financialsupport from the extreme Wahabbists in SaudiArabia. In many enclaves, Islamist groups havepatrols that go from door to door and tellpeople that (for example) women must not betreated by male doctors, Muslims must notreceive blood donated by Jews or Christians,and girls must not study science or takeswimming lessons. Islamists’ terrorization ofordinary people is clearly confirmed by astudy from the enclave of Corneuve. Seventy-seven percent of Muslim women who wear theveil in that neighbourhood do it becausethey’re scared of being harassed by Islamistpatrols.202

During the violent riots in France in 2005,few in Europe noted the Muslim angle or thegender angle. The focus was onmarginalization, unemployment, a lack of faithin the future, and racism. One honourableexception was the leading German feministAlice Schwarzer. She pointed out that whilethe unemployment rate among young people inFrance with immigrant backgrounds is 40percent, the gender breakdown is lopsided:among young immigrant-group men, the joblessrate is 25 percent; among young immigrant-group women, it is 60 percent. “In socialterms, then,” noted Schwarzer, “the women havetwice as much reason to protest.” But Muslimwomen didn’t shout in the streets. Schwarzerput it this way: “They’re whisked behind thecurtains.” When Muslim girls and women do goout and protest in the streets, it’s rarely

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against the government: instead, they speakout against their own men’s use of violence.

Schwarzer notes that in her country, youngTurks are strongly overrepresented in crimestatistics. No fewer than 25 percent ofTurkish boys support the use of violence, asopposed to only six percent of German boys andfour percent of Turkish girls. The level ofviolence in Turkish families is three timeshigher than in German families. The victimsare women and children, including boys.Although the boys themselves are often thedirect victims of violence, they identify withits perpetrators – that is, their own fathers.Schwarzer believes that so long as these factsare silenced with a “naïve reference toracism,” we won’t understand what’s at theheart of the riots – namely, that boys arebrought up in a highly patriarchalenvironment, where they learn that a “realman” is a violent man. And being brought upwith violence (as many of them are), theylearn to despise their sisters and mothers; inother words, they learn misogyny: “The use ofviolence is at the heart of male dominance inthe enclaves. Violence is cool. Violence isthe hallmark of ‘male’ identity – especiallystrongly called for when manliness is unstableand insecure.” Schwarzer believes thatIslamists exploit these young men’shopelessness. The young are offered a new andproud identity that will compel their ownwomen – and infidels, too – to subordinatethemselves to them. When these young menscreamed at French police during the 2005riots, they didn’t shout political slogans, asyoung rioters did in 1968. What did theyshout? “Sons of whores!”203

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Another rarely mentioned factor in theriots is France’s polygamy policy. Until 1993,French law permitted Muslim men to bring up tofour wives with them from their homelands. Thelaw essentially amounted to a friendly slap onthe men’s backs. Thanks to that law, polygamywas able to establish itself in France and hascontinued to thrive. It’s been estimated thatthere are thirty thousand families in Francetoday in which a husband lives with more thanone wife. One of the consequences of thissituation is housing problems, since it’sdifficult to find apartments – especially inthe Muslim enclaves – that can house familieswith twenty to thirty members. Anotherconsequence is that the children, and in thissituation especially the boys, are often badlybrought up. They grow up on the streets, wherethe gangs rule; neither their families northeir communities provide much in the way ofdiscipline, and few of the boys areparticularly close to their fathers. Theirmothers, meanwhile, are often poorlyintegrated, and thus have very little in theway of social and intellectual resources tooffer their children.204

The fact that Islamism’s forward march istaking place at the expense of girls andwomen’s quality of life has also been observedin French schools with large Muslim studentpopulations. The major social change in theschools is an increase in the control andsexual harassment of female students andteachers and in openly expressed Jew-hatred.In an op-ed, the Danish writer Helle MereteBrix describes a book written by an anonymousFrench history teacher who demonstratesvividly that the schools in immigrant-heavyneighbourhoods are chockablock with anti-

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Semitism, racism, and sexism. For example, oneteacher describes how a teenage Muslim girlwho was active in school and thirsty forknowledge ended up being silenced by Muslimboys who called her a “filthy slut.” Theteacher understands that other Muslim girlsrefuse to open their mouths in class for fearof being treated the same way. The book alsoprovides examples of classrooms that arecontrolled by budding Islamist boys whocriticize Muslim girls if their clothes are“too tight” and who openly support polygamywithout being contradicted by their classmatesor teachers. Many Muslim students condemn theFrench republic’s fundamental values, such assexual equality and equal rights for allcitizens. Jewish students are systematicallyharassed, both verbally and physically. Atmany schools, it’s hard for teachers to coverthe Holocaust because Muslim students quiteseriously believe that the destruction of theJews is a Jewish lie. (Where did they learnthis? In the mosque.) More and more Jewishparents find it necessary to take theirchildren out of public schools to protect themfrom bullying and physical violence.205

In some enclaves, religious leaders havebeen selected to be community and politicalleaders – and have openly declared theirterritories to be Muslim. When, for example,an imam met the mayor of Raiboux at theboundary of a Muslim-dominated area of thatcity, the imam declared the terrority underhis control. The mayor didn’t argue withhim.206

Islamists’ power over ordinary people’sdaily lives in Europe seems to have advancedfurther in France than anywhere else. It wasprecisely for this reason that France

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introduced the hijab ban in schools in 2004,and – in the name of equality – also forbadeother obtrusive religious symbols. The ban onthe hijab is an attempt to wrest power in theschools from the Islamists.

The question is whether Islamization hasgone so far – and the Muslim population becomeso large – that it’s already too late toreverse this development. Twenty to 30 percentof the French population under age twenty-fiveis Muslim. The Muslim birthrate is far higherthan the French average. Add to this the highimmigration rate, especially through fetchingmarriages, and it looks as if France will bethe first country in Europe with a Muslimmajority. This will likely happen withintwenty-five years.207 That the Frenchgovernment is engaged in dialogue with anational Muslim council (which has provenitself to be extreme) with the supposed goalof improving integration has drawn sharpcriticism from secular Muslims – a class ofpeople that has in recent years been betrayedby governments across Europe.208

Denmark: best in class

No country in Europe has had as broad andopen a debate on immigration and thechallenges of integration than Denmark. It waskicked off in 1999 by Poul C. Matthiessen, aprofessor of demography, and it stronglyinfluenced the fact that Denmark, three yearslater, became the first European nation toradically alter its immigration policy. Limitswere put on the stream of new spouses throughfetching marriage, in order to give Denmarkthe breathing room to focus on seriousintegration efforts. I’ll discuss the new

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Danish immigration policy more extensively inthe next chapter.

Matthiessen got top billing in Jyllands-Postenon 29 August 1999 when he issued a powerfulwarning about the scale of immigration toDenmark and its probable future consequences.Immigration, he said, would change Denmark: itwould bring results that nobody seemed to wantto discuss, but that would affect thecountry’s culture, religion, and way of life.Denmark would undergo a comprehensivetransformation – and the crucial factor wouldbe the Muslim population. Would Muslims besecularized, Matthiessen wondered aloud, orwould they cling to their religious traditionsand perhaps take their faith in a moreconservative direction? Whatever the case, hepredicted that as Danish Muslims increased innumbers, they would likely intensify demandsfor respect for their religion, traditions,and customs. Matthiessen warned against acultural clash, and took note of population-growth prognoses: in 2020, 13.7 percent of thepeople in Denmark would be first- or second-generation immigrants, most of them from non-Western countries.

Matthiessen soon received an answer to hischarges: leading politicians and opinion-makers accused him of arrogance and inaccuracyand of painting a dark picture of things –and, yes, of being something of a racist. Fewpaid attention to the facts. The SocialDemocratic prime minister, Poul NyrupRasmussen, responded to Matthiessen with ablunt dismissal: “The comments are notrelevant,” he insisted. But some listened toMatthiessen, among them the social minister inNyrup Rasmussen’s government, Karen Jespersen.She clipped out his Jyllands-Posten article and

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when, six months later, she was named interiorminister – a position that put her in chargeof immigration policy – she made copies of thearticle and handed them out to key members ofthe government bureaucracy. Jespersen wantedto appoint a commission to evaluateimmigration and its consequences; she alsowanted to limit the fetching of new spouses.But her colleagues in the government rejectedher proposals. In their view, the problemsshould be killed with silence.

But at least the debate had begun – if on asmall scale – and several statistics andprognoses were put on the table. They showedthat Matthiessen’s research was of the utmostrelevance: the continued high levels ofimmigation could hardly be called sustainableas far as the possibility of real integrationwas concerned.209 The Social Democratsnonetheless refused to change course. As aresult, they were compelled to cede power in2001.210 Danish voters were concerned aboutdivisions within their society: they fearedthat the strong sense of solidarity among theDanish people would dissipate over time unlessan entirely new immigration policy was putinto place. The Social Democrats’ years ofcowardly inaction on immigration had a greatdeal to do with their loss in the nextparliamentary election, in 2005.

Almost six years to the day afterMatthiessen’s 1999 article, he issued anotherwarning in Jyllands-Posten.211 This time his focuswas on values, the role of women, and parallelsocieties, or so-called enclaves. Theempirical foundation of Matthiessen’s articlewas the fact that fewer than half of the non-Western immigrants in Denmark had jobs. Non-Western immigrants accounted for about five

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percent of Denmark’s population, but receivedjust under 40 percent of its social budget.Young immigrants from non-Western countriesand their children committed crimes twice asoften as young Danes did. The enclaves weregrowing, and the children and grandchildren ofimmigrants were (in general) doing poorly atschool. Many never attended school at all;others never completed it. More and moreimmigrants and their children, Matthiessenwarned, viewed themselves as living outsideDanish society and as isolated in their ownculture, tradition, and religion. Everyone, hepointed out, agreed that the situation neededto be changed. But where should the changesbegin? ”I think the key lies in a rebellionby Muslim women….If you cling to your old viewof the relationship between man and woman, youcan’t believe that you’ll be integrated intothe Labour market in Denmark. The men have togive the housewives and the daughters theirfreedom. If they don’t do that, the women mustrebel – if only for the children’s sake. Forif the children just see their mother go homewithout being able to speak Danish, without ajob, the sex-role pattern will be passed downto the next generation.”

Matthiessen further pointed out that,historically, this is the first time thatDenmark has experienced a wave of immigrationby people who are explicitly antagonistic toDanish values and norms. He pointed out thatall earlier immigrant groups, right up to themid 1970s, had adjusted quickly to Danishnorms and values. This included Dutch farmersin the 1500s, French Huguenots in the 1600s,Swedish and Polish workers in the 1800s,Jewish refugees from Russia around the year1900, and Chileans in the 1970s. Today’s

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arrivals huddle together in enclaves, saidMatthiessen, who warned against the currentimmigration project: “In reality we have donesomething terribly bold. The question iswhether we can and should do something aboutit.”

Once again, Matthiessen offered not onlycomments but prognoses. He had just concludeda study of population growth in the MiddleEast, which showed that in twenty-five yearsthe population there would increase from 377million to 571 million. He noted the highlevel of immigrant pressure this would placeon Europe, and referred to UN reports aboutthe lack of economic and societal developmentin the Arab world, especially owing to a lackof sexual equality: “It is not far from theMiddle East to Denmark in this context. If awoman is kept in a sex-role pattern thatprevents her from contributing in any real wayto social development outside the home, itplaces great limitations on social andeconomic development. It can be a problem forthe countries of the Middle East. It isunquestionably a problem in relation to theimmigrants’ situation in Denmark.” WasMatthiessen totally against immigration? “I’mnot. It should just be an immigration thatserves both the immigrant and the countriesthat take them in. Otherwise we risk affectingthe ability of people in Denmark’s welfaresociety to work together. It’s happening now.”

These comments in the late summer of 2005did not cause any alarm in Denmark. Too manyDanish politicians had already declaredintegration a failure. I’ll mention only a fewkey details that confirm the failure: inDenmark there are 463,000 immigrants withchildren. Of these, 136,000 are from Western

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countries and 328,000 from non-Westerncountries. Immigrants from Western countriesconstitute two and a half percent of thepopulation, non-Western immigrants sixpercent. It is estimated that over 200,000immigrants, about 3.5 percent of the totalpopulation, is Muslim. A 2005 report showedthat about 100,000 non-Western immigrant womenof working age and that 50,000 of these areoutside the Labour market.212 Those worst offin this regard are Somali, Lebanese, Iraqi,and Afghani women, 85 to 90 percent of whomare outside the Labour market. Of the 100,000immigrant women, fully 13,000 essentiallyexist outside of Danish society. They receiveno government benefits, since their husbands,who brought them to Denmark, are supposed tosupport them. The women are thus entirelybeyond the authorities’ purview. And nearlyall of them live completely isolated fromDanish society, often on their husbands’orders. The head of the social-services officein the immigrant-heavy neighbourhood ofNørrebro in Copenhagen, Bodil Vendel, puts itthis way: “We know from experience that if thewomen become too well-informed, they will, inmany cases, be literally beaten back intoplace by their husbands.”213

Among those who speak out about immigrants’increasing isolation – a situation thatespecially affects women – is the Copenhagenintegration consultant Manu Sareen, who is ofIndian extraction. Sareen describes thedevelopment of a powerfully growing underclassin which, he says, “the women are particularlyisolated.” Sareen has observed an increasingradicalization, one aspect of which is thatmen increasingly keep their wives at home. Butthere are several explanations for women’s

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isolation. One reason is that women themselvesfeel that their role is in the home; othersare tied down because they’re having one babyafter another; still others fear taking partin mainstream society because they neitherknow nor understand it.214

The 2005 report also showed that governmentofficials who are supposed to help immigrantwomen enter the work force have instead formedan “unholy alliance” with those women’shusbands.215 The husbands want the women tostay home, keep house, and raise children; andthe employment counselors don’t want to harassthe women by trying to push them into jobs,since their chances of finding employment arepoor anyway. So instead they arrange for thewomen to take hobby-like courses in subjectslike food preparation and needlework. Far frombringing them closer to the work force, thesecourses ensure that they won’t neglect theirdomestic duties. The government, in short, hasmade a compromise: it keeps Muslim women busywithin their husbands’ strict boundaries, andignores their need to develop into skilledworkers – and active citizens.

The report further reveals how womenthemselves seek to avoid employment by suchactions as turning down work in day care if itinvolves having to change the diapers of non-Muslim children, or refusing to take jobs thatinvolve contact with pork or alcohol. SomeMuslim women, when they show up for meetingsto discuss possible employment, veilthemselves more fully than usual, deliberatelyspeak worse Danish than they’re capable of,and/or invent medical and practical problemsto avoid being hired. In some cases, womenhave played these games on orders from their

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husbands so that they wouldn’t be put towork.216

Another problem is that the children ofnon-Western immigrants in Denmark do poorly atschool. Half of the non-Western children inCopenhagen are functional illiterates whenthey finish grade school. Sixty percent of theimmigrant and second-generation students whobegin an education in a technical orcommercial school drop out, and only a few ofthem go on to some other kind of education. Inupper secondary school, the dropout rate amongnon-Western students is twice as high as amongethnic Danes.217

In 2005, however, another report came outthat inspired optimism with the news thatyoung immigrant women who educate themselveshave almost as high an employment rate asyoung Danish women.218 Yet another reportshows that when a woman is in the work forceit has an integration-positive effect on herwhole family, but when a man has a job it hasvirtually no effect on his family’sintegration.219

Denmark has rolled up its sleeves and shonea searchlight into pretty much every singlenook and cranny in an effect to confront andresolve its integration crisis. And the moresearchlights are turned on, the more problemsare revealed. Many people are concerned aboutthe future. Today, the expenses caused byimmigration and its consequences are believedto amount to approximately 36 billion kroner ayear. Denmark’s finance minister Thor Pedersencalls Denmark’s integration policy its“greatest welfare reform.”220 This isconfirmed by statistics showing, for example,that in Copenhagen schools 45 percent of allfirst-grade children have immigrant

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backgrounds. (Most are Muslims.) In tenyears, then, 45 percent of all seventeen-year-olds will be immigrant youth. Ten years later,45 percent of all twenty-seven-year-olds inCopenhagen will be immigrants.221 Thesefigures should actually be higher, becausethey don’t include people who will immigrateto Denmark between now and then. Onepopulation forecast says that within tenyears, the number of young people with foreignbackgrounds between ages sixteen and nineteenwill triple.222 Such prognoses, combined withpoor education and employment conditions, andthe already substantial government outlays forsocial services for non-Western immigrants,explain why alarms are going off in Denmarkover immigration policy. But the debate andthe initiatives are about a great deal morethan finances; they’re now just as much aboutvalues.

One of Denmark’s most popular politiciansis not a member of any of the governingparties. Nor is he a Dane by birth. He wasborn in Syria and immigrated to Denmark as achild. He represents the Danish Social LiberalParty, which ideologically is more or lesscomparable to Norway’s Liberal Party. His nameis Naser Khader and he’s such a hero to thepeople of Denmark that his popularity is morelike a pop star’s than a politician’s.223 Why?Because he’s left no doubt whatsoever aboutwhich side he’s on in Denmark’s culture wars.He’s for secular democracy – 100%. It’s forthis reason that he enjoys the public’sconfidence. Seen through Norwegian eyes, thiscan seem amazing, since many Norwegians seemto take it for granted that leading Muslimssupport secular democracy – even when theyplainly don’t. It’s not that way in Denmark.

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Thanks to Denmark’s spirit of open debate, inwhich native Danes don’t feel obliged to walkon eggshells with members of other ethnic orreligious groups, one Islamist after anotherhas been exposed. This open debate is possiblebecause Denmark’s media, generally speaking,are not hypnotized by myths and partisanprejudices regarding immigration. In myexperience, there are far more journalists andeditors in Denmark than in Norway who havecompetence in the field and who don’t refuseto cover immigrant-community conditions thatdeserve critical attention. It was nosurprise, then, that it was in Denmark that acertain event in world history took place: the2005 publication of the Muhammed cartoons inthe newspaper Jyllands-Posten.

The cartoon controversy began with an actof self-censorship. Was it true that inDenmark curbs had been put on the freedom toexpress opinions about religion – that self-censorship was taking place owing to fear ofextremist reprisals?224 And it was in the wakeof the Muhammed cartoons that what had longbeen suspected was confirmed once and for all– namely, that top imams in Denmark weren’tdevoted to Danish democracy’s fundamentalvalues. The press revealed that the imams, onthe contrary, not only were playing a doublerole, but were busy using lies and deceptionto weaken Denmark’s international reputationand to strengthen their own national andinternational power.225 It was also revealedhow broad a network the imams had amongIslamists in the Muslim world – for example,they colLabourated with the Islamist ideologueYusuf al-Qaradawi. It was in the midst of thisinternational crisis that Khader, already awell-known politician and member of

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parliament, stepped forward with anunambiguous message to the undemocraticforces: “If the imams don’t like the smell inthe bakery, they can find another place tolive. I’m so tired of hearing them complainabout the conditions in this country that hasgiven them protection, freedom of speech,freedom of religion, and immense opportunitiesfor their children.”226 Khader founded theorganization Democratic Muslims, which soonacquired several thousand members and whichhas been praised by business people andpoliticians alike.

The revelations about Islamist leaders inDenmark surprised the secular Muslim Khader,who was unsettled to know about their cozy,well-developed international network. “We arefacing a mind-blowing internal enemy,” he toldBerlingske Tidende on 2 April 2006. “We have towake up. We have to deal with an internalenemy that is more dangerous than you canimagine. I’ve realized this only recently.”His life project is now to battle thisinternal enemy, the Islamists: “I’m about tothrow up from them and their full beards (…)Many of the refugees who have fled from Iranhave fled from precisely these things – andthen they run into them here! Their goal isto impose sharia upon Muslims who live in theWest.” Khader says he’ll fight the Islamists“to the last” on behalf of democracy and willdo everything to ensure that the “marginalizedMuslims are drawn away from the Islamists andincorporated into Danish society.”

Khader, who has received death threats forhis views and his public activities, must beaccompanied everywhere by bodyguards. His“crime,” he says, is that he believes Islamand democracy can be reconciled. On Internet

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discussion boards, Muslims rage against him. Asurvey shows that only 13 percent of DanishMuslims view Khader as their spokesman, andthat only one in five Muslims in Denmarksupports Democratic Muslims. 227 This is, alas,not surprising. Precisely the same situationobtains in Norway: open democrats with Muslimbackgrounds – such as the comic ShabanaRehman, her brother Shakil Rehman (who enteredthe debate with a newspaper op-ed in 2006),and the author Walid al-Kubaisi – areunpopular among Muslims generally; in thepress and on popular debate websites, youngMuslims condemn them almost unanimously,regarding them as traitors for embracingNorwegian freedom.228

The image that Norwegians have been givenboth of the new Danish immigrant policy inparticular and of the climate in Danishsociety that’s resulted from the integrationdebate is dispiriting. Many Norwegians nowthunk that Denmark is a virtually raciststate. This misconception is firmly disprovenby recent surveys of Danes’ racial views.These surveys show that Danes are verypositive about having immigrants ascolleagues.229 In fact, the Danish are moreopen to and tolerant of immigrants today thanthey were before the new immigration andintegration policy was introduced in 2002, andthe percentage of immigrants who considerthemselves the victims of discrimination hasdropped significantly in the last few years.230

Even after the publication of the Muhammedcartoons, which created such a hullabaloo,this positive development has continued.231

Danes have also been described as thehappiest people in Europe, with an extremelyhigh level of trust for their fellow citizens

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and their politicians. Compared to othercountries, in short, Denmark has a very strongsense of social solidarity.232 But like othercountries, it’s having a tough timeintegrating Muslims. A 2006 survey showed that11 percent of the Muslims in Denmarksympathized completely with those who hadattacked Danish embassies and Danish goods inthe Mideast in reaction to the Muhammedcartoons. Thirty-six percent had somesympathy, while barely half of Danish Muslimswere directly opposed to the actions. Fifty-three percent of Danish Muslims derived theirsense of identity overwhelmingly from Islam;37 percent identified themselves, in roughlyequal measure, as both Muslim and Danish; onlytwo percent felt more Danish than Muslim.233

Like other surveys, this one confirmed thatsocial solidarity can be damaged by poorintegration of immigrants.

Multiculturalism and human rights

This tour of several European countriesshows that more and more minority-groupcitizens of those countries link theiridentity to their religion and to thecountries in which they have their culturalroots. Many openly reject the countries ofwhich they are citizens. They don’t have asense of community or of shared values withthe members of mainstream society, but haveinstead retained their homelands’ values andnorms. They view their new countries’ basicvalues and norms as a threat to theiridentities, and live wholly or partly on theoutside of mainstream society. Indeed theyinhabit a parallel society, a sort ofsatellite society, in which their bonds and

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loyalty to their countries of origin arestrong. Europe is their economic base.Physically, they commute between twocontinents.

No doubt about it, Europe has becomemulticultural. Multiculturalism is embraced bypoliticians on the left, in the center, and onparts of the right. The ideology is alsodeeply rooted in the mainstream media.Multiculturalism is about groupthink: thegroup’s interests matter more than theindividual’s. Individuals with non-Westernroots are regarded as being intimately boundto groups whose values and traditions,anchored in their homelands, are untouched byany concept of fundamental human rights.Within these subcultures, the reigning powerstructures thrive at the cost of theindividual. Mainstream society’s social andlegal systems, which can help protect theindividual, are, to a large extent, renderedunavailable to him or her through the effortsof the subculture’s governing authorities, whoalmost invariably are highly patriarchal,hierarchical, and authoritarian.

The multiculturalist argues that culturesare equal in terms of values and that allcultures should thus be treated with the samerespect. Different cultures should thrive sideby side, even if their values are essentiallydifferent. People are encouraged to cultivatea so-called diversity, and are warned againstcriticizing and disapproving the distinctivetraits of cultures other than their own – evenif they’re plainly at odds with human rights.Multiculturalism is thus also highly static;it’s about the preservation of culturaltraits, no matter how harmful or inhuman thosetraits might be.

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Norwegian culture, of course, has neverbeen static. Nor is our democracy linear: itdevelops and changes continuously, for examplethrough the introduction of new laws that aremeant to secure and protect individual rightsand thereby limit bastions of power andstrengthen the hand of the weak. For me,multicultural ideology seems absolutelyantagonistic to the goal of improving societyand the status of the individual.Multiculturalism protects the power structures– the reigning collective – and the individualdisappears. Meanwhile multicultural ideologyrocks the pillars supporting the edifice ofdemocratic solidarity in countries with equalrights for all. It contributes to discordbetween groups and intensifies acounterproductive focus on ethnicity whichsays: “Show me your skin colour, and I willtell you who you are and what needs you have.”

In a country like Norway, society is basedon shared history, language, values, andculture, including political culture. Doesthis mean that you has to have particularethnic origins to be a part of this society?No, not at all. You can be an equally goodcitizen of Norway if you were born in thejungles of Gambia; by the same token, you canbe Norwegian-born and reject your Norwegianidentity. You may be loyal to other countries,as is true of many people in Europe’senclaves. And you may be loyal to ideologiesother than secular democracy, as is the casewith political extremists on both the left andright, and now also certain religio-politicalactivists – namely, Islamists.

In Norway, there’s still a strong sense ofsolidarity. Power inheres in a community basedon a shared way of life and a feeling of

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interdependence and mutual trust. Thecommunity is founded on the experience of a“we” – a “we” that supports the rights andobligations that the community takes forgranted. Democracy, as we know it today, isdependent on the fact that members of asociety trust one another and think ofthemselves as belonging together. They’rewilling to take responsibility for society asa whole, and hence for one another’s rightsand obligations – for example, for the welfarestate. If that trust and feeling ofinterdependence crumbles, society itself willbe weakened, and people will begin to acceptconditions for others that they wouldn’taccept for themselves. In such a society, anindividual’s human worth will be increasinglydependent upon his or her cultural roots – astate of affairs that we’ve observed in placessuch as France and Germany.

Not all of Norway’s citizens, to be sure,were active participants in a democraticcommunity before the recent immigration wave.Evangelical Christian groups, for example,have typically lived in more or less isolatedcommunities and had fundamental values thatdiffered from those of the majoritypopulation. But this hasn’t usuallyrepresented a challenge to the nation-state,since these groups haven’t been large enoughto cause significant social and politicaldivisions. It’s true, however, that society atlarge, in the name of diversity, has stoodidly by while members of these religiousgroups have been denied their human rights byfamily and community leaders.

Not all new citizens of Norway will beintegrated into our democratic society andembrace its basic values. We can’t expect this

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or make it our goal. But it must be our goalto ensure that most immigrants will becomefull members of society. This is especiallyimportant if we want to prevent the growth oftyrannical, subculture-based power structuresand the intensification of social andpolitical divisions between different segmentsof the population. In other words, it’s amatter of scale. The larger the number ofpeople living outside mainstream society, themore imperiled will be the survival of anational state that ensures all citizens’rights. The larger the number of people whofail to come together as part of a more orless common culture – especially insofar asits basic values are concerned – the moreseriously Norway’s solidarity will beweakened, and the more people will falloutside its protective structures. Yes, theconcept of human rights can include the ideaof rights for specific cultural groups – suchas the Sami people in northern Norway, whohave been given certain rights as a people –but in a democratic context, cultural rightsmust always be predicated on the understandingthat individual rights come first.234

The poor integration that can be observedacross Europe is not simply the result of alack of awareness of how crucial it is for newgroups to experience a sense of belonging to ademocratic community and to be integrated intoits rights and obligations. It is also theresult of years of denial, rationalization,and wishful thinking. For a long time, bothpoliticians and intellectuals ferventlyrefused to admit that there were problems withintegration; they claimed that immigrantsconstituted such a small portion of thepopulation that integration problems didn’t

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represent a challenge to society as such; andthey insisted that integration would occurnaturally over time, for of course immigrantsthemselves wanted to be full participants indemocracy. Naturally they would embrace freedom.Another means of denying or minimalizing theproblems has been to lower the bar in regardto what is meant by integration. This, Ibelieve, is what the last Norwegian governmentdid in its white paper “Diversity throughInclusion and Participation” (2003-2004). Thispaper includes the following statement aboutcommon values: “One view is that we shouldseek the broadest possible agreement – that weshould try to come closer to one another inculture and values. Another view is that weshould define a minimum set of human andpolitical rules that everyone must respect.The maximum solution – the broad community ofvalues – has as its goal to strengthen thefeeling of oneness among the citizens. Theminimum solution protects, to a larger extent,the right to be different, even if the humanrights and political rules set limits on thatdifference. This report comes closer to thelatter understanding.” It’s difficult tointerpret this in any other way than byreading it either as a retreat –politicianshave recognized that full integration of newgroups isn’t possible, and have thus loweredthe bar in regard to what’s considered anacceptable degree of integration – or as anexpression of a desire to charge full speedahead into a multicultural society. Giventoday’s level of immigration, both solutionswill lead to the development of parallelsocieties, the relativization of human valuesin accordance with ethnicity, and thesplitting up of the democratic community. In

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the long term, such developments can lead tothe collapse of a peaceful state likeNorway.235

Another crucial reason why integration hasgone awry is that we’ve denied our own values.We haven’t dared to make it clear that we’reproud of the values upon which our democracyis based. Many people consider itinappropriate to express pride in Norway andenthusiasm for its virtues. Such talk isviewed as chauvinistic, and such chauvinism isacceptable only at football games and outsidethe Royal Palace on Constitution Day. To wavethe flag for our own fundamental values iseven more problematic. When it comes tovalues, we’ve gone a long way toward pureself-effacement in public conversations anddebates – even if most of us, deep within, andin private conversations, probably do believethat other parts of the world could profit byemulating our values. When I first argued in2003 that immigrants must be assimilated intodemocracy’s basic values – equal rights, freedom ofspeech, and freedom of religion – I knew wellthat I had shoved my hand into a wasp’s nest.To this day, that statement is used against mein newspaper columns by cultural relativists,who use my remark as evidence of my supposedchauvinism and cultural imperialism. On thecontrary, isn’t it oppressive anddiscriminating to claim that immigrantsshouldn’t be able to enjoy these freedoms?

It also seems clear that we’veunderestimated the meaning of culturaldifference and the degree of Muslim oppositionto integration. We’ve essentially taken it forgranted that other people want to live by ourvalues, customs, and social conventions.Fetching marriage, which in most cases means

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family-arranged marriage, is one of manyphenomena that underscore the intensity of ourdelusion that these new groups wish “to becomelike us.” We’ve also dangerously misjudgedthe importance of those who wield power withinthese communities – from family patriarchs tocommunity leaders – who strive to thwart theintegration of individuals who wish to becomefull members of Norwegian society.

The dream of democracy

It seems as if neither Norway nor Europe atlarge has acknowledged the conditions that arenecessary to maintain a secular democracy anda well-functioning welfare state. So far,immigration levels have been much too high inrelation to our ability to integrate thegreatest possible number of new citizens intomainstream democratic society. Family-arrangedfetching marriages play a particularly strongrole in destroying the possibility ofintegration, because these marriages cause theproblems raised by first-generation immigrantsto be reproduced over and over in subsequentgenerations. The marriages, in other words,keep larger and larger groups of people lockedinto the values of their ancestral homeland.

Similarly, we’ve tolerated intolerance atthe cost of new citizens’ liberation. From apolitical perspective, immigration has becomeboth headless and planless. Slowly but surely,multicultural ideology, combined with lowlevels of integration and high levels ofimmigration, is creating de facto states withinthe state. The young people who are born here– especially those who grow up in enclaves –have no sense of belonging to the country ofwhich they are citizens. Their mothers are

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often isolated from mainstream democraticsociety, and are thus unable to help theirchildren become a part of it. Instead, youngMuslims link their identity to Islam – and arehelped to do so by national and internationalMuslim networks whose missionary work has asits long-term goal the establishment of acaliphate in Europe.

It’s precisely for this reason that so manyisolated European girls and boys sit at theircomputers with religious questions both largeand small – questions about practical dailychallenges and about what they have to do towin a life in the hereafter. So it is thatthey come to see their marginalized life hereon earth as nothing more than a passage to thehereafter. Don’t they deserve much better thanthis?

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9

Sustainable Immigration

Statistics Norway’s population forecast(SSB 2006) shows that by 2060 Norway’s non-Western immigrant population will have risento somewhere between 600,000 and 1.2 million.For Statistics Norway, the immigrantpopulation consists of immigrants and theirchildren, the assumption being that latergenerations will be “Norwegian.” The questionis this: when can a member of an immigrantgroup no longer legitimately be considered amember of that group? Statistics Norway, forits part, has decided that so-called “third-generation immigrants” – that is, the childrenof the children of immigrants – and childrenborn to one Norwegian and one foreign parentdon’t belong to the immigrant population. Thecurrent situation in Europe underscores thelimitations of Statistics Norway’s definition.Its calculation methods may well be in linewith the standard practice of professionalstatisticians, but these methods may alsoinvolve the concealment of potential, andthroughly genuine, sociopolitical problemsrelated to the growth of ethnic minorities.

One of Statistics Norway’s alternativeprognoses assumes that immigration willflatten out after 2010. In another alternativeprognosis, immigration drops. Meanwhile an

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obvious third prognosis – namely, thatimmigration will increase in proportion to theincreasing immigrant population, owing to thecontinuing practice of fetching new spouses –isn’t mentioned in Statistics Norway’s report.Statistics Norway’s assumption, once again, isthat integration will occur naturally overtime and that the minority will become moreand more like the majority – and that thiswill apply to marriage, too. This assumptionis a bold one – and is unsupported by thefacts.236

The flimsiness of Statistics Norway’sprognoses can be illustrated with a glance atonly one group: children and young people withnon-Western backgrounds in Norway today. In1980, the number of people in this group was8120. By 1990, it had risen to 28,500. In2000, the group consisted of 62,300 people. By2004, it had increased by another 20,000 to atotal of 82,700. Once again, the “thirdgeneration” isn’t included in these figures.

We’re now facing an explosion of childrenand young people with roots in non-Westerncountries who are either of marriageable ageor who will be ready to marry within a fewyears. Another calculation shows that inNorway today there are around 80,000 first-and second-generation children and youngpeople under nineteen years old with roots incountries where family-arranged marriage isthe norm.237 An exceedingly optimisticestimate is that only half of these peoplewill fetch spouses in their ancestralhomelands, which means 40,000 new immigrants.A more realistic estimate is that three out offour will fetch spouses in their ancestralhomelands, which means 60,000 new immigrantsyielded by this group alone. If this current

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group of 80,000 continues to expand at thesame rate that it has during recent years, by2015 it will already number around 150,000persons.

Economically sustainable?

Even if Statistics Norway’s predictionsturn out to be correct, we still face adramatic transformation of Norway’s populationin the coming decades. As in Sweden andDenmark, this rapid change will have negativeeconomic effects – unless a miracle occurs.Unless, that is, that Norway, unlike all otherEuropean countries, manages to achieve realeducational integration and thus also realLabour integration. There are no official costestimates of the expenses that will resultfrom immigration and integration (or the lackthereof). But there are figures on the tablethat suggest that immigration today is alreadycosting Norway dearly.

The first non-Western Labour immigrants whocame to Norway in the early 1970s were,naturally enough, all employed. Opportunitiesfor work were their only reason for cominghere. For this reason they had somewhat higheremployment levels than the majority populationand during their first years in Norway werethus an asset to the economy. But by 1997 onlyhalf of those who’d come from India, Morocco,Pakistan, and Turkey between 1971 and 1975 hadjobs.238 The fetching of spouses that followedthe initial Labour immigration has been anespecially important factor in the resultinglow employment rates and high levels ofwelfare consumption. Indeed, welfaredependency among these groups has increasedover time. Today, among Moroccans, Pakistanis,

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and Turks aged 55 to 59, respectively 67, 45,and 55 percent are on disability. One wouldexpect, to be sure, that refugees, owing inpart to the lingering psychological effect ofthe traumatic experiences that led them toseek asylum in the first place, would, as arule, have trouble entering the Labour market;yet a study shows that after a certain periodof residence in Norway, non-Western immigrants– most of whom have come here through marriage– actually have higher levels of welfaredependency than refugees. After five years inNorway, 36 percent of non-Western immigrantsare receiving one or another form of welfare.For Western immigrants, the figure is 18percent.239

Professor Kjetil Storesletten of theEconomic Institute at the University of Oslohas studied the costs of immigration in theU.S. and in a typical welfare state such asSweden. Storesletten estimates a net loss inSweden of about 170,000 kroner per non-Westernimmigrant for the entire period that theimmigrant has lived in the country.Storesletten considers this estimate aconservative one, and notes that there’slittle reason to believe that the situation issignificantly different in Norway.Storesletten believes that the study undercutsthe claim the welfare state’s need for aLabour force can be satisfied with the help oftoday’s brand of immigration.240 On thecontrary, the current form of immigration –that is, the fetching of spouses, mostly frompre-modern villages, who are unlikely ever toenter the Labour market – only intensifies thewelfare state’s difficulties in obtaining aqualified work force.

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The above-mentioned studies of the expensesoccasioned by today’s immigrants, combinedwith population forecasts showing that thedemographic clock is ticking steadily towardan ever larger non-Western immigrantpopulation, point in only one direction:toward the ultimate collapse of the Norwegianeconomy. Statistics showing that fully 40percent of immigrant students drop out ofhigher secondary school only darken theprognosis for Norway’s economic and socialhealth in the near future.241

The Confederation of Norwegian Enterprise(NHO) has acknowledged this problem as well.In June 2006 it issued the following warning:within a few years, the national petroleumfund will be depleted. This will happen as aresult of immigration by people who aren’tqualified to work and who haven’t completedtheir educations, and who thus have lowunemployment rates and high levels of welfareconsumption. If today’s immigration policycontinues, the immigrant population willquadruple by 2015. At the same time, theelderly population will skyrocket as the babyboom reaches old age. A reduction of theworkforce by seven percent, the NHO warned,will be equivalent to the loss of the entirepetroleum fund.242

Only a few days after the NHO issued thiswarning, the government revealed for the firsttime how much it was spending on welfarepayments to non-Western persons in Oslo. Justover 46 percent of welfare recipients in thecity are non-Western, and fully 55 percent ofthe city’s welfare budget goes to thisgroup.243

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Humanism and realism

Norway isn’t in a unique position, then,when it comes to having pursued a “boldproject” (to borrow a term used by Matthiessento describe today’s immigration). For manypeople, the immigrant project is still abouthumanism – about helping others to make abetter life for themselves in Norway orelsewhere in Europe. The myth is that thehigher the levels of immigration one advocatesfor, the greater one’s moral purity. Thehollowness of this myth can be illustratedwith the following depressing facts: theworld’s population is increasing dramaticallyevery year. In the last seven years,Pakistan’s population has increased by anamount equal to seven times the population ofNorway – that is, by 30 million, for a presenttotal of 162 million. By 2050, Pakistan’spopulation will have increased by anadditional 100 million, to 260 million. InTurkey, the population in 2000 was 65 million;by 2050, it’s expected to reach 103 million.The picture is nearly identical in the Arabworld and in the other countries that aremajor sources of immigration for Norway.244

You don’t have to have a remarkableimagination to be able to look at thesefigures and recognize that in years to come,formidable pressure will be exerted onEurope’s borders. When other countries arepursuing such irresponsible populationpolicies, it’s simply not possible for Europeto make everything all right by taking inmillions upon millions of new immigrants. Inthe long term, a Europe that’s falling topieces can’t do any good for anybody. It canhardly be an act of humanism to drive Norway

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and other European countries into the gutter,since humanism is, after all, also aboutsafeguarding established societies thatprovide welfare, freedom, and human rights.

No, it’s not unproblematic to be a freedom-loving human being and at the same timepropose laws and rules that may limitindividual freedom. But in the real world, newlaws and rules must be instituted precisely inorder to preserve freedom – including thefreedom of immigrant-group members who aredenied human rights by their subculture’simported tyrannies. Now, and in the past,we’ve been able to use the law to deny powerto the abusers of power and to empower thevulnerable. What we’re also talking abouthere, then, is empathy and the willingness tosacrifice our own privileges. This was themain reason why I took the position that thefetching of new spouses should be radicallyrestricted. And the more documentation I’veobtained from other European countries, themore convinced I’ve been that Europe shouldfollow the example of Denmark, the firstcountry on the continent to radically alterits immigration policy. Denmark’s approach isthe most humanistic for today’s – andtomorrow’s – Europe; and it’s thus also themost humanistic for the immigrants who livehere today and for their children’s andgrandchildren’s future.

“What is happening in the immigrationdebate is that the problems are being allowedto grow to major proportions before there issufficient will to do anything about them,”says Karen Jespersen. “And when the problemsare not major, people say that there’s not amajor problem. But there will be.”245 This isalmost exactly where we stand in Norway: we’re

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in the early phase, in which many leadingpoliticians are trying to decide whether ornot we have problems with immigrationgenerally, and what, if anything, shouldperhaps be regulated. But the most importantpolitician in the present Norwegiangovernment, integration minister Bjarne HåkonHanssen, seems to have completed the firstevaluation phase. He believes we have aproblem. In January 2006, he sent up a testballoon: he called for a debate about whetherNorway should copy Denmark’s new policy,including a higher age limit for bringingspouses to Norway and a so-called connectionrequirement. In most quarters, Hanssen wasquite simply cut down. I say “cut down,”because the arguments served up by hisopponents made it clear that the majority ofthose participating in the debate –politicians as well as journalists and editors– weren’t really acquainted with the Danishrules. Nor were they willing to lift thedebate up into a conversation about thesustainability of immigration for the survivalof democracy and the welfare state. Lackingany documentation, one after another ofHanssen’s critics went on a disingenuousfrontal attack against the “xenophobic” Danishpolicy. Few seemed to want to have a fact-based, realistic debate. What’s encouraging,however, is that Hanssen has shown repeatedlythat he sees no challenge as more important toNorway’s future than the challenge ofimmigration and integration.246

There’s a significant gulf between theexchanges underway in the arenas controlled bythe intellectual establishment and the debatestaking place online. Theintellectuals’continuous steamrollering of

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public opinion in the established media hasdriven many of those with concerns aboutimmigration to Internet blogs, where there’svigorous discussion of these issues.Immigration also seems to be increasingly atthe center of conversations in private get-togethers and at workplaces. I choose tointerpret this to mean that Norwegians ingeneral are ready for a change in immigrationpolicy.

The new Danish policy

So what do the Danish rules say about thefetching of new spouses? I’m almost entirelycertain that debates in Norway about theDanish rules will intensify in the years tocome. It can be useful, then, to be aware ofthe rules’ real-life consequences before youdecide whether or not you support them. It’salso worth noting that the principal ruleswere formulated under the Social Democraticgovernment that held power in Denmark beforethe turn of the century, but that they werenot put into effect on a large scale untilafter Fogh Rasmussen’s government took over.247

First a clarification: this is not aboutfamily reunification – that is, about a person beinggranted residency in Norway and then bringingto the country from his or her homeland apreviously established family – a spouse, andperhaps one or more children. On the contrary,the rules that are being discussed hereconcern new marriages – that is, so-calledfetching marriages.

To try to protect very young immigrantsfrom being married off in their homeland,Denmark raised from eighteen to twenty-fourthe age at which an individual is permitted to

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bring a new spouse to the country from outsidethe EU. The rule applies to everyone who livesin Denmark. The foreign party must also betwenty-four years old (cf. Necla Kelek’sconcern about the massive import of youngTurkish brides to Germany). The 24-year ruleexists mainly to protect the young from forcedmarriage – the idea being that if they’re moremature and independent when their families tryto marry them off, they’ll be better equippedto resist the pressure.

It’s unreasonable to imagine that the rulewill put a stop to all forced marriages. Butit does put the brakes on the practice. AsDenmark’s new integration minister, RikkeHvilsøj, says: “If parents, family, andrelatives in Denmark or their homeland arejolly well determined to force their willregarding a forced marriage upon a youngperson, then no law will help, including a 24-year rule.”248

The point of the rule is also to ensure, asfully as possible, that young people are ableto complete their higher educations in Denmarkand thus prepare themselves adequately for theDanish Labour market. The government alsohopes that the rule will help more youngimmigrant-group members to find partners inDenmark or in nearby countries, and thus limitthe demonstrably problematic immigration fromthese people’s non-Western homelands. Denmarkhas realized that the constant reproduction ofthe first generation of immigrants throughfetching marriages makes integration extremelydifficult, if not impossible.

The EU has ruled that member countries mayintroduce an age limit of twenty-one, and theNetherlands did so in 2004. An age limit oftwenty-one has also been proposed by the

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Norwegian government’s Aliens Law Committee.249

Such a law, though, would have limited effect.Most fetching marriages among young immigrantstake place when the spouses are betweentwenty-one and twenty-three;250 also, moststudents don’t complete their higher educationby age twenty-one.

The connection requirement has to do withthe question of where newly establishedmarried couples may settle. A person born andraised in Denmark may bring a new spouse toDenmark from his or her ancestral homeland;but if the Danish-born party has lived for atime in his or her ancestral homeland andwants to bring a new spouse to Denmark fromthat country, the Danish government’s positionis that the couple’s connection to theancestral homeland is greater than itsconnection to Denmark, and that thereunification and the couple’s life togethershould therefore take place in the country towhich their joint connection is strongest. Theparties’ ages don’t enter into thecalculations at all. Many people, includingleading politicians, claim that if a woman inDenmark wants to import a husband from outsidethe EU, Danish law demands that the husband beyounger than her. But this isn’t the case. Theconnection requirement involves an accountingof the parties’ connection to Denmark, and hasnothing to do with the age of the person whoapplies to live in Denmark.

When these rules were introduced in 2002 –along with other rules, including income andresidency requirements – the government didn’tmake a detailed study of the rules’ possibleunintended effects. The thinking was that it’seasier to introduce restrictive rules at firstand then perhaps relax them in certain

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respects, rather than to do the opposite.251

One unfortunate and unintended consequence ofthe rules soon came to light: people who, forexample, had studied for a period in a countryoutside the EU, such as Australia, and who’dfound Australian partners, lost theirconnection to Denmark as a result of the newlaw. In the autumn of 2003, accordingly, thegovernment introduced the so-called 28-yearrule. It says that if you’ve been a Danishcitizen for twenty-eight years or have residedlegally in Denmark for twenty-eight years andgrew up in Denmark, the connection requirementwill be waived.252

Thanks to the new rules, the fetching ofspouses by non-Western immigrants to Denmarkhas been dramatically reduced. Over 70 percentof the population of Denmark supports the newrules: people can see that immigration isunder greater control, and that there’s moreroom now to achieve real integration of thoseimmigrants already living in Denmark.Immigrant parents, meanwhile, find that therules give them a winning hand in theirdealings with relatives in their homelands whowant to marry off their children in order tosecure them Danish visas. When facing pressurefrom those relatives, these immigrant parentscan now point to the 24-year rule, a rule thatis absolute. It’s also been reported thatyoung people with immigrant backgrounds findthat the rules allow them time to completetheir education before they marry.253 Thewidely reported protests against the rules,which took place mostly in 2002 and 2003, camemostly from Danes who’d lost their connectionsto Denmark as a result of residence abroad.The introduction of the 28-year rule hasvirtually silenced the protests. It’s also

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very interesting to note that Denmark nowtakes in many more students and workers thanit did before the rules were changed. No fewerthan 25,000 visas for students and workerswere issued in 2005, as opposed to 12,500 in2001 – which rather bursts the balloons ofthose who are still trying to keep alive theshameful myth that Denmark is xenophobic.254

Another piece of good news from Denmark isthat more young people are now completingtheir educations. During the 2000-2001 schoolyear, only 10 percent of young people withimmigrant backgrounds between twenty andtwenty-four were in higher education; in 2003-2004, the figure had risen to 17 percent. Theage at which marriages take place has alsorisen. In 2001, the most common age ofmarriage for non-Westerners when they marriedabroad was twenty; over a period of just twoyears it rose to twenty-five.255

With the above-mentioned rules in mind,it’s especially interesting to look back atAhmed’s family in Chapter Two. If the Danishrules had been in effect when Ahmed was firstliving in Norway, the fetching of spouseswould probably have stopped with his wife.Mina and her siblings had strong ties toPakistan, where they had spent their firstyears, and would therefore have had to spendtwenty-eight years in Norway before beingpermitted to bring over a spouse. A familylike Mina’s would never have put off a child’smarriage until she was well into her thirties;thus a spouse would have been found for her –perhaps she would even have found him herself– in Norway. And as a result Mina’s tragedy,along with all the other tragedies that havebeen brought about by fetching, would havebeen averted. Mina would also have received

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the education she wanted so desperately butnever got.

Conflict with human rights?

Opponents of the Danish rules often arguethat they conflict with human rights. Theypoint to the “right to family life” enshrinedin Article Eight of the European Convention onHuman Rights Convention (ECHR). The article,however, says nothing about which of theparties’ countries that family life shouldtake place in. Nor has the European Court ofHuman Rights ever ruled a state’s rejection ofan application for spousal reunification to bean infringement of Article Eight. On thecontrary, there have been rulings which denythat a couple has the right to decide whichcountry it settles in.256

The ECHR’s Article Eight further says thatthe state can intervene when it is “necessaryin a democratic society in the interests ofnational security, public safety or theeconomic well-being of the country, for theprevention of disorder or crime, for theprotection of health or morals, or for theprotection of the rights and freedoms ofothers.” I interpret this to mean that agovernment is completely within its rightswhen it regulates immigration throughmarriage, both on human-rights and economicgrounds.

Many people also suggest that raising theage limit for the fetching of new spouses is aviolation of human rights. The argument isthat it amounts to differential treatment,favouring those who marry here at age eighteenand who are allowed to live together, andmistreating those who marry outside the EU at

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eighteen and can’t live here together. Thefact that the EU itself recommends an agelimit of twenty-one renders this argumentpretty weak.

I consider the connection requirement ahighly ingenious measure. It would keep thegreat majority of immigrants’ children inNorway. If the rule went into effect inNorway, the thousands upon thousands ofchildren here who would otherwise be sent totheir parents’ homelands for long stays in thenext few years would instead likely be kepthere. This would have a decisive impact ontheir integration. If the connectionrequirement had been in place in Norway in2002, there’s good reason to believe that Awaand her sisters wouldn’t be in Gambia today.It seems clear to me that her father’s plan isto marry his daughters off there and bringtheir husbands here. So far, the girls havelost three years’ worth of connection toNorway. Under a Danish-style rule, therefore,they wouldn’t bring husbands over from Gambiauntil they were twenty-four years old.

A full integration package must be put inplace

If we truly want to integrate people whoare already living here, it’s critical that weput rules into effect restricting the fetchingof spouses. But there’s a lot more than thisthat has to be done. We need a comprehensivepolicy for genuine integration. I’ll itemizeonly a few key points here:

To keep young people in school,Denmark has converted governmentchild benefits into educational

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support for everyone between sixteenand eighteen years old. This is aningenous measure, considering that40 percent of young Norwegianimmigrant-group members drop out ofupper secondary school.

Parents must be held responsible forthe fact that children who were bornin Norway, or who came here at agetwo or three, must be able to speakNorwegian when they start school. Itmust also be obligatory under theEducation Law to learn Norwegian.

A national register of children ingrade school must be set up, so thatthe state knows who’s actually inschool in Norway. This is crucialfor the implementation of theconnection requirement.

If parents want to send children toschool outside the EU, the schoolmust have prior approval from thegovernment. So must the child’sresidential situation. The “freeflight” of unprotected children isunworthy of a free country thatstands for human rights.

The founding of new privatereligious schools must be stopped.So far there are no Muslim schoolsin Norway, while there are severaldozen apiece in Sweden and Denmark.257

The conditions in many of theseschools have been shown to bereprehensible.258 They thwart

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integration, too. A public school isthe most important setting for theintegration of children.

In public schools, zero tolerancemust be practiced toward the specialrequirements that segregate thesexes. Zero tolerance must also bepracticed in regard to every kind ofharassment, with a special focus onprotecting girls and Jews.

Medical check-ups of children mustbe put in place in order to preventand uncover cases of genitalmutilation. As in France, parentsshouldn’t be able to collect childbenefits unless their children havevalid health cards.

To combat the rising influence ofpolitical Islam, Norway must, likeFrance, introduce a ban on thewearing of conspicuous religioussymbols by students and schoolemployees. This should also apply togovernment employees.

The automatic granting of Norwegiancitizenship to the foreign-bornchildren of Norwegian citizensencourages polygamy and should stop.The policy is especially harmful towomen, for it renders mothers abroadvirtually powerless in the face ofdemands from their husbands inNorway. Children should only beseparated from their mothers incases of deficient parenting.

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When a marriage is the basis forimmigration, it must be requiredthat the Muslim marriage contractensures the wife a real right todivorce – regardless of whether sheis the immigrating party or theparty who lived in Norway prior tothe marriage.

The fetching of new spouses who arefirst or second cousins must beforbidden.

To counteract pro forma marriage,and for other reasons, immigrantsmust be required to live in Norwayfor ten years before they canreceive Norwegian citizenship.

The Netherlands and Denmark requireforeigners to pass tests in languageand sociocultural knowledge beforethey can apply for marriageimmigration. Norway should do thesame. This is especially importantin determining new immigrants’potential success on the Labourmarket.

One of the government’s main areasof concentration is employment. It’scrucial for the integration offamilies that women enter the Labourforce, and this consideration mustguide the formulation of Labour-market measures.

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We must be careful about giving into special demands generally. Themore we give in to them, the more westrengthen community and religiousleaders in immigrant enclaves, andthe more we aid the growth ofparallel societies that impedeintegration and threaten democracy.

The various Muslim congregations’ideologies and political agendasshould be examined with an eye tore-evaluating their qualificationsfor government support.

The falsification of documents andthe purchasing of other people’sidentity documents are widespread inmajor non-Western countries. Todaywe have no control over who isactually moving to Norway. Everyonewho comes here through familyreunification or familyestablishment should be identified –for example, through fingerprints ora DNA test.259

We need a new population prognosisthat takes into account the role offetching marriages in populationgrowth – and we also have to includein the tabulations the third andfourth generations of “immigrants.”

The ethics of consistency One very serious dilemma that must be

resolved is how Norwegian authorities shoulddeal in practical terms with assaults on

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children and young people – such as Samira,who was tricked into going to Somalia anddenied her freedom, and such as Awa and hersisters, who were kept under lock and key inGambia. So far, our political leaders havesimply turned their backs on these unprotectedchildren. The question is: how shouldgovernment officials address the fact thatsome new citizens’ relationship to theirNorwegian citizenship does not seem to be anymore genuine than a pro forma marriage?

I think that some kind of radicalpreventive action needs to be taken in regardto parents and other adults who aren’t reallyinterested in full participation in Norwegiandemocracy and who view their Norwegiancitizenship as an expediency and nothing else– as the father of little Awa obviously does.It may be expedient for him, but it’s aquandary for the Norwegian state and a tormentfor his children. Do we need to introduce alaw that makes it possible to withdrawcitizenship when a Norwegian citizen exhibitstotal indifference toward Norwegian democracy,justice, and the welfare state – and when thatindifference is so powerful that it affectsthe human dignity of innocent children? And,moreover, when that citizen doesn’t needNorwegian citizenship to be protected frompersecution in another country?

The messages that are spread throughoutMuslim communities, and that led Awa’s fatherto keep his children in Gambia and to livevery comfortably on his wife’s welfarepayments, are obviously very negative:acquaint yourself with Norwegian law and theNorwegian system – in order to exploit them toyour own advantage. Abuse of the country’ssocial system is a means of showing contempt;

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if we in Norway accept this abuse, it’snothing more than an expression of our ownself-contempt.

If Norwegian officials really want toprosecute a test case against this man andothers like him in Norway, it could beattempted. It would doubtless have a distinctpreventive effect. We could also raise theconsciousness of the population generallyabout the fact that basic legal protectionsand human rights apply to everyone in Norway –no matter what an individual’s ethnicbackground may be.

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10

“Take care of the future”

Undoubtedly, it’s at the fortress of valuesthat the great integration battle is takingplace. So we shouldn’t let ourselves be fooledinto believing that being educated and havinga job, for example, are necessarily the samething as being integrated into Norwegiansociety. For an illustration of this fact, weneed look no further than the men behind the2005 London bombings: four young men, born andraised in England and all of them seeminglywell-integrated. The leader of this littlegroup, Mohammed Sidique Khan, even studied atthe University of Leeds. Could integration goany worse? Another vivid example is the fact– established by a secret 2006 British report– that British police officers with so-called“Asian” backgrounds are ten times more corruptthan their non-“Asian” colleagues; Pakistani-British police officers are especiallycorrupt. The reason for this high level ofcorruption is supposedly pressure from theofficers’ families and communities. The reportsays that officers with Pakistani backgroundslive in a money culture in which it’sconsidered one’s duty to help one’s family andwhere relatives and friends make sizable loansto one another.260

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A comparable example in Norway is that ofZahid Mukhtar, now a doctor, who as a medicalstudent publicly supported the death fatwaagainst Salman Rushdie for The Satanic Verses.261 Amore quotidian example is the statement,frequently made by young Norwegian Muslim menand women, that they can’t imagine marrying anon-Muslim. Case in point: in May 2006, youngMuslim women who were born in Norway, whoattend college, and who speak fluent Norwegiansaid without hesitation on NRK radio thatNorwegian men are entirely unthinkable asspouses.262 In the same year, young Muslims inKristiansand looked into a television cameraand proclaimed that they didn’t want to marryNorwegian girls – they wanted to “be clean.”263

The ugliest and most beautiful images

At the heart of the Norwegian struggle forintegration are four fundamental values. Thefirst is equality among all people, no matterwhat their social, religious, or ethnicbackground, and (in today’s Norway) alsowithout regard to clan, tribe, or caste. Thesecond value is sexual equality. The third andfourth are religious freedom and freedom ofexpression. For me, these values summon threeunforgettable images from recent Norwegianhistory. Two of the images are the strongestand most beautiful manifestations of equalityin Norwegian public life that I know of. Oneof the images is of an event that took placeon Christmas 2000 at the royal palace ofSkaugum. Spontaneously and playfully, QueenSonja got down on her knees on a polar-bearrug that had been allowed to keep itsfrightening head. Playing at the head of thepolar bear was a fascinated, slightly scared

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little boy – the new member of the royalfamily, Marius, whose father, a convictedfelon, had been the boyfriend of the CrownPrincess, Mette Marit, before she marriedSonja’s son, Crown Prince Haakon. The Queen’sopen embrace of Marius as a full and belovedmember of the family was a formidable blow forequality – a blow whose importance as asymbolic statement of values I think sheherself well understood. At an earlier time inNorway, children like Marius would have beenconsidered bastards. Today, many of Norway’snew citizens don’t consider such children theequal of children born in wedlock.

The next image also involves the royalfamily. When Haakon married Mette-Marit, theybroke the last barrier in the Norwegianpopulation regarding who can marry whom.Mette-Marit, not just an ordinary girl but asingle mother, was found worthy of becomingthe kingdom’s next queen. Only a few decadesearlier, this would have been unthinkable.Even though some people still criticize themarriage, Mette-Marit appears to enjoy broadacceptance among the Norwegian people. For me,the royal marriage is the single mostimportant manifestation of equality in today’sNorway. I’ve asked Muslim acquaintances inOslo what their coreligionists, generallyspeaking, think about the fact that Mette-Marit, a single mother, was permitted to marryCrown Prince Haakon Magnus. The answers areunprintable. (I’ll simply refer readers backto Chapter Eight, where I recorded some of theadjectives that Turkish students in Berlinused to describe Hatun Sürücü.)

In terms of values, the ugliest image incontemporary Norwegian politics is of anencounter that took place in the government

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offices in Oslo. In August 2004, Qazi HusseinAhmad, the aforementioned leader of theextremist Pakistani party Jamaat-i-Islami, wasgiven permission to travel to Norway. Hereceived this permission even though he, anIslamist, had been denied entry into severalother countries, such as the Netherlands, onsecurity grounds. That wasn’t all: Ahmad wasalso granted an official meeting with the thenintegration minister, Erna Solberg. When thedecision was made to have conversations withhim – a man who stands for an internationalIslamic revolution and a caliphate in whichMuslims would rule over other people, wherecriticism of religion would be consideredblasphemy and be punished with death, andwhere the view of women would be of a sortthat we’ve never experienced at any point inNorwegian history – one might expect thatSolberg would have waved the banner ofNorwegian values high. Or that she would, atthe very least, have reached out to him herfully equal Norwegian hand. But no: Solbergput one hand on her chest and bowed – greetinghim in precisely the way that an Islamistwould expect a woman to greet him. A moreillustrative picture of a value-relatedprostration on Norwegian soil I have neverwitnessed. I’m inclined to interpret Solberg’saction as indicative of a lack of knowledgeabout the man she was meeting; either that orshe was sending out, in the name of democracy,a misguided gesture to Ahmad’s Norwegian-Pakistani followers. The gesture, in any case,amounted to an expression of disdain for thehousewives of all the Pakistani men whocheered Ahmad during his Norway visit, and abetrayal of all freedom-loving Norwegian-Pakistanis in Norway. The gesture may also

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have been the expression of a misguidedhumility. When we visit other cultures, wefollow the unwritten rule: “When in Rome, doas the Romans do.” Solberg acted as if “Romeis also Norway,” and thereby enacted anabsolute cultural self-subordination on herown country’s soil.

Things we don’t want to see with our own eyes

If we hope to keep Norway’s seculardemocracy, welfare state, and sense ofinterdependent community from breaking down,it’s utterly obligatory that we have a popularawakening in regard to values. In thisconnection, there are three points that Iconsider especially important. The first pointhas to do with Islamism’s comprehensiveness.The second has to do with veils on Muslimgirls and women. And the third concernsfamily-arranged marriage. At the heart of allthree points is the struggle for the souls ofgirls and women.

First, let’s look at family-arrangedmarriage – a topic about which Norwegiansociety has exhibited a sensationalforgetfulness in regard to our own history anda tendency to deny our own values. Family-arranged marriage is incompatible with basicdemocratic values: equal rights, sexualequality, religious freedom, and freedom ofexpression. Family-arranged marriage doesn’testablish equality between the sexes; on thecontrary, it helps to maintain the oppressionof women and encourages the tyranny of beauty.On the “marriage market,” the ideal futurebride is the certified virgin. It is preciselyfor this reason that the youngest availablegirls are the ones that are most valuable in

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the marketplace, since they’re the ones leastlikely to have been “defiled.” There must beno suspicion that she’s willful and thuspotentially insubordinate. There should not bedoubt that she understands and accepts hersubordinate wifely role. Nor must there be anyquestion as to whether she’s fertile. As thefirst young woman I met who had been forced tomarry said to me: “I was considered a goodprospect because I’m wide in the hips.” Theremust also be a guarantee that she’s learnedher housewifely duties down to her fingertips.And the chastity of her sisters, aunts,mother, and other female relatives must bebeyond question. If their honour is “soiled,”then it will be said that “she has it in hergenes.” The prospective groom encountersvirtually no comparable demand for sexualpurity on the marriage market. This can beillustrated by a Pakistani saying: “A man islike a horse. No matter how dirty he becomes,he can always be washed clean. But a dirtywoman can never be washed clean.”

On the subcontinent, the prospective brideis evaluated with regard to her hair, herfacial skin, her teeth, the shape of her nose,her eyes, her waist, her breasts, her hands,and her feet. The ideal hair is long andthick. The skin must be free of blemishes, andthe paler it is, the better. The teeth shouldbe unstained, normal in size and not crooked.The nose must not be big, and it should have agentle curve. Large almond eyes with longeyelashes are regarded as most beautiful. Thebride should have a womanly figure: a smallwaist and breasts that can contain plenty ofmilk are preferable. She must not be too slim,since this can be interpreted as a sign of lowfertility; nor must she be overweight, since

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slimness is the ideal.264 Her hands and feetshould be small and narrow.

The requirements for the groom have less todo with his looks than his social status andfinances. Possibly the most important thingabout his appearance is his skin colour – thepaler he is, the more attractive he’sconsidered to be. (Recall that Mina wasmarried off to “the ugliest” – i.e., thedarkest – of the candidates for her hand.)265

What’s crucial is the future husband’spotential as provider and protector.

On this marriage market, equality isconspicuous by its absence. One marries one’sown. Marriage within the family is oftenpreferred because such marriages guarantee“clean merchandise.” Even those who ventureoutside their families still marry withintheir own ethnic group, clan, caste, or tribe.Others – outsiders – are unworthy of beingconsidered as potential mates. At bottom,then, this custom is extremely discriminatoryand, in practice, explicitly racist.

The inequality also leads to a lack ofreligious freedom. It’s just as unthinkable toseek a prospective spouse outside one’s ownreligion as outside one’s own ethnicity, clan,caste, or tribe. The marriage market is thusreligiously homogeneous.

And what about freedom of speech? A glanceat the Norwegian media provides the answer:how many articles have been published in whichpeople whose native cultures embrace family-arranged marriage say that they reject thecustom, that they want to marry out of love,and that a prospective spouse’s ethnicity orreligious background doesn’t matter? Answer:extremely few. And those few, most likely, arethemselves married to people whom they chose

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out of love and live outside the Muslimcommunities as integrated members of Norwegiansociety. But how often, by contrast, do youread interviews in which young and middle-agedpeople alike laud family-arranged marriage?Very often – which is hardly surprising, giventhat those who live in Muslim communities knowwhat will happen to them if they criticizearranged marriage. Such a critic is seen as adissident, a traitor to his or her ownculture. He or she has become “Norwegian” (or,as they say, a “cocoanut” – “brown outside andwhite inside”). Muslim girls and women whocriticize the institution are condemned withparticular intensity. To support an openmarriage market on which young people areallowed to seek out love and romance is almostsynonymous with speaking up for sexualityoutside of marriage; it represents totalrebellion against the entire extended-familypower system – indeed, rebellion against Islamitself. In such a way is free speech aboutfamily-arranged marriage silenced.

Obedience is also a key factor. Respect forone’s parents’ wishes is a hard and fast lawin Islam. The Cairo Declaration reflects thisreality when it says that “parents areentitled to certain rights fromtheir children…in accordance with the tenetsof the Shari’ah.” What I think theDeclaration is referring to here, above all,is parents’right to be obeyed, to marry offtheir children, and to be taken care of intheir old age.266

Family-arranged marriages create theoptimal conditions for the violation of thehuman right to marry in accordance with one’sown wishes. They also violate the human-rightsprinciple of equality between men and women,

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and the principle of religious equality andfreedom. This kind of marriage is a blast fromthe past – from a time when human rights was anon-concept.

It’s as if we’ve forgotten our greathistorical figures from the nineteenth century– authors like Amalie Skram, Jonas Lie,Alexander Kielland, Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson,Henrik Ibsen, and Camilla Collett, to mentionthe most important. All of them rebelledagainst the oppressiveness of the system ofarranged marriage in their own day, especiallyas it was practiced among the well-to-do. InKommandørens døtre (The Commodore’s Daughters) byJonas Lie (1886), we meet the distinguished,strong-willed commodore, who wants to marryhis daughters off without regard for theirfeelings. In Amtmannens døtre (The District Governor’sDaughters) by Camilla Collett (1854-55), a youngwoman named Sofie is ruined because she daresto express her feelings. After publishing thisbook, which caused widespread offense, Collettwas expelled from polite society for overthirty years.267 The reviewers were merciless.They felt that Collett had exaggerated – hadcherry-picked a few accounts and generalizedthem into a social problem. Collett answeredthe complaints twenty years later in herpreface to the novel’s third edition, writingthat her book’s title could just as well havebeen A Country’s Daughters: “It gives, considerablysoftened, a description of the kind of lifethat awaited the daughter in the more well-bred classes….In my long life, spent underthese conditions, I hadn’t experiencedanything other than tragedies in families,nor, as far as the tradition goes back, heardany report of anything else.” To those whothought she was generalizing from a handful of

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unhappy stories about love-hungry souls (anaccusation often leveled at critics ofarranged marriage in Norway today), Collettsaid this: “Keep quiet about the truth: oursociety’s rules are organized and adopted insuch a way that the women’s happiness dependsonly on a possibility, a mere chance, that isapproximately as calculable as outcome of astate lottery drawing in which one has aticket.” She also emphasizes that herdescription is considerably toned down because“it would be all too alarmingly sudden to tearthe veil away from conditions that we’ve allagreed not to see with our own eyes.”

The way in which contemporary Norway hasbetrayed its own Sofies (and its own versionsof Bjørnson’s Øivind Plassen, the poor boy whocouldn’t marry the farm girl Marit) is, to putit mildly, scandalous. It’s also scandalousthat intellectuals, then as now, claim thatromantic feelings are something Western, that“we” must respect the fact that “others” marryfor practical reasons.268 As if romance hadanything to do with genetics! Such thinkingon the part of Norwegians reflectscondescension both in terms of culture andvalues. What’s striking about thiscondescension is that Norwegian policyeffectively rewards a custom that’s contraryto basic democratic values: family-arrangedfetching marriage between strangers orrelatives – whose first encounter usuallytakes place on another continent and on theirwedding night – is rewarded with immigrationand a Norwegian passport.

Are undemocratic Muslims good for Norway?

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One of those who have warned of the dangerof Islamism in Europe is a man whoseexperience makes him worth listening to. MehdiMozaffari, a profesor at Aarhus University, isthe first professor of Islam in Denmark.Mozaffari fled Iran in the late 1970s, whenthe Islamists began to march – a march thatended in 1979 with the world’s first Islamicrevolution. In the strongest possible terms,Mozaffari calls Islamism the totalitarianideology of our times, on a par with Nazism,fascism, and Communism. The shared attributesof these ideologies are Jew-hatred and abelief in supermen: “Nazism, fascism, andBolshevism are now no longer powerfulideologies; Islamism is the totalitarianideology and movement of our time. And it hasa dimension that the three others didn’t have:the religious. This makes it even moredangerous. Stalin, Hitler, and Mussolini triedto justify their decisions using ordinaryhuman reason: people would be mobilized tomake war for worldly motives. But Islamismdoesn’t need reason; it’s based on a religiousobligation. One is loyal not to a state or aleader, but to Allah.”269

The parallels between Islam and, forexample, Nazism and fascism are far fromstrained. One of Germany’s leadingintellectuals, Hans Magnus Enzenberger, alsopoints out this fact in his book Men of Fear: TheRadical Loser (2006). Enzenberger shows, forexample, how the Communists’ revolutionaryproject, the world proletariat, has beenreplaced by the umma, and Mao, Marx, and Leninby the Koran: “The party is no longer themasses’ self-appointed representative; thatrole has been taken over by the Islamistwarriors’ widely ramified conspiratorial

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network.” It’s also a historical fact thatthere were intimate ties between Hitler andMussolini and leaders of the Arab world.270

Hitler and Mussolini had deep respect andadmiration for the aggressive and violentelements of Islam, especially in armedwarfare. The Nazis’ positive view of Islamismcan also be observed in Norway today: the neo-Nazi Norwegian group Vigrid admires Hamas forthe same reasons that Hitler did – namely, itsviolent and militant aspects.271 Similarly,the Arab leaders’ affection for Germany wasgrounded in the hope that Hitler would succeedin wiping out the Jews.272

Mozaffari believes that Europeanpoliticians have yet to realize that Islamismthreatens the continent’s free seculardemocracies. He notes that democracy isfounded on the principle that all people havethe same human worth: “In Islam they don’t.Infidels don’t have the same rights asbelievers.” Mozzafari notes another crucialdifference: that in democratic states laws areformulated and passed by elected officials,while Islamic sharia law “is God-given” andtherefore can’t be changed by mere humanbeings. According to Mozzafari, our task is to“annihilate a number of taboos in order to getMuslims to fully accept equality and theunderstanding of democracy that we regard asnatural in Denmark.”273

When he uses the word “taboos,” Mozaffariis alluding to the Muhammed cartoons, which hebelieves Islamists exploited in order toattack the basic pillars of democracy. It wasfor this reason that Mozaffari, during thecartoon riots, joined eleven otherintellectuals – including Salman Rushdie andAyaan Hirsi Ali – in issuing an international

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manifesto against Islamism.274 The manifesto,which eulogized democracy and condemnedIslamism, chided Western politicians, media,and opinion-makers who directly or indirectlysupported “a certain form of self-censorshipand censorship in order to oblige theIslamists.” Mozaffari notes that Islamistsare using globalization as an argument forcensorship and self-censorship: “They say thatthe West, in a globalized world, shouldrespect other cultures: for example, the pressshould not be able to print drawings of theprophet Muhammed. But what this amounts to isthem forcing their own culture on us….If wegradually give in to those who don’t want ademocratic society, there’s a danger ofsuccumbing, step by step, to a spirit ofresignation, because they shout loudly, burnembassies, and beat people to death.”Mozzafari says explicitly that Europeandemocracy is already in a struggle againstIslamism: “It’s a struggle that can’t end incompromise. You can’t take a little democracyand a little dictatorship and make a synthesisout of it. It’s either/or.”

The Satanic Verses was far more blasphemousthan the Muhammed cartoons. Rushdie portrayedMuhammed as both devil and gigolo, anddepicted the holy city of Mecca as a bordellowhere Muhammed’s favourite wife, Aisha, wasthe most expensive whore. But after theRushdie fatwa, the author was ferventlydefended in Norway and throughout Europe. FewEuropeans cautioned against offendingreligion. Several European countries evenresponded to the death threats against Rushdieby calling home their ambassadors. Why did somany people react so differently to thecartoon controversy? Mozaffari believes that

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the reason is that we’ve come to take freedomof speech for granted: “Until now we’ve hadthe privilege of believing that freedom ofspeech is free. Now we’re discovering thatfreedom of speech can also cost something. Itwill cost income, jobs, freedom, security. Arepeople ready to pay only a fraction of theprice that so many other fighters for freespeech – in the Arab world, in the SovietUnion, in China – have had to pay?”275

Ten years from now, Europe will be home toabout twenty-five million young Muslims. Ifthese young people aren’t brought up tosupport secular democracy, we’ll face adangerous scenario: “An undemocraticpopulation of young Muslims will constitute asignificant power bloc in Europe and perhapsDenmark,” says Mozaffari. “It’s the worstscenario.” He warns in the strongest termsagainst making concessions to anti-democratic,intolerant forces in the name of tolerance. Onthe contrary, Islam’s entry into Europerequires that we revive the same methods thatwere employed during the Enlightenment. “Ifpeople criticize Muslims, they’re perceived asintolerant and discriminatory – in otherwords, reality is turned on its head. Muslimsare people like all others and should not bejudged by any other measure.” Mozzafaribelieves that we must learn from our ownEnlightenment and the criticism ofChristianity that was an integral part of it:“When you criticize something holy, it’ssuddenly not so holy anymore. It isnormalized.”276

“Norway has acquired a people of faith”

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After the Muhammed cartoons appeared andthe Islamist storm broke – both at home and inthe Muslim world – the Danish government madeno concessions. Prime Minister Anders FoghRasmussen was crystal clear in his statementsabout democracy and religion. He pointed outthat European countries owed their enormousprogress over the past few centuries to thefact “that there had been people who had thecourage to provoke. Some were even calledheretics, and it cost other people’s lives.But it is liberating that there were some whodared to take on the heretical task ofinsisting that the world was not flat, butround. In a totally fundamental sense, thishas to do with the fact that enlightened andfree societies advance further thanunenlightened and unfree societies, preciselybecause some people dare to provoke andcriticize authority, whether it is politicalor religious authority.”277 Fogh Rasmussennoted that there had also been controversyabout the boundaries of free speech inrelation to Christianity, and that criticismof religion always gets people worked up. Henonetheless warned firmly against letting afear of extremists’ reactions silencenecessary criticism: “If that fear is allowedto paralyze our freedom of expression, then itwill paralyze our democratic government, andthen the radical circles will have achievedjust what they want. We’ll limit our freedomof expression and live another way. We’ll beso scared by the threats that we’ll suddenlycurb ourselves and no longer dare to lead ourlives and live up to those principles that wewould like our society to be founded on.”

Just over half a year later, in May 2006,when both the riots and the debate about the

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Muhammed cartoons had calmed down, FoghRasmussen wrote an op-ed for the Danishnewspaper Politiken. In it, he argued thatreligion should occupy a smaller part of thepublic space, and pointed out how important itis to distinguish clearly between politics andreligion. If this distinction isn’tmaintained, he warned, society will fallbehind, and the nation’s sense of solidaritywill also be weakened: “There is a reason toissue a warning about fundamentalists andfundamentalism in every camp. Religion cantake freedom and personal responsibility awayfrom people….It becomes totally grotesque whenit is demanded that people today uncriticallyand literally obey ingenious interpretationsof rules set forth in thousand-year-old holyscriptures. It is pure darkening. Finally,there is a risk that fundamentalist religionwill, quite simply, put the brakes ondevelopment and progress. This is trueespecially if the religion places itself abovescience and education and forbids research andeducation in certain scientific areas ortheories that might clash with religiousdogmas. Such societies are doomed to fallbehind in renewal and development, growth andprosperity….we should be more aware of thoseprinciples and attitudes that have madeDenmark a society with a strong feeling ofcommunity. We will do this by insisting thatreligion is, above all, a private matter.”278

Fogh Rasmussen’s tone in this op-ed couldhardly be more different from the tone takenby the Norwegian government during the cartooncrisis. At that time, Norway’s leaders went along way towards fulfilling Islamist demandsfor censorship and self-censorship. The mantrawas “yes, we have full freedom of expression,

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but not all expression is wise,” and the clearinsinuation was that the first Norwegiannewspaper to print a fascimile of the Jyllands-Posten cartoons, Magazinet, had acted indefensiblyand unethically. It was said that “freedom ofspeech” is not the same as “the obligation tospeak.” In the heat of the controversy, weheard these words from Foreign Minister JonasGahr Støre: “Norway has acquired a people offaith.” Støre’s statement was an unambiguousreference to the desire for respect for (many)Muslims’ religious sensitivity. But doesn’tsuch a statement generalize about, and thusstigmatize and discriminate against, people inNorway whose roots are in Muslim cultures?Isn’t it also an indirect expression ofdisdain for all other groups’ beliefs, whetherthey’re Jews, Hindus, Catholics, Buddhists,Sikhs, Protestants, or atheists? And doesn’tit betray a lack of awareness of what candrive a society into the gutter – in regard tosolidarity as well as development, growth, andprosperity? And finally, doesn’t itinvalidate our ancestors’ struggle forfreedom, which is the entire foundation forimmigration from non-Western countries?

My enthusiasm for Christian conservativethinking is extremely limited; I am not myselfa personal believer. But in early 2006, in theheat of Norway’s own national crisis over theDanish cartoons, it was hard not to feelsympathy for the editor of the Christiannewspaper Magazinet, Vebjørn Selbekk. To be sure,he played his part in encouraging thegovernment’s open mixture of politics andreligion – a cause which is perhaps close tohis heart – but the treatment he received atthe hands of both politicians and the mediawas way out of bounds. He was essentially

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labeled an extremist on a par with the violentradicals of the Muslim world. It wasunsettling to see a person who represents nothreat whatsoever to peace or to seculardemocracy being linked with such people. Andas far as the ill-timed mixture of politicsand religion was concerned, the Norwegiangovernment outdid itself when it called apress conference at which the “enemies” – theIslamic Council of Norway and Selbekk – werereconciled. Selbekk apologized for thedramatic consequences that his publication ofthe cartoons had had for Norway’sinternational position. He apologized for themurders that had been committed in the Muslimworld by violent Islamists, and for havingoffended Muslims’ religious feelings; itshould be noted that he didn’t apologize for hisfreedom of speech. The Islamic Councilaccepted his apology, and Selbekk, who hadbeen threatened with death, was given thecouncil’s “protection” – that is, the councilwould see to it that he would not beassassinated. The council turned itself, thatis, into a judicial authority of the Kingdomof Norway – and the government didn’t object.On the contrary, every TV viewer in Norwaycould see that the cabinet members werethoroughly satisfied with the reconciliation.The fear of reprisal was abating. Thegovernment submitted to Islam – Islam, whichof course literally means submission.

The Islamic Council praised the governmentfor its exemplary handling of the case – ithad, after all, taken the side of the so-called offended party. Next thing we knew, twoof the council’s members and a leadingofficial of the Norwegian Church – Olav DagHauge, Dean of the Oslo Cathedral – were in

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Qatar, at the expense of the Foreign Ministry,for friendly conversations with the Islamists’“pope,” Yusuf al-Qaradawi. To Aftenposten on 14February 2006, Hauge said that he “got to meeta person who was open, who wanted dialogue,and who was not extreme, as far as I can see.He was very clear about the fact that hewanted dialogue and peace.” Hauge also saidthat al-Qaradawi was satisfied with theNorway’s handling of the matter: “Al-Qaradawiclearly stated that further measures on thepart of Norway are not necessary, now that theapology has been made. He is satisfied withthe Norwegian reaction….He has now dropped allthe demands he made of Norway.” Thus did theworld’s leading Islamist ideologue – a manwho, with a fatwa, can mobilize millions ofMuslims – gain entry into the Norwegianpolitical arena. It’s precisely for thisreason that Walid al-Kubaisi considers al-Qaradawi more dangerous than Osama binLaden.279

The Norwegian government’s handling of thecrisis created by Islamists in Denmark and inparts of the Muslim world was, in my opinion,a setback for serious critical reflection. Atthe finish line of its ideological slalom run,the government trampled the spirit of theEnlightenment, thereby betraying secularMuslims who want to live free lives and thinkfor themselves. The government grantedIslamists in Norway a larger role in thepublic arena. “It was a pure darkening,” toborrow Fogh Rasmussen’s words. You could callthe Norwegian government’s action a preventivecapitulation, motivated by a fear of (perhaps)losing billions in future oil revenues,combined with a fear that extremists’ threatsof violence would be carried out on Norwegian

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soil. If the government’s “respect” for itsIslamist interlocutors was founded on fear,it’s a despicable respect, for it’s really notabout genuine respect at all but about givingin to tyranny. Also dropped down the memoryhole was the simple history lesson is thatit’s individuals – not gods or prophets –whose freedom needs to be safeguarded.

What we also witnessed, in all probability,was a forewarning of more inflamed religio-political issues that may find their way ontothe Islamists’ agenda. A particularly obviousexample is the demand that sharia law shoulddecide whether Muslim women can get a divorce.

Offense and sensitivity

The new vocabulary of power that manifesteditself in the assault on freedom of expressionincluded the term “to offend”: to offendreligious feelings, or (more correctly) tooffend religious dogmas. Few noted the obviousoffense given to the foundations of democracy.Nobody remembered that Collett, in The DistrictGovernor’s Daughters, had also given offense. Nordid anyone point out that Ibsen, in his time,had insulted myths, dogmas, and the abusers ofpower, or that Bjørnson, too, had rebelledagainst inequality. There was also silenceabout the historic speech given by the authorArnulf Øverland to a students’ organization in1931: “Christianity, The Tenth Plague.” Earlyin his speech, Øverland had said the followingwords, which today are again relevant:

“This is probably blasphemy. Then again,I’m not so sure exactly what it is. I onlyknow that even though I’m right, the priestswill start to scream and carry on, becausesomebody has offended them – or has scoffed at

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God, which amounts to more or less the samething.

“If, for example, they aren’t given theright to determine the National Theater’srepertoire – if, for example, we heathens,those of us who go to the theater, want to seea drama that isn’t particularly religious,they become sensitive and sore, and thenthere’s screaming and complaining beyondcompare.

“But what should one do now? I’mseriously afraid that anyone who tries to givea clear and honest account of the Christianfaith will inevitably be found guilty ofblasphemy.” Øverland was indeed prosecutedfor blasphemy, but was freed after defendinghimself. He was never threatened with death byreligious or political extremists; nor werethere violent riots. Many a Christian leaderwas offended by him, but this didn’t result inpeople beginning to put limits on theirspeech. On the contrary – Øverland kicked inthe doors that have remained open ever since.

When it really counted, then, all of ouroffended foremothers and forefathers wereforgotten. Nor did anybody here in Norway takenote of the most macabre action of our timewhere religious offense is concerned. I’mreferring to the two thousand-year-old Buddhastatues in Afghanistan – treasures of worldculture – that the Islamist Taliban governmentblew up in March 2001. In response, noBuddhists held violent street riots, burnedflags, or set fire to embassies. Nor did anyIslamist movements or governments in theMuslim world loudly protest the offense givenby the Taliban to the Buddhist religion andculture. Nor did we see massive Muslimdemonstrations. As Hans Magnus Enzenberger

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says, “To wound the infidels’ feelings iseveryday fare….There are loud demands forrespect, but they show no respect for others.”Indeed, offending people who think differentlybelongs “to the Islamic media’s standardrepertoire” and the detonation of the Buddhastatues “is understood in Afghanistan as anaction welcomed by God” (2006:40ff).

For the purposes of integration, it’s hardnot to conclude that Norway’s handling of theMuhammed cartoon crisis was a setback. TheIslamists’ power was manifested in their viewof the world as consisting of two antagonisticspheres: the world-embracing ummah – thecommunity of believers that crosses lines ofrace and nationality – and “the rest of us.”And now almost all of us have become moresensitive and scared to carry on theEnlightenment heritage – a heritage that mustbe preserved if we’re to survive as a freesecular democracy. What we need now, in thewake of the Muhammed cartoons, are more peoplewho follow in Øverland’s footsteps and dare tobe heretics and give offense by formulating an“Islam, the Eleventh Plague.” As Ayaan HirsiAli puts it: “Let us [Muslims] have aVoltaire” (The Caged Virgin, p. 41).

In the months surrounding the controversy,I received several highly revealingcommunications from uneasy writers andjournalists. One of them, who’d written a bookthat was in the process of being printed, readaloud to me some excerpts that touched onIslam, then asked: “Do you think I can bekilled for these sentences?” Another authorhad the same concern, and asked me whethercertain passages about Muhammed in amanuscript that hadn’t yet been submitted forpublication would make the author’s son

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fatherless. Yes, Europe has definitelyacquired an “incomprehensible enemy within,”as Naser Khader noted in Berlingske Tidende on 2April 2006. Islamists are using benevolentmulticultural ideology as a cover to introducesharia bit by bit. The European democracieswill be forced to wear fetters – and sell outdemocracy. The Islamists were not seeking anapology for the fact that centuries-old Arabicimages of Muhammed, the armed warlord, weremodernized in Jyllands-Posten into a Muhammed witha bomb. What they were after was tosubordinate our society, step by step, totheir ideology and culture.

The veil, the Star of David, and the swastika

Which brings us to the most powerful symbolof the way in which Norwegian politicians onboth sides of the political fence are workinghand in hand with Islamists to help advanceIslam’s interests in Norway. These areNorwegians who, in their blind friendlinessand naivete, behave the same way that theWestern “friends of the Soviet people” didtoward Communism – the ones whom Lenin called“useful idiots.” The symbol in question –which I think of as the Islamists’ “engine ofwar” – is the veil. It’s placed on Muslimgirls and women to consolidate theirsubordinate position, and to ensure theircontinued non-integration into a freemainstream society. It guarantees that theywon’t have the same rights as other women. Itis, make no mistake, an ideological weapon – ameans of taking power in the public space: themore females who wear the veil, the greaterthe influence political Islam will have on

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people’s daily life, and the closer theIslamists will come to ”paradise on earth.”

An article on the Islamic Cultural Center’swebsite illustrates clearly the apartheidnature of the veil: “As a Muslim, the womanshould make herself beautiful with a veil ofhonour, dignity, virtue, purity, andintegrity. She should avoid all actions andgestures that might excite the passions ofpeople other than her husband or trigger evilsuspicions about her morality. She is warnedagainst exposing her charms or showing off herphysical attractions to people she does notknow. The veil she must put on is a veil thatcan save her soul from weakness, her mind fromwandering, her eyes from lecherous glances,and her personality from demoralization. Islamis highly preoccupied with the woman’sintegrity, with the protection of her moralsand sexual morality, and with concern for hercharacter and personality.”280

The veil, then, strengthens socialsubordination. It also represents enormouspolitical power. One of the few who haveunderstood this is Mehdi Mozaffari. Mozaffarihas been at the center of Islamists’ strugglefor the souls of women: he taught at theUniversity of Teheran in the late 1970s, whenthe Islamic Revolution was brewing. It’s worthattending to Mozaffari’s account of whathappened when Islamist students turned up withveils: “The other girls didn’t dare not to dothe same. They were afraid that they would beregarded as indecent. I remember that when thegirls from the well-educated classes put onthe headscarf in order to be left in peace,they chose the stylish Parisian headscarf. Butthen the headscarf turned into the fullycovering veil. It ended with an Islamic

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revolution.”281 Of course Mozaffari doesn’tmean that the Iranian Revolution itself can beexplained by the veil. What he’s pointing tois the veil as political symbol – the powerthat lies within it and the political shiftsthat it reflects and portends.

Another Iranian refugee in Europe has hadthe same experience as Mozaffari. Her name isChadortt Djavann, she lives in France, andshe’s an anthropologist and author. Djavannhas dissected the veil’s role in the Islamiststruggle against European values.282 Herconclusion, as discussed in an article by theDanish writer Helle Merete Brix, is that theveil is “the Islamists’ foremost engine ofwar” in the public space. For Djavann, Europeis “the Islamists’ ideal Labouratory.” Indemocratic Europe, the Islamists, largelywithout government interference, are able toestablish Islamist norms and rules in thepublic square and at educational institutionson various levels, especially where sexualityand marriage are concerned. The veil is theparamount symbol of the Islamists’ ongoingideological struggle, which is a struggleagainst the integration of Muslims, againstWestern values, and against women’sliberation. Women must be covered so that menwon’t be tempted. Covering women advances theMuslim order. Djavann explodes the myth of the“innocent veil.” As she makes clear, therehas never been a Muslim veil whose purpose wasnot to indicate the subordinate status ofwomen. The veil identifies the woman as anobject and reduces her to a sex organ. InDjavann’s view, then, the veil is – quitesimply – pornographic.

Precisely how the veil contributes to thesexualization of women became clear to me in

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1994 when I was visited by a woman fromPakistan. She’d never been in the West before.The experience unsettled her – in a positivesense. She was astonished that she could walkfreely in the street without any covering,meet men’s eyes, respond to smiles, sit aloneat a café – all without being sexuallyharassed! She’d never experienced this in herhomeland, even though she’d always been veiledin public. “For the first time in my life,”she said one day, “I know what it’s like to betreated like a human being and not a sexobject.”

For me, the veil is also the most effectiveexpression of a refusal to take part indemocratic society. Djavann is on to exactlythe same thing when she says that the primaryreason for veiling women is to underscorewomen’s commercial value: the covered woman isa commodity – one that only Muslim men candeal in. She’s the property of the Muslim menin her family, and can only be purchased byanother Muslim man. The veil is an indicationthat the woman wearing it belongs only toMuslim men and to men who want to convert toIslam.

A key question is this: can Islam existwithout the veil? Djavann says that Islamcan, but not Islamism. For Islamism, the veilis “the emblem, the flag, and the key to theIslamic system.”

The West’s “useful idiots,” however, regardthe veil as a matter of individual choice.They smoothly overlook the fact that manygirls and woman are forced to wear the veil(cf. the above-mentioned study by Courneuvre,which revealed considerable fear of divergingfrom the veiled masses). In such countries asIran, Saudi Arabia, and Afghanistan, the

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choice for women is simple: either choosesubordination or be punished. Djavann urgesEuropean supporters of the veil to open theireyes to the Islamists’ strategy. Islamism’simperialistic ideology is reflected, shebelieves, in the mobs’ shouts of “Allahakhbar!” (Allah is the greatest) as well as inthe use of the veil. To cover women is a meansof humbling and winning over Muslim women whomight be tempted to liberate themselves fromIslamism’s system and ideology. This is whythe veil is an “engine of war.”

For me the veil also brings to mind twovery different symbols: the Star of David andthe swastika. The Star of David, because theveil symbolizes women’s subordinated positionand limited rights; she’s an underling, bothmorally and intellectually. The swastika,because Islamists regard Muslims as supermenwho are intended to reign over others. Toquote the Koran, sura 3, verse 110: “You arethe best community ever raised among thepeople.” And “the best community” is supposedto rule over the other people, who undersharia law are accorded the subordinate roleof so-called dhimmis – that is, non-Muslimswho are given protection by Muslim authoritiesif they willingly submit to those authorities.They are accorded limited rights and must paya special tax to the Muslim state. As theKoran says (sura 9, verse 29): “You shallfight back against those who do not (…) abideby the religion of truth - among those whoreceived the scripture - until they pay thedue tax, willingly or unwillingly.”

In the debate about the veil, the “usefulidiots” and spokespeople for Muslimorganizations cite the right to be different,invoke religious and individual freedom, and

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argue that the veil gives women a secureidentity. By wearing the veil and wide coat,they claim, women escape the tyranny ofbeauty. Isn’t it about time that the veil’ssupporters recognize what it is they’reprotecting and promoting? Isn’t it about timethey realize who they’re colLabourating with –namely, the Muslim Brotherhood, Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the Islamist communities in Norwayand an ideology that is “pure darkening”?

And what about Muslim women themselves? Ofcourse not all those who wear the veil areforced to do so; nor are they all Islamists intheir hearts and minds. Some wear it out ofhabit, having first learned to do so inearliest childhood. Others do it because ofgroup pressure or family pressure. For stillothers, it’s a way of communicating theirrejection of mainstream society and itsfundamental values. Some believe that theirreligion demands it. And some are motivated byIslamist ideology. Perhaps what’s moststriking is how unaware veiled women are ofthe values they’re communicating. Few,moreover, take responsibility for the factthat by wearing the veil they’re promotingapartheid-like values, and helping to pressureother women into wearing it. It can’t be, canit, that Muslim women are born victims?

Is Norway worth defending?

Norway today is different from the Norwayof twenty years ago. And in twenty years itwill be different from the Norway of today.But there are certain fundamental elements ofNorwegian society about which we clearly needa broad debate. We need a debate, for example,about why intolerance is tolerated in the name

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of tolerance. We need a debate about whichvalues and social structures in Norway areworth defending. We need a debate about thereasons why we’ve become one of the world’sbest countries to live in – which of coursehas to do with a lot more than our oilbillions. In this debate it has to bepermissible to raise high the banner of values– without being self-effacing or (on the otherhand) overvaluing ourselves. Our focus must beon democracy – and on how we can maintaincitizens’ feeling of belonging to Norwegiansociety. Our focus must be on preservingsolidarity through common language,fundamental values, and knowledge about ourhistory and culture – the glue that holds ustogether as a people.

We must also be on guard againstcontracting the “Swedish disease.” In Sweden,which can perhaps be characterized as the mostpolitically authoritarian country in WesternEurope, the political and intellectual elite,with plenty of help from a generally servilenational media, has Laboured tenaciously, andwith increasing intensity, to keep factualdocumentation out of the public eye and toavert public debate. Things have gone so farthat any problem caused by Sweden’s massiveimmigration is deemed a result of structuralracism – that is to say, it’s the Swedishstate, Swedish culture, and ethnic Swedes whoare the root of all evil. It can hardly bebelieved, but the Swedish state even renouncesits own culture and history. This was perhapsmost vividly encapsulated by comments made bythe Social Democratic minister of integration,Mona Sahlin, in a 2004 address to a Kurdishaudience. Sahlin, wearing a veil, said thatimmigrants living in Sweden are fortunate

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because they have such a rich culture andhistory, whereas Sweden only has such corny,silly things as Midsummer Night.283 I had thisanecdote in mind when I stood up in theaudience at a 2005 conference in Stavanger andasked a representative of the Swedishgovernment, parliamentary secretary LiseBergh: “Is Swedish culture worth defending?”The answer came promptly: “Well, what isSwedish culture? And with that I guess I’veanswered the question.” Bergh made noattempt, by either word or gesture, to hideher cultural self-loathing.

In no other European country, it seems, dothe leaders exhibit as much self-loathing asin Sweden. As Bergh herself made clear in herStavanger lecture, this self-loathing wasessentially made official policy in 1997. Inthat year, as she explained, the Swedishgovernment outlined a new immigration andintegration policy, “a new way of thinking,”whereby Swedes were to view their country notas distinctively Swedish in its culture andfundamental values but as a “culture ofdiversity,” and were enjoined to respect anddevelop this diversity. In short, Swedishculture as such was declared undesirable; itwas history. Henceforth, the principal focuswould be on making so-called structuraladaptations to accommodate immigrants, and onsystematically combating the bigotry of nativeSwedes against new groups of citizens. Berghexplained that since so-called “everydayracism” was rooted in a distinctly Swedishnotion of what is and isn’t Swedish, it wasdecided that Sweden must turn away from thosethings that are viewed as Swedish.

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Europeanized Islam or Islamized Europe?

“Civilizations die from suicide, not bymurder,” said the British historian Arnold J.Toynbee.284 Swedish civilization and cultureseem to be well on the way to suicide. If so,this may have dramatic consequences for thoseof us in Norway, Denmark, and Finland.Pessimists in Denmark think it’s only aquestion of time before that country will haveto stop allowing people from Sweden to crossthe bridge over the Kattegat without visas –mainly because it’s expected that the Swedishwelfare state will collapse in the foreseeablefuture, which could lead to mass migration.285

As for Europe’s future, the Syrian-bornGerman professor Bassam Tibi says that thequestion of the preservation of Europeanculture and values comes down, quite simply,to this: either Islam will be Europeanized, orEurope will be Islamized. By a “Europeanized”Islam, Tibi means an Islam that’s thoroughlysecularized – and thus privatized. He warnsexplicitly against the wolf in sheep’sclothing – namely, Euro-Islam as preached byTariq Ramadan.286

Bernard Lewis, the world-class historian ofIslam, goes a step further. Lewis, who isknown as a friend of Islam and an admirer ofits golden age, believes that Europe will havea Muslim majority within a hundred years.Europe will then be an extension of the Arabworld. It will become “the Arabic West.”287

And at the heart of the struggle to captureEurope’s soul, now and in the future, will bethe Muslim girls and women, symbolized by theveil, the Islamists’ “engine of war.”

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“Take care of the future”

A few days after Theo van Gogh was murderedon an Amsterdam street on 2 November 2004, Iwas in that city for a meeting with AyaanHirsi Ali that had been arranged severalmonths earlier. Because of the assassination,Hirsi Ali had immediately gone underground,and Dutch security services had whisked herout of the country and to safety on a Marinebase in the U.S.; the Netherlands could notafford to risk yet another politicalassassination.288 But since I had a ticketthat couldn’t be refunded, I went anyway – totalk to people, to get a sense of theatmosphere in the country, and to placeflowers at the site of the murder. I alsowanted to see the mosque to which the murdererbelonged: I wanted to see who went in and outof it, what kind of people they were. And Iwanted to take a picture of it.

The experience turned out to be quitespecial – indeed, frightening. From the momentI pointed my camera at the building, it tookjust under ten seconds before seven Arab,Pakistani, and Afghani men stormed out of thefront door and physically attacked me and mycamera. They were between twenty-five andthirty-five years old, and were all wearingwide pants and coats in accordance with thestandard Islamist dress code. Some also hadfull beards and typical Islamist headcoverings. They exhibited an aggression andself-confidence that were out of anotherworld. It was plain that none of the Dutchpassersby who witnessed this incident so muchas considered intervening. After the men hadyanked me around a bit, slightly scratching up

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my arms and causing me some neck pain, theygot their way: the pictures were erased. Andthey said farewell in this way: “You go backhome. This is our country.”

At the funeral of Theo van Gogh on 9November 2004, his mother spoke over her son’scasket. She said: “Freedom is not forfrightened people.” She concluded with thesewords: “Take care of the future.”

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AfterwordDo We Have Intelligence

and Courage?

When I began writing this book, I didn’tknow exactly which topics I would cover. Ithought I would illuminate the problems offetching marriage, the shipping off ofunprotected children to their ancestralhomelands to be schooled in the Koran, and themutilation of girls – the issues closest to myheart for many years. I also realized thatproblematic aspects of Islam would have to becovered, and that it would be necessary todiscuss immigration’s growing threat todemocracy and a national sense of community. Iwas, however, surprised to realize how centralthe theme of women is to the ideologicalstruggle for Europe’s future. I was alsofascinated that one expert after anotherconsiders Islam’s view of women a crucialfactor in the religion’s decline, the Muslimworld’s stagnation, and the development ofEuropean Muslim enclaves plagued by socialproblems. And I realized how fragile Europe’sdemocracies are precisely because of theiropenness, trust, and freedom.

I’ve undergone a thorough process ofconsciousness-raising in regard to thefoundations of European democracy. I’m alsoprofoundly convinced that critical reflection

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and free thought are essential to thepreservation of secular democracy. No matterwhich dogmas and myths one takes on, the rightto free thought must be protected. Ourinheritance from the Enlightenment – from suchNorwegian “heretics” as Camilla Collette,Henrik Ibsen, and Arnulf Øverland, to nameonly some of those who helped give birth totoday’s society – is an inheritance we can’tafford to lose.

It’s also become clear to me that Islamismis, without question, the greatest politicaland ideological challenge of our time. It isdiscouraging to see the influence thatIslamism has already managed to acquire inEuropean democracies, whose openness it hasexploited in order to establish networks andattain a political influence that reaches fromthe topmost political circles down to thestreet. It’s frightening to see how well-organized these networks are, how closely thedifferent movements colLabourate, and howsuccessful they’ve been at allying themselveswith Europe’s “useful idiots,” who haveeagerly come together with them in a struggleagainst capitalism, the U.S., and Israel. Forthe “useful idiots,” it’s all very clear: theWest is the white oppressor, Islam the blackvictim.

It’s also unsettling to see Christianchurch leaders, politicians, and politicalparties here in Norway carrying on dialoguewith people who stand for a pure darkening.The will to resist this darkening isconspicuous by its absence. The so-called“dialogue” shrouds reality and shelvesdiscussion of anything sensitive. The hardquestions are swept into dark corners – a truesign of a lack of honesty and of mutual

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respect. One of the cardinal sins is thatpolitical leaders have made freedom of speechnegotiable. Yes, some speech acts can beimmoral – but not freedom of speech itself.The fact that freedom of speech is aprinciple, and not a moral question, has beenforgotten. Muslim immigrants, and alsoNorwegian converts, have become sacred victimswho are not to be offended. The result ispolitical paralysis – a chronic politicalmigraine.

This blindness and misguided tolerance ofintolerance can be our curse. It’s clear to methat in a diverse society such as Norway’s,it’s impossible for us not to offend oneanother. To offend is necessary – yes, evenpraiseworthy – because offending is aprerequisite for social change and progress.This is a historic fact. If freedom meansanything at all – to borrow a formulation fromGeorge Orwell – it has to mean the right totell people what they don’t want to hear.

In any event, I think that the time forserving up examples of the problem has passed.We don’t need to be presented with any morestories about the victims of our misguidedapproach to integration and immigration. Wedon’t need to dissect any more personaltragedies that have been caused by currentpolicies before we start looking for adiagnosis. At this point, it should be obviousto anyone what kind of conditions thesepolicies have engendered.

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Where are the feminists?

To me, it’s infuriating to be a citizen ofa country that won’t safeguard its citizens’fundamental rights and needs. And as a memberof a society with a proud history of women’srights, I’ve often felt a sickening feeling ofshame.

In the 14 December 2003 issue of Aftneposten,Samira Bellil asked these three timelyquestions: “Why does no one see the enormouspressure to which girls in the suburbs aresubjected? Where are the feminists? Don’tthey see what’s happening to us?” At thattime, no feminists responded to Samira Bellil.She died of cancer the following year, onlythirty-one years of age. Out of respect forher efforts on behalf of women’s freedom, I’lltry to answer her question: Why does silencereign among feminists?

The answer is that the feminists areobsessed with their own ethnic Norwegiancauses: longer maternity leave, shorter workdays for the same pay – in short, everythingthat can give them a better life, materiallyand socially. They’re also deeply preoccupiedwith a renewed struggle for the right tosexual pleasure, the right to “be on top.” Atthe same time, many of the classical feministsappear to be old socialists who are blinded bythe multicultural dream – a dream, alas, thathas led them into an acceptance of theoppression of women in sizable segments of thepopulation.

In their self-centered little world, thefeminists don’t see all the women who arehaving one baby after another against theirown will and who, not daring to consider usingprotection, are on maternity leave year round.

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The feminists don’t see all the women whoyearn for the right to work. (As socialists,they have a tradition of not recognizingextreme and dogmatic forces when theyencounter them in public.) Nor, though knownfor their struggle against the stiff-neckedreactionaries in the Norwegian church, do theyrecognize Islam’s stiff-necked reactionariesas such – mainly because these newreactionaries are dark-skinned. Thesefeminists are unable to treat people equally:they’re blinded by colour, by the twisted ideathat a woman with roots in a place like NorthAfrica has, by definition, basic needs anddreams different from their own. This kind ofthinking is extremely discriminatory – anddeeply offensive. And the betrayal embodied insuch thinking is immensely repulsive – becausewe’re talking here about little girls, youngwomen, and older women some of whom live nextdoor to some of those feminists and who aretreated in their own communities as pariahs.Many of them don’t even want to “be on thebottom,” because their sexual organs have beendestroyed, or because the man who’s on topisn’t the one they want to share their liveswith; he may have purchased access to her bodyfrom her father and brother, and (with theKoran in hand) may be demanding sexualsubjugation from her. All this is simply toomuch for “good” Norwegian feminists to dealwith; they’d rather close their eyes to it,deny the reality of their new “sisters’”lives, and apply their empathy to othersituations that deserve it far less.

The classic feminists, however, are quickto speak up about the “right” to wear theveil. In the good name of “freedom of choice,”they’re also the first to throw a veil over

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reality when a Muslim woman is murdered by herfamily, saying that such murders are notessentially different from a murder committedby a Norwegian man in a jealous rage.

In June 2006, nine people stood trial inDenmark. One was charged with having shot hissister, Ghazala, an eighteen-year-old Danish-Pakistani, in the street. The eight otherdefendants, members and friends of the family,were his colLabourators in what turned out tobe an out-and-out hunt for Ghazala. The familyset up sentries and patrols, communicatingclosely with one another in the effort tocircle in on the girl, and trapped her byexploiting her weakest point: her hope forforgiveness from the people she loved in spiteof everything – her own family. Forgivenessfor what? For having married the man sheloved. This small, unassuming hope ended in acarefully plotted murder in which nine peopleconspired. All were found guilty. Ghazala’sfather received life in prison for havingordered her death. Her brother, who wasselected by the family to carry out themurder, got sixteen years in prison anddeportation, since he was not a Danishcitizen. The aunt who lured Ghazala into thetrap by exploiting her longing for herfamily’s love was sentenced to fourteen yearsin prison and deportation, since she, too, wasnot a citizen. The mildest punishment was forthe person who drove the taxi in the hunt forthe girl – eight years in prison. Thesesentences were a milestone in the history ofEuropean jurisprudence. They’re entirelydifferent from the kind of sentence given tosomeone who murders in passion – a murder inwhich no one close to the victim is involvedin planning the crime and hunting down the

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prey, and where no one applauds the murdererwhen the deed is done. The feminists have yetto grasp this sea of difference.

Norwegian feminists have forfeited theircredibility. How they’ll win it back is amystery to me. They might consider devotingtheir next celebration of InternationalWomen’s Day to the struggle for decent livingconditions for Muslim girls and women inNorway.

I’m sorry to say that when it comes to thewillingness to make an effort on behalf ofMuslim females, I have much more faith inNorway’s men than in its women. Of all themail I’ve received from members of the publicwho are concerned about these issues, thegreat majority comes from Norwegian men intheir forties and fifties. They’re deeplytroubled about assaults on wives, mothers, anddaughters in immigrant communities. They’reappalled; they look at their own wives,daughters, and mothers, and shudder at thethought of such things happening to them.Perhaps it’s men’s role as protectors thatmakes the difference here? I don’t know; butI do notice with interest and wonder that it’smen who seem to be the most deeply touched bythese matters, and who – with both their headsand their hearts – seek out practical means oflifting immigrant girls and women into aworthy life as full members of a democraticsociety. The feminists chose long ago tosacrifice these girls and women on the altarof multicultural ideology; they’ve acceptedconditions for other people that they neverwould accept for themselves, their friends, ortheir daughters. This is racism, pure andsimple, and in our time racism has rarely hadsuch dire consequences. I continue to undergo

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a deep inner conflict over the question ofwhether I should continue to define myself asa feminist. One thing is certain: I absolutelyrefuse to associate myself with this form offeminism.

Where are the intellectuals?

Another unavoidable question is this: Whereare the Norwegian intellectuals? Don’t theysee the kind of pressure to which Norway andits secular democracy are being subjected?Don’t they understand that freedom is on theline?

My confidence in the reigningintelligentsia in the Norwegian academy ismore than tattered. Yes, there are a fewhonourable exceptions, such as Nina Witoszek,Inger-Lise Lien, Unni Wikan, Ottar Brox, andthe brothers Gunnar and Sigurd Skirbekk. Butmost of our academics, and intellectualsgenerally, not only seem to refuse to take onour time’s most burning political questions;they also all but deny the legitimacy of thesequestions. At times, indeed, they openly mockand ridicule those who try to bring thesequestions into the political arena.

I’ve seen intellectuals deny the crucialsocial significance of religious traditionsand cultural values. This denial – combinedwith a blind belief that everyone, deep down,wants to live in a modern society thatrespects human rights – is, in my view, theintellectuals’ Achilles heel. They’re waitingfor the “God-given awakening” – the magicalmoment when everyone will suddenly embracedemocracy. While they await this miracle, theytolerate customs and traditions that involvetreating women and children abominably. The

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intellectual laziness and cowardice of allthis is unbelievable. As the American writerPaul Berman puts it, one of the factors thataid totalitarian movements is “the treason ofthe intellectuals.”289

It’s also very interesting to note howNorwegian intellectuals explain their decisionto stay out of the debate. Politicalscientists and philosophers say that theydon’t know enough about Islam to discuss it;some fear that if they participate in thedebate they’ll be labeled unflatteringly;others feel that the public clamor will be toomuch of a distraction from their daily work.290

But perhaps they should think about the noisethat will be made in a few years because ofthe problems that are being suppressed now.That noise will take up all their time.

I think that in the relatively near futurethose intellectuals and politicians who havebeen evasive and passive will not be shown agreat deal of sympathy. Like other majorfigures in society, they’ll one day be asked:Which side were you on when it reallymattered? Were you one of those who stood onthe side of freedom and democracy, or did youstand for dialogue with totalitarians and stepaside in misguided respect?

The low level of debate

It’s understandable, of course, why manypeople don’t dare to take on the personalburden that it can be to criticize immigrationgenerally and Islam in particular. Criticismof today’s immigration policy is often equatedwith criticism of immigrants themselves. Inmany quarters, such critics are quicklybranded as “controversial” – a popular label.

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Once this label is in place, the pieces startfalling like dominoes: “controversial” isidentical with “xenophobic”; and “xenophobic”is simply a nicer word for “racist.” And atthe end of this train of associations is“closet Nazi.”

It’s all thoroughly base and dishonest. Tooppose today’s immigration policy is notinconsistent with liking and feeling concernfor people who immigrated to Norway, or whohave been born here of parents with roots innon-Western countries. On the contrary: it’seasy to love immigrants and refugees who dowell in Norway and who are proud and happy tobe Norwegian citizens. It gives one anespecially good feeling about social concordto know that people with different ethnic andreligious backgrounds can come together ingratitude for, and pride in, the good societythat Norway continues to be.

A timely question is this: What should wecall, say, a North African or Norwegian-Pakistani who thinks that Norwegianimmigration policy has become irresponsibleand unethical? Yes, racism can be found amongall groups of people, so one could call themracists, too. But I doubt that many Norwegianswould choose to label a non-Western person inthis fashion, thus excluding that person fromdebate. The idea that a Westerner is a racistuntil proven otherwise has created anOrwellian world and has paralyzed anypossibility of debate. The word “racist” hasdefinitely become the word that marks the Devil – toborrow the title of anthropologist Inger-LiseLien’s book about the widely abused term“racist.” As Lien writes: “The word racisthas attained almost the same moral status asthe word devil in Christianity. The problem is

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that when you conceive of racism as somethingwidespread, the devil becomes omnipresent andnormal, while the demonic is by definitionextreme and abnormal. There is, however, atendency to expand negative words sopowerfully that an inflation occurs and theylose their force. This is what has happened,in my view, with the concept of racism”(1997:41). Yes, the concept has indeedundergone inflation; the general paralysisthat has resulted from the use of the word hasespecially damaged politicians’ ability to actreasonably. It’s for this reason that theytreat fetching marriage as inviolate, closetheir eyes to the shipping of helplesschildren out of the country, and defend theveil.

In recent years, two clever new conceptshave been formulated. Both represent anattempt by the left-wing intelligentsia andso-called “anti-racists” to reinforce theparalysis that stymies action and stifles freedebate. One of these concepts is Islamophobia.The readiness to accuse others of Islamophobiais an ailment that has spread itself acrossEurope. As far as I can see, our society isnot suffering from an abnormal anxiety aboutIslam. The respected humanist Levi Fragell wasnot abnormally afraid of Islam when hepublicly warned against Islamism in 2003.291

Nor are other Islam critics – such as theauthor Walid al-Kubaisi from Baghdad,Professor Mehdi Mozaffari from Teheran, andAyaan Hirsi Ali from Mogadisu – Islamophobes.On the contrary, they maintain the right topromote free, critical reflection, especiallywhen there are high-profile extremists in thepublic square. To use words like “phobia” isto copy methods used by Stalin, who defined

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dissidents as sick and therefore internedthem. In our enlightened society, we should beable to rise above this level. If our societyis suffering from a weakness, it must be thatlarge segments of the elite are Islamophiles.

The other clever new concept is neoracism.The neoracist is also someone who criticizesaspects of Islam. The cleverest thing aboutthis concept is that it turns Muslims into asingle race. This concept is also a loathsomeconstruction designed to inhibit free debate.

Those who use this term also tend to claimthat Muslims have become Europe’s new Jews –that they’re treated the same way Jews weretreated in Hitler’s Germany before World WarII. The comparison is cruel and ugly – notleast because one report after another showsthat in fact Jews are being increasinglypersecuted in Europe today, especially byMuslims.292 Are today’s European governmentstreating Muslims the way the Nazis did Jews?Hardly. In prewar Germany, the Nazi governmentpersecuted Jews; today, European governmentsnot only hand out billions upon billions intaxpayer-funded welfare payments to Muslimsevery year; they also protect Muslims againstdiscrimination, take care of Muslim women whoare abused by their own families, and givefinancial support to mosques and other Muslimorganizations – among much else. It’sunfathomable to me that intellectuals andmedia people don’t put an immediate stop tothis indecent, insidious rhetoric about“Europe’s new Jews.”

I’m often asked whether I receive threatsbecause of my work, and whether I fearreprisals. Yes, I’ve been threatened a fewtimes for having pointed out negative aspectsof Islam and Muhammed. This is, alas, not

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surprising given the murder of Theo van Gogh,the death threats against Ayaan Hirsi Ali, andall the threats that followed the publicationof the Muhammed cartoons. An atmosphere hasbeen created in which threatening andharassing critics of Islam is almost seen aslegitimate. On the contrary, I view themedia’s intellectual compliancy and relentlesspoliticization as a greater threat – becausethe media have the power to demonize thosethey ideologically differ with, and suchdemonization can lead indirectly topolitically motivated violence. This has beenmy greatest fear during the writing of thisbook. And this fear has driven me, too, toself-censorship.

What might the future bring?

I believe that one of the major problems weface in our attempt to address the greatestchallenge of our time is this: we’re so satedwith our prosperity, our freedom from care,and our hunt for even greater prosperity andeven more pleasures that we’re incapable ofwaking up and facing the problems untilthey’ve grown so immense that it’s impossibleto do anything at all about them. The goodnews behind these grim words, however, is thatin Norway, at least, I don’t think theproblems have yet become insurmountable. Butif radical and comprehensive action isn’ttaken now, they will be insurmountable – within,at most, one or two decades.

And even if meaningful action is taken inthe near future, I suspect that a number ofworrisome new problems will be uncovered. I’lljust list a few here.

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First, we can expect a rise in thenumber of honour killings, becausethe communities in question willgrow and close themselves in evenmore, as has occurred elsewhere inEurope. Girls and women who violatethe demands for conformity will bemet with powerful reactions as awarning to others who might bethinking about breaking out. Sourcesin Pakistani communities in Oslo saythat the death of Rahila Iqbal, whodied under unusual circumstances inPakistan in 2005, has had such aneffect. In Oslo’s Pakistanicommunities, her death is viewed asan honour killing, especiallybecause she married a man againsther family’s will. As one youngwoman said to me: “What Pakistanigirl will now dare to marry againsther family’s wishes? They see whatthey’re risking.”

It will be revealed that gender-selective abortions of femalefetuses – already a familiarphenomenon on the subcontinent – aretaking place in Norway. Abortion islegal in Norway, and immigrantswanting late-term abortions needonly go to private clinics in theirhomelands.

We’ll also see more and moreconverts to Islam – mainly women,but also men. It’s especially commonto see men migrate from left-wingtotalitarianism to religio-political

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totalitarianism. As for the women,they convert mainly out of a desireto liberate themselves from thecomplex demands of a woman’s role ina democratic society with sexualequality. These women are drawn tothe fixed rules of Islam, whichgovern everyday life inextraordinary detail, and which theythink will rescue them from the so-called tyranny of beauty.

We’ll see a radicalization of femaleMuslims, especially Norwegianconverts. This phenomenon canalready be observed in Belgium, theNetherlands, and Germany. At itsmost extreme, this radicalizationcan turn ethnic Norwegian women intosuicide bombers.

There will be increasing pressure tointroduce a sharia court that wouldbe empowered to decide family-related disputes involving marriage,divorce, child custody, andinheritance. The pressure toestablish such a court will increaseproportionally as the Muslimpopulation grows, especially inOslo.

The strict covering of women withniqab and burka will spreadsignificantly. This will lead todebates about security in a Europeincreasingly imperiled by terrorism.

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It’s already been revealed that anumber of enclaves in Europe are runby unofficial local governments andthat the official municipalgovernments have no real power inthese places. This has happenedpartly because criminal gangs havetaken control and partly becauselocal Islamists have used bothpressure and violence to ensure thatat least some parts of Islamic law –especially those pertaining to thecontrol of women – are enforcedwithin their “territory.” Such adevelopment will also soon beobserved in parts of Oslo.

Sexual harassment and rape,especially of ethnic Norwegian womenand girls, will only continue toincrease (as we saw in the summer of2006). The government will comeunder pressure to release statisticsindicating which groups theperpetrators and victims come from.Those statistics will show the samepattern as in Sweden: the greatmajority of victims will be nativegirls and women, the assailantsmostly non-Western men.

Members of mosques and politicalparties that have close ties to theMuslim Brotherhood and otherworldwide Islamist movements will bepublicly identified. It will also beestablished that such religio-political movements have strongfootholds in Norway.

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Studies will reveal that manysecond- and third-generation Muslimsconnect their identity most stronglyto Islam and that their sense ofidentity as Norwegians is very weak.

We’ll see a radicalization of youngMuslims, some of whom will formmilitant cells.

Radical imams who spread hate andencourage violence will be deported.

We’ll witness radicalization,especially among Somalis, and themen behind this development willmainly be members of Saudi Arabia’sSalafist movements. The already wellknown integration problems involvingPakistanis in Norway will receivecompetition for attention fromheretofore less well knownintegration problems involvingSomalis and Iraqis in Norway.

It will be revealed that majorNorwegian prisons are Islamisthatcheries.

It will be revealed that Norwegianauthorities don’t know the realidentities of many of the people whohave settled in Norway, because theydon’t fingerprint immigrants whocome here under the family-reunification policy. Terroristswith false identities, for example,can acquire citizenship after four

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years by entering into pro formamarriages. This nationalvulnerability will lead to demandsfor policy changes.

Statistics will show thatimmigration and integration arecosting Norway a great deal ofmoney.

Population projections will estimatethat by the year 2100 a majority ofpeople in Norway will have non-Western backgrounds.

Social democracy’s responsibility

Without a doubt, the social democrats inNorway and elsewhere in Europe bear most ofthe responsibility for the continent’sexceedingly bold multicultural immigrationproject. In countries such as Norway, Sweden,Denmark, Germany, the Netherlands, andBritain, it’s the social democrats who haveheld power for the longest periods during thelast forty years.

Torbjørn Bernten, a former Labour Partymember of Parliament, said on 4 March 2006 ona news program on Norwegian PublicBroadcasting that a few decades ago it wasimpossible to foresee that immigration andintegration would be so difficult. He saidexplicitly that he “had no idea” how great thedifferences were between “our Christiancultural heritage” and the culture thatMuslims bring with them. Berntsen thought thatmost politicians at that time didn’tunderstand what had been set in motion; he

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claimed that the whole thing came as asurprise.

This is only a partial truth. In the summerof 1971, when the non-Western “tourists,” aspreviously mentioned, were starving in Oslo’sstreets, cabinet member Oddvar Nordli wasresponsible for immigration policy. That yearNordli commented on immigration in the 3 Juneissue of Arbeiderbladet, and the governmentappointed a commission to examine thechallenges of the new immigration. “As long aswe receive a supply of Labour from the Nordiccountries and other European states,” Nordliwrote, “this will not lead to major socialproblems. It is easier for these workers toslip into the Norwegian social system. Butgroups that come from Pakistan, for example,encounter a society here that is totallydifferent from what they’re used to. And thenew committee must devote great attention tothis.”

Nordli understood, then, that the newimmigration was problematical – but he didn’tconvert this understanding into practicalpolicy. Politicians have clung to the illusionthat “things will work themselves out overtime.” Ayaan Hirsi Ali, too, reacted to theweakness of social democrats. She began herpolitical career in the Dutch Labour Party,but jumped over to the liberal conservativeswhen Labour made clear its unwillingness totake on immigration and integration problems,especially those afflicting women andchildren. In Denmark, social democrat andformer cabinet member Karen Jespersen quitParliament in protest out of love for thatcountry’s secular democracy. Her consciencewould no longer permit her to represent aparty that she didn’t trust to retain the new

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Danish immigration policies if it was returnedto power. In Germany, the social-democraticex-chancellor Helmut Schmidt has alsoacknowledged that the idea of themulticultural society – an idea that dominatedhis entire term as chancellor – was a failure.

I must add that these brief criticalcomments about the social democrats areunfair. For example, the two conservativegovernments under Kjell Magne Bondevik didn’texhibit a trace of willingness or ability tochange course. On the contrary, themulticultural dream has been popular both inthe Norwegian political center and in theConservative Party. The picture isn’t blackand white.

The alarm goes off

There’s no time to lose.It can go wrong again.What is it we want?

So writes Inger Hagerup in her poem “BeImpatient!” We must want to defend ourfundamental values. We must want to create asociety based on these values. This is what wemust want.

All the parties in the Norwegian Parliamentare founded on human rights, on sexualequality, and on a preservation of seculardemocracy. On that fundamental level, thesimilarities are greater than the differences.All the parties should therefore be able tounderstand the seriousness of the argumentsand the proposals I’ve put forward in thisbook.

The current Norwegian government, amajority coalition consisting of the Labour,Center, and Socialist Left parties, has power

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in a country that increasingly resembles theTitanic. The orchestra is playing more and moreloudly, and on the dance floor the politiciansare swinging more and more fervently to themulticultural dance, while the vessel headstoward a shipwreck in the dark, foggy Arcticnight.

In the spring of 2006 there was much talkbehind closed doors to the effect that keyLabour Party politicians wanted to follow anew course, closer to Denmark’s, but that theCenter and Socialist Left parties were sittingon their feet. If Labour doesn’t manage toconvince its colleagues in the government thata new policy is needed fast in order to keepthings from going wrong, Labour must takeresponsibility. It certainly must do this ifthe party, in the years to come, is going tohave credibility with the public. For it wasLabour that initiated this bold project.Labour must put an end to the project, andmust work to repair the damage. If the Centerand Socialist Left parties will not takeresponsibility for our common future, I can’tsee any alternative other than Labourdissolving the coalition and trying to make aminority government work. In the Parliament,they could easily win a majority for a new,sustainable immigrant policy.

If Labour doesn’t take responsibility forthis change, other parties will do so. Thiscan cause political polarization in Norway tointensify – a development by which no one willprofit. Great national tasks should be solvedby the major parties acting in concert.

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Updates 2006 - 2010

to the English-LanguageEdition

Since the publication of the Norwegianedition of this book, there have been manyinteresting developments on a variety offronts. Herewith, some updates, som følgerkronologisk de forutgående kapitlene:

Anooshe

In November 2007, KRIPOS invited me to cometo their annual meeting to give a talk abouthonour-related attacks. When the talk wasover, a female police officer came up to thelectern and said: “I know where Anooshe’s boyswere taken away to in secrecy right after thefuneral. They were immediately gotten out ofcontinental Norway.” She mentioned an island,when I choose not to identify here out ofconcern that others may land in an equallyprecarious security situation. She added this:“The fact that they were taken of continentalNorway says everything about the kind ofthreat we felt the boys were facing.”

Shortly after the Norwegian publication ofBut the Greatest of These Is Freedom in the autumn of2006, Anooshe’s closest Norwegian supportersand friends, a married couple, contacted meafter I held a talk about the book in

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Kristiansund, the city in which Anooshe wasexecuted. They thanked me for my involvementin the case, and they confirmed the account ofAnooshe’s fate presented in this book Iasked delicately how Baborsha and Sharokh weredoing. The couple, still deeply grieving, toldme that they didn’t know where the boys livednow, but that it was possible to send lettersand gifts to them via the local authorities inEide, which they did. They also said that whenthe boys were old enough to tackle emotionallytheir mother’s painful life, they would alsobe sent Anooshe’s diary.

Anooshe’s friends, then, were not sureexactly how the boys were doing. But as thewife put it: “Given the circumstances, they’redoing okay, we’re told, but they have a veryheavy burden to bear all their lives.”

Triple murder

The Anooshe case is historic, in that thevictim herself had warned of an imminenthonour killing. Another horrible new Norwegianstory, however, would be written in the autumnof 2006 – a story so horrible that one canhardly take it in. I woke up early on themorning of Monday, October 2, in a hotel roomin Copenhagen, to find a message on my mobilethat had been sent to me at 3:45 AM: “Threesisters dead in an honour killing inKaldbakken. Damn Pakistanis!” The message wasfrom a Norwegian-born friend of mine whoseparents are Pakistanis and who lives in Oslo,in a neighbourhood bordering on Kaldbakken.

Three sisters killed in their own home, theprincipal weapon being an axe, the secondaryweapon a pistol: Sobia Khan (27) was choppedup with the axe in such a way that she died

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quickly. The youngest sister, Nafisa ShaheenKhan (13), was also killed with the axe anddied of head wounds. The last sister, SaadiaShaheen (24), was attacked with the axe andalso shot several times. The murderer wastheir own brother, Shahzad Khan, 31.

The sight that greeted the policemen at thescene of the crime was so unbelievablygrotesque that even very experienced policeofficers had serious psychiatric problems withdoing their jobs afterwards and requiredemergency psychiatric treatment.

How could a brother kill all of hissisters? Khan himself said during the courtproceedings that he couldn’t remember anythingbecause he was intoxicated, and that an innervoice had exhorted him to perform the crime.The prosecutor didn’t manage to establish afirm motive, but Khan was convicted ofpremeditated triple murder under especiallyaggravated circumstances to the most stringentpunishment allowed by the law, 21 years inprison.

Among the Norwegian Pakistanis whom I know,however, the honour motive was obvious. Khanwas losing control over the two older sisters.Their “crime,” in all probability was a sum ofthe following. At 19, Sobia had been forced tomarry a cousin in Pakistan. The marriage hadended in divorce in 2000 after the cousin-husband went after her with a knife. Duringthe investigation of the triple murder, a 28-year-old friend of Sobia’s told police thatSobia had feared another forced marriage, andthat her sister Saadia had, too. Both, thefriend said, were afraid of being murdered ifthey opposed their family’s marriage plans forthem, At the trial, however, the friendremembered nothing of what she had told

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police. A similar loss of memory afflictedanother witness, who had heard rumors thatthe sisters feared they might be killed.

During the investigation, it also emergedthat Sobia had bought an apartment in Osloonly a few hours before the sisters’ murder.The plan was that all three sisters would moveout of the extended family’s home: the sisterscould no longer stand the control and lack offreedom that characterized their daily lives.The police believed that this act of breakingaway provoked the killings.

The Norwegian Pakistani woman from whom Ireceived the cell-phone message in Copenhagentold me that her then boyfriend, alsoNorwegian Pakistani and an acquaintance ofKhan and the sisters, had already predicted ayear before the triple murder that this wouldbe the sisters’ fate. I urged her and theboyfriend to go to the police with all theinformation they had. But they didn’t dare.

I asked the same woman why little Nafisa,only 13 years old, was also murdered. Shereplied: “Preventive work.” When the twoolder sisters are disobedient rebels, he tookit for granted that Nafisa was, too.”

For the police and prosecutors, it was veryfrustrating not to be able to establish amotive. The police ran into a wall in theMuslim community. The honour culture, thatmerciless culture of fear, has indisputablysunk deep roots in Norway. It is the fear ofreprisals that holds sway. As anotherNorwegian-born woman, aged 20, also withPakistani parents, told me: “Our parents usethe Kaldbakken killings against us. They make

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threats: ‘You see what happens if you rejectour plans for your marriages?’” 1

Marriage Immigration

The immigrant population of Norway hasrisen more quickly in the last few years thanever. Records are set almost annually, mainlydue to increase in labour immigration. In2006, immigrants made up 8.3 percent ofNorway’s population; as of 1 January 2010,immigrants account for 11.4 percent of thepopulation. The first generation of immigrantsincludes 460,000 persons and the secondgeneration, 93,000, making for a totalpopulation group of around 550,000 people. Alltogether, 510,000 individuals were grantedNorwegian residency permits during the periodof 2000 – 2009, which led to the followingconclusion by Statistics Norway: “…withoutcomparison the largest level of migration wehave experienced.”2

The increase in Oslo is especiallydramatic. Of the capital’s 587,000inhabitants, 160,000, or 27 percent, haveimmigrant backgrounds, while 20 percent havenon-Western backgrounds – a figure that hasclimbed four points since 2006.3

The population growth is very pronounced inOslo’s schools. In March 2010, figures werereleased which stirred debate: at thebeginning of 2000, 31 percent of the pupils inprimary and secondary schools had minority1 The factual details of the triple murder are drawnfrom the page of VG’s website at which the news stories about the murders are collected. 2 Vårt Land, 8 March 2010.3 Statistics Norway, 29 April 2010.

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backgrounds. In the next ten years, thepercentage climbed to 40 percent. Ten yearsfrom now, in 2020, ethnic Norwegians will be aminority in Oslo schools. This is already thecase in 58 of Oslo’s 136 primary and secondaryschools.4

Two years earlier, in 2008, Human RightsService (HRS) drew up a demographic analysisfor Norway and Oslo, because Statistics Norwayhas never wanted to provide a forecast ofOslo’s future population growth, and becausewe suspected that Statistics Norway’s earliercalculations for Norway have been too low.Statistics Norway uses three alternatives inits demographic prognoses for Norway: a lowalternative, a middle alternative, and a highalternative, in which the high alternative isexpected to be a nearly unrealistic futurescenario. We used the same demographic methodsin our analysis that Statistics Norway hasemployed in its previous studies of Norway’spopulation growth, and we were quickly able tostate that for several years StatisticsNorway’s “unrealistic high alternative” waslower than the actual immigration figure. Our2009 calculation showed that in Oslo, ethnicNorwegians could be a minority in 2029, and inNorway immigrants could be a majority by theend of this century. And this includes onlyfirst- and second-generation immigrants.5

Only a year later, the actual immigrationfigures for 2008, which set yet another newrecord, showed that our estimate for Oslo wastoo low. Norwegians may be a minority in Osloin 2026.

4 VG, 19 March 2010.5 ”Hvem er Norges befolkning i fremtiden,” HRS N-1 2008.

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If it’s essential to get these facts on thetable, that’s because our political leadersare given tools to be able to carry out aimmigration policy that is sustainable, bothfinancially and in terms of values. It isabout something as obvious as the fact thatthe politicians must know the facts to be ableto plan resources for schools, medicalservices, the welfare system, and so on.

In 2009 we were able to report that theimmigration now underway is expensive inkroner, and in time can reduce the amount ofsocial benefits that citizens can expect toreceive from the welfare state. Once again,HRS was taking on a task that StatisticsNorway should have performed long ago –namely, calculating the costs and benefits ofcurrent immigration. Statistics Norway has, inother words, chosen not to publicize the costsand benefits of immigration. In our 2009report, “Don’t Count Me: Immigration’s Costsand the Welfare State,” in which weintentionally made conservative calculations,we reported that immigration’s annual costscome to at least 23 billion kroner, but morelikely at least 50 billion kroner. Thisincludes the actual expenses on refugees andwelfare payments, and lower tax revenues onaccount of immigrants’ lower employment andtax rates. We did not include the additionalamounts paid by the national and localgovernment for health care, schools, thejustice system, and so forth. And we confinedourselves to the economy of continental Norway(meaning that the nation’s oil economy wasomitted from the study).

Our conclusion was unambiguous: if today’simmigration policy is continued, it will meanthat the Norwegian government, in time, will

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have to make dramatic welfare cuts and movetoward an Americanizing of (for example) thehealth-care sector.

Another interesting prediction was madepublic in 2010: the government ascertainedthat Norway will have a million immigrants by2025 or 2030 – that is to say, a doubling ofthe current level. Foreign Minister Jonas GahrStøre (Labour) came out and said thefollowing: “we have to live with this.” As ifit were a law of nature. As if the politiciansdidn’t have the means to influence thecomposition of Norway’s future population.Just as interesting were the challenges hetook up in his statement: marriages betweencousins. As he put it: “Where I come from,it’s not okay to marry your cousin. This is atopic that I think touches on the freedom ofsecond- and third-generation immigrants, ifthey have to systematically marry relatives.”And he said: “The fact that women choose to gohome is something we obviously cannot preventourselves from regulating, but this may lie onthe borderland between freedom and force.” Andhe concluded as follows: “Women’s positionwill be totally central in our work on theIntegration Committee. We must have a set ofregulations that makes it illegal to keepwomen down. But norms and values count, too.”6

Mina – a deep disappointment

The Foreign Minister did not wish toaddress the economic challenges, but herevealed that he and the government haveunderstood that the sustainability, in termsof values, will encounter powerful challenges

6 VG.no, June 9, 2010.

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in times to come. Hardly any example in thisconnection confirms the Foreign Minister’sobservation more clearly than what happenedwith Mina and her children during the last fewyears. In the summer of 2007, my phone rang.The voice at the other end told me that Mina’soldest daughter, then 16 ½ years old, would betraveling to Pakistan the next day. The persontold me that the girl was either to be engagedor married to a cousin – the same cousin forwhom Mina’s niece Nadia had, with a cry forhelp, managed to avoid being a living visa.What had happened? Why would Mina allow herdaughter to relive her own fate? The personon the phone believed it was about coming infrom the cold and back into the extendedfamily’s embrace: by using her daughter as avisa for this cousin, Mina would be able toreceive forgiveness from her extended familyfor having divorced.

The administrative director of Human RightsService phoned Mina at once and asked if itwas true that her daughter was going toPakistan the next day. It was not a graciousMina who, for the first time since we had mether in 2002, quite simply hissed: we had “nobusiness interfering in private familymatters.” Period.

Our next phone call, which we madeimmediately, was to the police at OsloAirport. We explained our concern for the 16-year-old girl, and the next day the policetook her aside and talked to her for over anhour. The girl, however, remained loyal to hermother and extended family: she was going toPakistan on vacation, nothing more. The policewere therefore unable to help her and had tolet her walk through passport control andboard a delayed flight to Islamabad.

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In Mina’s village, the engagement betweenthe girl and her cousin was celebrated in thesummer of 2007, and the next year, just beforeChristmas, when the girl turned 18, she wasmarried off to this close relative who is 12years her elder. At the same time, the 18-year-old’s sister, two years her junior, wasengaged in the same village to this cousin’syounger brother.

Personally, I have hardly ever been sodisappointed as I was by this experience withMina. All the support and help she hadreceived, not least by Barnevernet, lawyers,and the social-security department, to helpher and her children to live a free anddignified life, as full citizens of Norway!And it all ended with her turning herdaughters into living visas. My conclusion isthat Mina is not capable of being, nor doesshe want to be, a part of Norwegian society.She was too caught up in the spider’s net – inhonour culture.

Family-arranged marriage

The debate about marriage between closerelatives flares up every so often. Keyquestions in the debate are whether thepractice should be prohibited and what theconsequences are for children whose parents(and perhaps grandparents, too) are closelyrelated. This happened in 2007 after theDeputy Director-General of the NorwegianInstitute of Public Health, CamillaStoltenberg, released statistics about theprevalence of marriage between close

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relatives.7 The report showed (again) thatmarriage between close relatives is especiallyhigh among Pakistanis. Between 1977 and mid2005, 44 percent of first-generationPakistanis were married to cousins, 5.5percent with other close relatives, and 5percent with relatives whose relation to themwas unspecified 8 The total percentage ofmarriages to close relatives, then, was 54.5percent. For the second generation the figureswere respectively 35, 4.7, and 6.7 percent,for a total of 46.5 percent. Between 2002 andmid 2005, the incidence of cousin marriage inthe second generation was 29 percent, and theoverall rate of marriage between closerelatives was 40 percent.

It turns out, however, that 6.7 percent ofthose in the second generation did not specifyanything other than that they were related totheir spouses and 5.7 percent did not respond.This means that we do not have date forpossible marriages between close relatives onthe part of 12.4 percent of marrying membersof the second generation. Among this 12.4percent there may, in other words, be cousinmarriages whic the Norwegian-born Pakistaniswish to hide from the authorities and others,perhaps to avoid stigma (given that suchmarriages are not looked upon with admirationin Norwegian society) or perhaps because theyare themselves in despair over the fact that

7 The report is “Inngifte i Norge. Omfang og medisinske konsekvenser,” Folkehelseinstituttet 2007.8 Those born in Norway fill out the form themselves on which they are asked to check the description which applies to their family relationship to their spouse.

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they have been married off to cousins or otherrelatives and are in denial about thesituation. It is impossible to attribute thelack of reporting to language problems, sinceonly one percent of first-generationPakistanis have failed to identify the natureof their family relationship to their spouses.

I especially took note of a statement inthe ongoing news coverage of the medicalaspects of the issue. Rolf Lindemann ofUllevål University Hospital said that healthpersonnel see a wide and varied spectrum ofbirth defects: "Everything possible, fromcoronary, urinary tract, and skeletal problemsto diseases of the brain. Many of the childrendie from the defects they are born with.”Lindemann maintained that many parents who arerelated know about the risk of having a sickchild, but prefer not to consider theconsequences: "They say that their fate is inAllah’s hands, and that this is the point.”9

The statement did not surprise me, as I havepersonally heard such views expressed byPakistanis in Norway and Pakistan, but thestatement was valuable because it came from aleading medical figure, and it makes it clearto our politicians how insignificant an impactefforts to spread information about cousinmarriage and birth defects will have on theincidence of marriages between closerelatives.

A study released in 2010 showed that seventimes as many Norwegian Pakistani childrenhave progressive diseases of the brain thanethnic Norwegian children. Among NorwegianPakistani children with parents who arecousins, the figures are even higher: such

9 Dagensmedisin.no, 8 March 2007.

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illnesses are 11 times more common among suchchildren than among ethnic Norwegianchildren.10 According to the doctors whoperformed the study, this is “one of the mostserious consequences of cousin marriage,” andno fewer than “15 to 30 professionals can beinvolved in the care and treatment of oneperson.”11

In 2007 the debate raged in the newspaperopinion pages, on TV, and on radio.Spokespeople, medical students, and doctorswith Norwegian Pakistani backgrounds defendedthe practice of marriage between closerelatives tooth and claw, and claimed that themajor solution to the problem is still that ofproviding information to the affect groups –as has been done for several decades. Onecould sense a desperation on the part ofNorwegian Pakistani ”leaders” when the thenMinister of Children, Equality, and SocialInclusion, Karita Bekkemellem, proposedbanning marriage between close relatives, outof concern both for possible birth defects andfor the possible use of force in arrangingsuch marriages. But the debate petered out.The Minister did not persuade the governmentto forbid the practice. When the newinformation about the diseases of the brainwas released three years later, when it alsoemerged that about 40 percent of the childrendied at less than eight years old, I took upmy pen (again), writing in Aftenposten:

The sufferings at the individual level,based in a pre-modern and inhuman practice,are enormous. When it comes to integration,

10 Tidsskrift for Den norske legeforeningen, August 13, 2010.11 Aftenposten.no, August 12, 2010.

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it has led Pakistanis in Britain to thebottom of the socioeconomic ladder. Prettymuch all of the leading Pakistanispokespeople in Norway have intimateexperience with compulsion in suchmarriages. Nonetheless, the practice shouldnot be banned – and the second generation(doctors included) agrees. How one can beso unconcerned with the well-being of one’sown is in itself sensational. Sensational,too, is the lack of consequential ethics:what if all groups in Norway followed thesame practice? Our society would collapsewithin a generation or two. What about thehealth-care resources, for instance?

(…)Norwegian Pakistani “leaders” and

politicians should call themselvesseriously to account and should especiallychallenge their own view of humanity. Thepoliticians must use their common sense andmake use of the most important tool – thelaw – and the Minister of Health shouldobtain the statistics relating to theexpenditure of health-care resources onchildren who are cruelly affected by a lackof enlightenment.

12

There was no response. The debate nevertook place – probably because no politiciancalled for action on any level.

Polygamy and fraud

The debate took off quickly, however, inAugust 2010 when a Norwegian Somali womanpublicly pointed out the odd fact that one in

12 Aftenposten, August 16, 2010.

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three Somali women in Norway are registered inthis country as divorced, She noted earlierfigures from Statistics Norway which show thatthe number of single breadwinners amongSomalis is two and half times as high as amongthe rest of the population. You would have tolook long and hard to find a more obvious caseof abuse of our welfare system, for the factthat many of these women are still marriedunder sharia law to their “ex-husbands” is asclear as day.13 Key Somali spokespeoplecompletely denied that this had anything to dowith fraud and charged that they were being”stigmatized.”

This example also clearly shows theincidence of polygamy, and according to what Iam told by Somalis, but which I cannotdocument, is that in the largest Somali mosquein Oslo, with about 4,000 members, the TawfiqIslamic Center, there is a special marriageregister, and also a special divorce register,some are kept hidden from the government.Here, one marries and divorces according tosharia law, and it is of course important toknow whether a women is divorced before she(for example) becomes a man’s second, third,or fourth wife. If this is true, one canreally talk about a completely sequesteredsociety within Norwegian society, a societywhose workings are virtually inaccessible tothe authorities.

I assume that the head of NAV Collectionsand Control, Magne Fladby, had good reason toclaim in 2007, in connection with this kind ofwelfare abuse, that “At present it is this

13 VG, August 18, 2010.

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kind of fraud that is increasingly the mostcommon in the new welfare state.” 14

Stripped of Freedom

In 2009, when the new Norwegian governmentpresented its political platform for thegoverning period ending in 2013, those of usat Human Rights Service were overjoyed.Finally politicians would be doing somethingabout immigrants who “dump” their children,sending them back to their home countries. Theplatform stated that the government would“improve the coordination of efforts to followup Norwegian children abroad.”

Which specific measures has this led to?The answer is still unclear. That the issuewas so high up on the political agenda can beattributed to the important work we have donein the field. For in 2009, too, we presentedan unsettling report to Norwegian officials.This time, in addition, we had a good manymore hard figures showing how many childrenand young people might have been sent to theirparents’ lands of origin, not only anestimate, as in 2004. We took two sets ofdocuments: the school directory, which showsthe percentage of pupils in Norwegian primaryand secondary schoolss (including privateschools), and government statistics about thenumber of children and young people in thecountry. On September 1, 2009, we issued ourreport, “De glemte barna – om barn og unge somikke er i den norske grunnskolen” (TheForgotten Children: On Children and YoungPeople who Are Not in Norwegian Primary and

14 Ibid.

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Secondary School”), and in a press release onthe same day we wrote the following:

Norwegian authorities have no control overwhere school-aged children are. Human RightsService has checked the number of childrenaged 6 – 15 who are registered as pupils inNorwegian schools against the populationstatistics for the same age group. Thedisparity between the children registered asresidents and the children registered inprimary and secondary schools is dramatic:

In the municipality of Oslo, 1,852pupils are missing.

In the entire country, 3,877 pupilsare missing.

We can say this: Norwegian authorities donot know what percentage of Norwegian childrenhave “disappeared,” who these children are,where they are, or what their nationalbackground is. Our assumption is that thegreat majority of the children have immigrantbackgrounds and have been sent to theirfamilies’ countries of origin.

The police, statisticians, and academicscould not explain away the figures. For us, itwas striking that our 2004 estimate that, atany given time, as many as 4-5,000 childrenand young people may be staying abroad(typically in their parents’ country oforigin), could not possibly have beenexaggerated. On the contrary. For the newstatistics do not count children under five,or between 16 and 18.

The report made it impossible for thegovernment to ignore the so far “forgottenchildren.”

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A baby can’t tell tales

On 22 June 2007, Norway awoke to a shock:after going on a reporting assignment toSomaliland, where many Norwegian Somalis havetheir roots and build properties, TormodStrand of NRK reported that 10 circumcisers hehad interviewed said that they had genitallymutilated 185 Norwegian Somali girls over thelast three years. In the following days, oneappalling report after another was broadcaston radio and television in which Norwegiansheard, among other things, the heartbreakingcries of an 8-year-old Somali girl, Anisa,during her mutilation. Between her cries, thelittle girl begged the circumciser severaltimes to stop, to “finish up.”

Anisa’s sweet and innocent face when shewas interviewed, before she was ledunsuspectingly in to her encounter with thecircumciser, where she would emit her cries ofpain, combined with the things the 10circumcisers said, resulted in a pressure onthe government that was so intense that itsimply had to be dealt with. Emergencymeasures were quickly drawn up which wereespecially concerned with attempting toprevent the transportation of girls thatsummer for the purpose of genital mutilation.The most interesting measure was thegovernment’s decision to map the incidence ofgenital mutilation among Norwegian girls.

But, and this is a major but: the mappingproject would not be clinical in nature. Inother words, there would be no physicalexaminations of actual girls. Therefore theresults did not tell us more about theincidence of mutilation. The researchers

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collected information from the police,Barnevernet, health stations for children andyoung people, schools, maternity wards, and soforth, in order to learn about specific casesof genital mutilation that had already beenuncovered during the preceding two years (2006and 2007). The result was 15 cases of alreadyuncovered genital mutilation. The researchers,in colLabouration with the cabinet ministerresponsible for this area, Minister of HealthSylvia Brustad, made used of this informationto go out into the media and claim a ”decline”in the incidence of genital mutilation and tomaintain that the soft measures of informationand dialogue were working. The Minister ofHealth was already an outspoken opponent ofmedical examinations of girls’ private parts,and the researchers belong to the politicalwing that warmly supports soft, not “hard,”measures. How these findings could beinterpreted as indicating a decline in theincidence of genital mutilation, when we inNorway have never known just how widespreadmutilation was, nobody could explain.

The mapping study was simply misused in thecrassest way – to uphold the status quo andprobably avoid the discomfort of facing thetruth. I was so despondent over thisfalsification that I wrote an entire chapterabout it in my 2009 book Rundlurt.15

The four sisters in Gambia What has happened with little Awa and her

three sisters who were dumped in Gambia in

15 The report is “Kjønnslemlestelse i Norge – En kartlegging,” Institutt for Samfunnsforskning, 2008:8.

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2003 and genitally mutilated? They’re stillthere. But something important has happened:in June 2008, the case took a new turn. Thesecond youngest girl, the fifth oldest of thechildren, who lives in Norway, was a fewmonths old in 2003. The authorities took itupon themselves to examine the girl becausethey were concerned that she, too, could havebeen mutilated. The girl, who in 2008 was fiveyears old, was mutilated, and with this solidevidence, the authorities were able, for thefirst time in Norwegian history, to prosecuteparents and place them in protective custodyon account of a genital mutilation. Morespecifically, the father was imprisoned, whilethe mother was spared this fate because ofcomplications with her seventh pregnancy. Iwas present at the sentencing at the Oslocourthouse. At the sentencing, the fatherpromised he would make sure that the girlscame back to Norway when they had completedanother half year’s schooling in Gambia, forwhich he had already paid. He also told thejudge that he was unaware that his daughterswere genitally mutilated. This was a man fromrural Gambia on the dock. The term integration hasno meaning to him or his kind. Mentally, heand his wife live in Gambia.

Christmas came. The girls didn’t. Thesisters, now aged 10 to 16, have still notcome. Seven years have passed, and yet thegirls are still officially registered asliving in Norway.

There is nothing the police and governmentcan do now about these Norwegian-born girls.The police could only hold the parents’passports for a limited period, and in theautumn of 2009 the parents were able onceagain to travel freely out of Norway – that

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is, able to return to Gambia to visit theirfamily and manage their properties anddaughters.

Just before the parents were given theirpassports back, I received a message fromGambia that the girl who was then 15 years oldwas going to be married off to a cousin.

In all probability, these girls’ case islost. Perhaps they will be able to come toNorway as adults – with Gambian spouses – andwith a rewritten story in their baggage aboutwhat was done to them.

These girls’ fate, and how simple it hasbeen for the parents to thumb their noses atNorwegian authorities, led me to write an op-ed which appeared in Norway’s largestnewspaper, Verdens Gang, on 19 June 2010. Iconcluded the op-ed by pointing out a measurethat I think demands to be taken in a case asserious as this one:

The parents have broken the socialcontract that is implicit in citizenship.They remain loyal to Gambian law and theGambian mentality. They completely refuseto recognize their Norwegian-bornchildren’s human rights – and worse, theydo not have to suffer any consequences as aresult, which, moreover, sends aparticularly unfortunate signal to thosewho think like them and live around them.

Therefore: rescind their Norwegiancitizenship and assume custody of those oftheir children who are still living here.

Such dramatic measures are essential inthe so-called New Norway, if we are goingto take human rights seriously. After all,if such measures had been in place in 2003,

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the four sisters would have had a farbetter life – in Norway.

I continue to maintain that it would not bean overreaction to mete out such harshtreatment to parents who have so brutallyfailed in their role as caregivers. I havedeliberately tested out people’s reactions tothese measures, first and foremost in talksgiven to police officers, in politicalsettings, and to general audiences. So far Ihave not heard any protests.

What about the fact that it has beendocumented that the 5-year-old here in Norwaywas also genitally mutilated, probably in 2003when she was only a few months old, along withher four sisters? He parents have yet to beprosecuted for this – despite hard evidence.What has to happen before the authorities willmake use of the existing legislation toprevent such a gross and irreversible assault?A police officer said the following to me onthe telephone earlier this year: “I thinkwe’ll have to catch a circumciser here inNorway in the middle of the act in order to beable to get a trial and conviction.”

The statement confirms my claim that thestruggle against genital mutilation in Norwayis barely at the starting line.

Sweden loses its innocence

The situation in Sweden is becoming morecritical with every year. Two thingsparticularly disgust me: the dizzyingly highrape statistics and the fact that parts of thecountry may be emptied of Jews.

When it comes to rape statistics, Swedenbeats out the rest of Europe. An EU project

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covering the years 2004-2008 showed that thecountry has twice as many rapes per 100,000inhabitants as Britain, which comes in secondin Europe, and four times as many rapes ascountries like Germany and France 16 Each year,the number of reported rapes risesdramatically. When you look at the statistics,you get a feeling that there is a kind of low-intensity war underway.

In only one country on earth are there morereported rapes than in Sweden – namely, in theAfrican country of Lesotho.

Here are the figures for 2009: almost 6,000reported rapes, which comes to about 16 rapesa day. The Swedish National Council for CrimePrevention (BRÅ) believes this is only the tipof the iceberg. BRÅ estimates that only 10 to20 percent of the rapes are reported.17

Of the nearly 6,000 reported rapes, thepercentage of raped children was record high.Just under 2,000 of the rapes were of childrenunder 15 years old, which means that over fivechild rapes are reported daily.

In the summer of 2010 yet more records werebroken. The number of reported rapes,including violent rapes, went up by 25 percentfrom the summer of 2009 to the summer of 2010(the months of June and July). The reportedrapes of children under 15 rose by a full 53percent (!) in the same period.18

To my knowledge, no leading Swedishpolitician has grasped this dramatic reality.Nor have the major media done investigativework in the field. Thousands of children arebeing raped. For me, it is incomprehensible16 The project called Daphne.17 Aftonbladet.se, 6 August 2010.18 SVT.se,.12 August 2010.

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that these children, especially, haven’t setoff the nation’s alarms. Rape seems, quitesimply, to have become accepted as a normalstate of affairs in Sweden.

Who, then, are the major perpetrators?Swedish authorities don’t have the statisticsto answer that question. But in 2002 Dr. Jur.Ann-Christine Hjelm studied one of the Swedishprovincial court jurisdictions, Svea Hovrätt,which includes the districts of Stockholm andUppsala, and found that 85 percent of theviolence criminals were of foreign origin.19

A crisis for Swedish Jews

Of Malmö’s 260,000 residents, 60,000 areMuslims. The city’s Jews are increasinglysubjected to harassment and threats,especially from extreme Muslims. During thelast two years, more than 30 Jews have foundit necessary to leave Malmö, most of themtoward Israel, and most of them young peoplewho see no future for their children inSweden.

In 2010, Jews in Malmö told NRK that theydon’t dare to wear a yarmulke. The police haveto guard the synagogue, and the chapel hasbeen set on fire. Hate crime against Jews hasdoubled in the last year.20

A very thought-provoking event took placewhen Sweden and Israel were supposed to takeeach other on in the Davis Cup match in Malmöin 2009. Because of threats of demonstrations,

19 Hjelm, Ann-Christine, “Är kulturgenererad grov brottslighet myt eller verklighet? brottsoffer och gärningsmän vid grova brottmål i Svea hovrätt 2002,”Karlstad 2006.20 13 March 2010.

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the match had to take place in front of emptystands and the players were flown into thesports arena in helicopters for reasons ofsecurity. Only selected schoolchildren,members of the press, and sponsors got to seethe teams clash in person.

For anti-fascist, Islamist, and neo-Nazigroups threatened a real clash outside thestadium. About 10,000 demonstrators wereexpected, and there was an imminent danger ofrioting. The police therefore mobilized 1,000officers from their own ranks. But that wasn’tenough: in addition to bringing in tanks fromother parts of Sweden, the Swedish police –for the first time in history – found itnecessary to ask for help from Denmark. Danishpolish supported their Swedish colleagues with12 tanks.

Six thousand demonstrators filled Malmö’sstreets on 7 March 2009. Extreme elementsattacked police with bombs and fireworks. Onecan hardly wonder that the tiny Jewishminority in Malmö felt unsafe. The Swedishhistory professor Kristian Gerner went so faras to call the situation “the worst crisis forJews in Sweden since World War II.”21

There is no sign that the situation willturn around. On the contrary. The city towhich the Jews fled from the Nazis duringWorld War II may thus, in a few years, beemptied of Jews. That would represent anideological defeat – indeed, a veritableideological breakdown that Sweden can hardlylive with.

The riots by the boys and young men whohave immigrant backgrounds and live in

21 VG.no, 7 March 2009, and Aftonbladet.se, 7 March 2009.

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immigrant enclaves also seem to get worse yearby year. Raging immigrant youth who go amokand attack police and ambulance personnel, setfire to police stations, schools, and cars,have become so commonplace that you can hardlyavoid the stories in the newspaper. Forexample, the situation in June 2010 inRinkeby, near Stockholm, got so bad that thepolice had to bring in reinforcements fromother parts of the country to help them quella disturbance by 50 to 100 youths who werethrowing bricks and setting fire to buildings.Eyewitnesses described the area as a “warzone.”22

The political shock

Sweden’s innocence was partially destroyedby the national election in 2010. For thefirst time in history, a party that speaks outfor immigration sceptics, love of country, andSwedish culture and tradition got voted intoParliament. The Sweden Democrats (SD) receivedover 300,000 votes and won 22 seats in thehighly politically correct Riksdagen – eventhough they had been frozen out of mediadebates during the election campaign, had hadto break off campaign events again and againbecause of violent demonstrations, and alsosaw some of their own party members assaulted.There are several reasons for the violentreactions to SD: back in the 1970s it had Naziviews (which the party today officiallyrejects, and which are not reflected in thecurrent party platform).23 Then there’s the

22 Dagbladet.no, 9 June 2010. 23 I am not ignoring the possibility that racist elements exist in the party’s ranks, but so far this

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ruling political establishment, which sees thevery existence of SD as a challenge to theglaring weakness of its immigration andintegration policy. It is now become an almostimpossible exercise to continue to try toconceal the dramatic problems that have beencreated by an uncontrolled mass immigration.The strong reactions from the politicalestablishment – members of which, for example,have refused to shake the hands of SD membersof the Riksdag, have asked for a newarrangement in the Riksdag cafeteria so thatthey will not have to stand in line with SDmembers, and have refused to sit in the samemakeup room as them before a TV debate – bearwitness not only to a lack of decent manners,but also to a kind of desperation: theestablished parties do not know, quite simply,how to deal with the political challenge that SDrepresents. Instead of holding a poltiicaldebate about the obviously real immigrationand integration problems, they turn the wholething into a question about morality: those whosubscribe to the politically correct consensusare the good people, and the members of SD arethe evil ones. I fear that this attitude willonly intensify the conflicts in Sweden in theyears ahead.24 I believe especially that thelevel of political violence will increase,something Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldthimself helped prepared the ground for duringthe election campaign. A member of SD wasviolently attacked, and the Prime Ministercondemned the act. But he added this sentence:“I would like to point out that those who makea career out of promoting an us-and-them way

has not been shown to be the case.24 Editorial, dn.se, 6 October 2010.

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of thinking and, at bottom, a hateful way ofviewing relations between people, should notbe surprised that such things happen.”25

As I see it, SD is the legitimate child ofthe wretched Swedish political situation. Themajor parties have failed miserably – and, notleast, have failed the lost girls and women inthe enclaves who live lives not unlike thoseof their sisters in Kabul og Mogadishu.

Germany’s problems surface

Berlin, October 2006: “I encourage youMuslim women: come into modern times. Takepart in Germany. Then take off the headcovering that is a symbol of the oppression ofwomen and male dominance. Take it off and showthat you have the same civil and human rightsas men.”

This statement caused a great stir in bothGermany and Turkey in 2006. The words werespoken by a politician in the German nationalparliament, a woman born in Turkey who hadcome to Germany at the age of eight. The then34-year-old Ekin Deligoz, a mother of smallchildren and a member of the Green Party,received a reply to her frank remark: Shereceived death threats from various quarters,and German authorities did not dare to riskwaking up one day to an execution in the openstreet of the kind that the Netherlands hadexperienced when filmmaker Theo van Gogh waskilled on November 2, 2004, in Amstersdam fordirecting the film Submission, written by AyaanHirsi Ali, which commented critically on theoppression of women in the name of Islam.

25 Hd.se, 14 September 2010.

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Therefore Deligoz instantly was given tworound-the-clock bodyguards.

The Turkish press and Islamist-inspiredorganizations in Germany went on the attackagainst Deligoz and her statements. Thevarious organizations proclaimed unambiguouslythat the veil is obligatory for Muslim womenwhile the Turkish press ran what might almostbe called a hate campaign against her. Deligozwas accused of “having been turned into aGerman in Germany.” She had “distanced”herself from her “Turkish and Islamicidentity” – apparently a cardinal sin. Theaccusations went a great deal further thanthat. Deligoz was even accused of using“Nazi-like logic.” Her comments, it wasmaintained, had put the Turks down on racistgrounds. When it became clear to leadingGerman politicians that what a woman wears onher head can literally cost her her head intoday’s’ Germany, Deligoz quickly wonwidespread supporrt. The president of thenational parliament called the assaults onDeligoz “a serious attack on the core valuesof our constitution.” While many major Muslimwomen, as well as leading Germanintellectuals, tried to paint the veil asinnocent by calling it a “fashion accessory.”Deligoz replied as follows: “If the veil wereonly a fashion accessory, I wouldn’t be livingunder police protection.”26

The veil’s steady advance in Germany is asymptom of the underlying problems facingMuslims in regard to the matter of becoming

26 This account is based on articles published in Spiegelonline.de on 31 October 2006, in Taipeitimes.com on November 2006, and in Worldpoliticsreview.com on 29 November 2006.

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full-fledged members of the national statethey live in. Several studies of Muslims inGermany in recent years have drawninternational attention. Among other currentdevelopments in German Muslim communities isan obvious radicalization of young people.

Fewer than half of young GermanMuslims say that immigrants shouldadapt to German culture, which is amuch lower figure than that for thenumber of older Muslims who supportassimilation. Forty percent of youngMuslims agree strongly that obeyingthe religion’s commandments is moreimportant than democracy.

The study “Muslimer in Deutschland”(2010) shows that so-calledfundamentalist attitudes areextremely widespread. In thiscontext, “fundamental” means astrong belief that has a decisiverole for the religion in day-to-daylife and a strong attention toreligious rules and rituals, inwhich the tendency is also todistance oneself from Muslims withnon-fundamentalist views. At thesame time, there is a generaltendency to emphasize Islam andundervalue Western, Christianculture. Forty percent of the MuslimGerman population holds such views.

Almost half of the young Muslims inschools have such fundamentalistviews. Over four-fifths view theKoran as God’s direct revelation,

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and over half of the young peoplebelieve that those who seek tomodernize Islam are destroying thetrue faith.

Another extensive 2010 study shows thatMuslim boys are more violent than others. Boyswho grow up in extremely religious homes aremore violent than others, and Muslim boys whoare very religious are twice as violent asChristian immigrant boys who are veryreligious.

Like Sweden and other countries, Germanyalso contains more and more areas that aredefined as no-go zones. Riots and violence arealmost out of control. As the head of theGerman Police Union puts it, the attacks onpolice are now so common that they are causingthe state’s monopoly on power to wobble:“There used to be huge fist fights going onwhen the police arrived. Today they don’treally seriously start until the police arrive– and they’re against the police.” Wendt alsosays that “there are some streets in Berlin,Hamburg, Duisburg, Essen, and Cologne whereyou can’t walk alone. If an officer stops aspeeder, 40 to 70 of his friends are summonedto the spot at lightning speed, and in theface of such a superior force the stateunfortunately has to withdraw.” The youngpeople have no respect, then, for officers ofthe law. ”The perpetrators don’t accept theGerman legal system and its representatives.Also, it’s known all over Germany that theselightning mobilizations are carried out byTurkish and Arab boys. The police are drivenaway with the words: ‘We’ll settle this among

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ourselves. Get lost.’ In areas like that, thestate’s monopoly on power is wobbling.” 27

That the state’s monopoly on power iswobbling in a city like Berlin, for example,is also borne witness to by anonymous policeofficers’ statements on German television in2010. The police there talk about fear ofdoing their job. They say that they can besurrounded by up to 50 people, typically youngmen with Arabic backgrounds, who spit, hit,and insult them. Owing to low manpower, thepolice have to withdraw from the scene. Thepolice also say that they refuse to reportassaults directed against them when they aredoing their job, out of fear that they will bedenied promotions. In 10 years, the violenceagainst the police has risen by 28.6 percent,and since 2006 over 6,000 people have refusedto obey police orders, an increase of 55percent. Rarely are the violent elementsconvicted.28

In 2008, on a public stage, TurkishPresident Recep Tayyip Erdogan threw salt onthe wounds of German integration. In front of16,000 German Turks in Cologne, Erdogan warnedthem in the strongest terms against adoptingthe values upon which German society is built:“Assimilation i a crime against humanity,” hemaintained, and demanded that Germany set upTurkish-language secondary schools and aTurkish university, preferably with teachers

27 The examples so far are drawn from the book Islams magt. Europas ny virkelighed, by Karen Jespersen and Ralf Pittelkow (Jyllands-Postens, 2010).28 The TV clip, in German and English, can be viewed at rights.no 2010, “No-go soner i Berlin.”

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educated in Turkey.29 His comments caused apolitical storm.

Sarrazin

The German debate about the problems withintegrating Muslims exploded in August 2010.The Social Democrat Thilo Sarrazin, also amember of the board of the German centralbank, Bundesbank, published the book Deutschlandschafft sich ab (Germany Does away with Itself). Sarrazinmercilessly criticized Muslims’ lack ofwillingness and ability to integrate, citedtheir overrepresentation in statistics onviolent crime, and wrote: “I don’t want us toend up as strangers in our own land, not evenon a regional basis.” Both Chancellor AngelaMerkel and the Bundesbank scrambled to put outthe fire. The leaders of Bundesbank said thatSarrazin’s comments had “damaged Bundesbank’simage.” It was said that “discriminationdoesn’t belong in the bank.” Merkel “urgedthe bank to take action.” It was obvious thatMerkel wanted Sarrazin fired from the bank’sboard. 30

Sarrazin presented his points indelicately,not least when he argued that one of theproblems facing Germany was a lowerintelligence level among Muslims, and alsowhen he claimed that ”there is a special genefor Jews, just as there is a special gene forBasques.”31 The head of Sarrazin’s local partyin decided to start the process of shuttingSarrazin out, and the president of DeutscheBundesbank, Axel Weber, wrote letters to the29 Berlingske.dk, 13 February 2008.30 Reuters.com, 30 August 2010.31 Dailymail.co.uk, 30 August 2010.

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President of Germany, Christian Wulff,encouraging him to discharge Sarrazin.

What, then, were Sarrazin’s proposedsolutions to the actual integration problems?They include the following:

“All those who are able to work must

commit themselves to working. Ifnot, they should lose their rightsto social benefits.”

“All children over three yearsshould be in day care. If not, theparents will lose child benefits.Doing one’s homework must beobligatory for weak students,including German students.Exemptions from education onreligious grounds should berejected, and hijab should beprohibited in schools.”

Language requirements for acquiringGerman citizenship must be tightenedup, and those who bring new spousesto Germany must be able to supportthem themselves.

“Immigration must be changed, sothat those who come to Germany inthe future must have education andqualifications that will benefitGerman society.”

While Sarrazin was criticized intensely bya broad spectrum of the German elite, he alsoreceived support. Among those who took hisside were the lawyer, women’s rightsactivists, and author Seyran Ates, who has

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Turkish roots, and the prominent sociologistand author Necla Kelek, also born in Turkey.He also received massive support in the manyonline debates that following the publicationof the book and the intense media coverage.The impression is that the average Germanagrees with Sarrazin and that the elite is outof touch with people’s daily experiences.

In September of the same year, Sarrazinresigned from the board of Bundesbank. Overone million copies of his book were printed inthe autumn of 2010. During this time, AngelaMerkel made amends to Sarrazin, in a sort ofindirect way. Merkel may have been scared oflosing voters on account of the massivepopular support for Sarrazin when he statedfirmly: “German’s multiculturalism has been acomplete failure.”32

France: Citizenship and visible faces

The situation for the largest Jewishpopulation in northern and Western Europe hasin no way improved in recent years. On thecontrary. In many ways it is dramatic,especially in the wake of the escalatingconflict between Israel and Palestine duringthe last few years, as a result of whichhatred for Israel has led to hated for Jews.Several thousand Jews are now leaving Francefor good every year, most of them for the U.S.or Israel. For example, in March 2007 a groupof more than 7,000 French Jews applied forpolitical asylum in the U.S. The applicationwas sent to the U.S. Congress with all theapplicants’ signatures. The grounds for theapplication were “the increase in the numberof

32 TV2.dk, 16 October 2010.

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anti-Semitic acts committed by Islamicfundamentalists,” as a result of which a“significant number” of Jews do not feel “safeany more in France.”33

The asylum application cites the mostgrotesque action committed against a Jew inFrance and Europe in recent times – an actionthat shocked the country. Ilan Halimi, a 23-year-old man with Moroccan roots, waskidnapped and imprisoned by a gang ofIslamists who called themselves “TheBarbarians.” He was brutally tortured for 24days until the torture took his life. On 29April 2009, the trial against the 27 gangmembers began, and the French-born 28-year-oldleader of the gang, Fofana Youssouf, “sneeredat Halimi’s relatives and cried ‘Allahuakbar’” (Allah is great in Arabic) when he enteredthe courtroom. When the judge asked him whereand when he was born, he replied: “13 February2006 in Sainte-Genevieve-des-Bois” – the samedate and place where Halimi was murdered.Several of the defendants confirmed that theyhad kidnapped Halimi for one single reason: hewas Jewish.

Of the 27 defendants, the gang leader,Fofana, received a life sentence of at least22 years in prison, while several of his co-conspirators received far more lenientsentences. Several were given only a fewmonths or two or three years in prison. Twowere acquitted.34

Not surprisingly, the bestial murder ofHalimi, and the subsequent trial with its somany lenient sentences, became a national

33 Jav.org, 20 March 2007.34 Timesonline.co.uk, 11 June 2009.

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symbol of the increasing harassment of Jews inFrance.35

Deprivation of citizenship

The riots in France’s ghettos, and hencealso the violence against police and otherauthorities, continues unabated. There is nosign that this will turn around. PresidentNicolas Sarkozy knows this, of course, and hehas clearly understood that he needs to make apowerful effort if France is going to seebetter times. After violent riots in Grenoblein the summer of 2009, Sarkozy made suchpowerful statements in the media that it wasimpossible to come to any conclusion otherthan that the situation in the immigrant-heavyareas is out of control. Sarkozy presented aspecific and controversial proposal: that itshould be possible to rescind the citizenshipof people who have become French citizensduring the last ten years and who haveattacked the police or other officials. Theproposal met with strong opposition from theleft and from legal experts, who believed thatsuch a measure might violate the Frenchconstitution, which says that all citizens areequal before the law, regardless of race,religion, or national origin. Three out offour Frenchmen, however, supported theproposal. In the autumn of 2010 Sarkozyannounced that he was proceeding with the planto rescind people’s citizenship. This happenedat a meeting with the ministers responsiblefor security, justice, and immigration. InOctober, therefore, French law was changed.Now, someone who kills or performs acts of

35 France24.com, 30 April 2009.

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violence that lead to the death of a policeofficer or soldier, and who has been givenFrench citizenship during the last ten years,will be deprived of his citizenship, providedthat this action does not render theindividual stateless.36

While this was going on, Minister of theInterior Brice Hortefeux called for the samepunishment to meted out to those who supportpolygamy and genital mutilation, but Sarkozyrejected the proposal. I find this rejectionrather surprising, given his initial desire totake citizenship away from people whoperformed acts of violence against publicofficials. Surely it must be considered anequally bad, if not worse, offense to rituallymutilate a defenseless child than to assaultan officer of the law? 37

Removing the veil

Sarkozy leaves no doubt, however, that hispatience in regard to real integration isclose to the breaking point. In the same year,2010, he took on Islamic garb, namely theincreasing use of the face-covering garmentsthe burka and niqab: “In our country, we can’tallow women to be imprisoned behind a screen,isolated from all social life, deprived of allidentity….The burka is not a religious symbol.It is a symbol of subordination, a symbol ofdebasement….It is not welcome on the territoryof the French Republic.”38

In the summer of 2010, Sarkozy won anoverwhelming majority in the national36 Le Monde, 12 October 2010. 37 Aftenposten.no, 6 September 2010.38 The Times, 23 July 2010.

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legislature for his proposal. The peoplesupported him, too: eight out of ten Frenchmenwere for the ban and on 14 September 2010,Sarkozy also received the necessary supportfrom the entire Senate, with the exception ofone vote, for a national ban. Only the FrenchConstitutional Council could put a stop to theban, which calls for fines of 150 euros forwomen who wear the burka or niqab in public,as well as a compulsory course in Frenchvalues. Men who force women to wear clothingthat covers them fully will receive a far moresevere punishment: a fine of 30,000 euros anda year in jail.

The Constitutional Council issued itsdecision on the ban. The council’s statementmentioned neither the burka nor Islam, butrather noted that it is punishable ”to hideone’s face in public,” and that this banstrikes a ”reasonable balance” betweenpersonal freedom and the need to maintainother constitutional principles, such aswomen’s rights and public order. Exempted fromthe ban are “houses of worship open to thepublic."39

During the process leading to the ban, theIslamist preacher Omar Bakri warned Europeabout a rise in European support for Al-Qaidashould the ban be introduced. Omar Bakri, whowas expelled from Britain and lives inLebanon, may have been somewhat correct in hisclaim. For a week after the Senate approved ofthe ban against face covering, the authoritiesreceived information about a woman who wassupposed to have planned a suicide attack onthe Paris Metro.40 The threats were supposedly

39 Independent.co.uk, 8 October 2010.40 Thisislondon.co.uk, 20 September 2010.

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made by Al-Qaida and the motive is supposed tohave been the ban. When this became clear,France raised its threat level at once, andBernard Squarcini, the head of France’scounterterrorism agency, stated very clearlythat it was just a question of time beforeFrance experienced a terrorist attack on itsown soil: “We are expecting an attack on ourterritory.”41

It remains to be seen whether Squarcini iscorrect and France will be thus be the nextEuropean country to experience a terroristattack on its own soil, which undeniably wouldbe a feather in Al-Qaeda’s cap. Such an attackwould also have a profound impact on theFrench state – that open, free democracyfounded on absolute secularism.

The Redeker case

It will not necessarily be the burka banthat provokes terrorism on French soil. RobertRedeker, a well-known philosopher and author,published an op-ed in Le Figaro on September 19,2006, under the title “How should the freeworld deal with the Islamists’ threats?” Thepiece was a defense of the pope’s famousspeech, given at the University of Regensburgearlier that month, in which the popementioned genuinely brutal aspects of Islamichistory. In his piece, Redeker wrote that“Jesus is the master of love, Muhammed is themaster of hate.” The next day, Redeker wasnamed “the Islamophobe of the moment” by Yusufal-Qaradawi on the Al-Jazeera TV channel,watched by tens of millions of viewers.Redeker instantly began to receive personal

41 Metro.co.uk, 16 September 2010.

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threats by e-mail. Meanwhile, though he didnot know it, terrorists were planning toeliminate him. The French intelligence servicehad tracked down a coded electronic messagethat read, in part, as follows: “First thepig’s name: Redeker, Robert. And on to thesecond: a photo, so we won’t forget his face.And third, this arrogant liar’s address:…Fourth: Where does he work? Near Toulouse inSaint-Orens-de-Gameville, where he teachesphilosophy at the Pierre-Paul Riquet secondaryschool….Fifth: Where is Escalquens? Not veryfar from Toulouse, about 15 kilometerssoutheast of the city.”

Thus ended Redeker’s and his family’sfreedom. After this, they had to liveunderground, at a series of addresses, underpolice protection.

One Must Try to Live is the expressive title ofRedeker’s book about his life after the Figaroop-ed. When he visited Copenhagen in 2009 toaddress the Free Press Society, he arrived atthe airport with four bodyguards.

Yet another new Danish policy

Denmark will never again be what it oncewas – that is, before 2005. The world-famouscartoons will doubtless haunt the once smalland happy country, which used to enjoy a deepsense of community, for a long time. In thewake of the 2006 riots there has been oneevent that will definitely go into the historybooks: the murder attempt on the retiredgrandfather Kurt Westergaard, who drew themost famous of the cartoons – Muhammed with abomb in his turban.

On New Year’s Day 2010, Westergaard escapeddeath with a cry for help in his own home in

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Århus. Westergaard was home alone with hisfive-year-old grandchild when an axe-wieldingman of Somali ethnicity broke in through thedoor. In a fraction of a second Westergaardhad to make a horrible decision: should hestay in the living room and try to protect hisgrandchild and himself with just his fists, orshould he rush into the specially fortifiedbathroom that the authorities had provided himwith for security reasons after the cartooncrisis? He saw that he would not be able totake the child with him, and he had been toldby the police that any terrorists would be outto get him, not his family. So Westergaardretreated alone into the bathroom, with theintruder hot on his heels. The man triedunsuccessfully to break down the door. Thechild was untouched, but Westergaard was asclose to death as it is possible to be.

Since that time, Danish intelligence hasprovided Westergaard with bodyguards 24 hoursa day, 365 days a year. And he will have tolive like this for the rest of his life.

The reaction by the Danish public,politicians, and media can described as amixture of alarm, despair, and outrage. Itturned out that the would-be murderer was a28-year-old Danish Somali with ties to Al-Qaida, and that he reportedly belonged to anetwork of would-be terrorists that had afoothold in Denmark. On 9 July 2010, he wasprosecuted for terrorism and attempted murder,and the prosecutors further asked for him tobe expelled from Denmark since he is not aDanish citizen.42

42 Jyllands-Posten, 10 August 2010. The trial is expected to take place in early 2011.

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Hardly any person in Denmark today is ashighly regarded as Westergaard. His quiethumour, his always optimistic tone, his jovialmanner, which is so utterly free of self-importance, combined with his steadfastdefense of freedom of expression, has possiblemade him more popular among the Danish peoplethan even the highly popular Queen Margrethe.43

For my part, I do not think I have everfelt more honoured than when I was invited toCopenhagen in 2007 by the Free Press Societyto present the Sappho Prize for journalism tothe man responsible for the Muhammed cartoons,Jyllands-Posten’s culture editor, Flemming Rose. Ihad written the speech beforehand and sent itto the head of the Free Press Society, LarsHedegaard. When I landed at Copenhagen Airporton 27 March, Hedegaard met me in the arrivalshall with a broad smile and with that day’sissue of Jyllands-Posten in his hand. Hedegaardhad arranged for my entire tribute to Rose tobe published in Jyllands-Posten – illustrated bythe newspaper’s then editorial cartoonist,Kurt Westergaard: an inkpot and a pen with alit bomb, and the text <text missing>

There is no doubt that Denmark, in the wakeof the cartoon crisis, has been a highlyprioritized target of international terrorism,and that Al-Qaida and similar groups have ahard time forgetting and forgiving Severalplanned terrorist attacks have been preventedat the last minute, and in Al-Qaida’s firstEnglish-language magazine, Inspire, which came

43 Sappho.dk, 14 April 2010. When Sappho’s editors performed an unscientific study of Google searches, they discovered that during the preceding month the name Kurt Westergaard had been Googled almost twice as many times as the queen’s.

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out in 2010, three Danes appear, along withsix people from other countries, on theterrorist group’s international death list:Kurt Westergaard, Flemming Rose, and Jyllands-Posten’s former editor-in-chief Carsten Juste.One of the most important articles in theterrorist magazine is about the cartoons, andthe message is that all Muslims are obliged towreak revenge on those who have insulted theprophet. The article is followed by a full-page death list, illustrated by a shiningpistol.

According to the American terroristresearcher and former CIA man Bruce Riedel,the article shows that Al-Qaida is activelytrying to keep the focus on Denmark as one ofthe world’s most obvious terrorist targets:“It is clear that Al-Qaida is focused onattacking Danish targets because of thecartoon crisis. Last year the terroristnetwork planned a massive attack againstDenmark with the help of the American DavidHeadley. It was called off when he wasarrested. But it is likely that both Al-Qaida’s central leadership in Pakistan and Al-Qaida’s division in Yemen will try to go afterDenmark again.”44

The burka debate

Facial coverings have led to widespreaddebate in almost all northern and westernEuropean countries in recent years, andDenmark is no exception. The Danish SyrianNaser Khader, who now belongs to theConservative People’s Party, proposed a ban inthe summer of 2009, and a broad debate ensued.

44 Jyllands-Posten.dk, 29 August 2010.

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But the debate was killed off by <detjuridiske embetsverket>. The next year, the<juridiske embetsverket> wrote to theFolketing that they were ”most inclined tothink” that ”considerable doubt” could beraised as to whether such a ban would beconsistent with the constitution and with theEuropean Convention on Human Rights (ECHR).Then the Minister of Justice, who belongs tothe same party, said that ”it goes withoutsaying that neither I, as Minister of Justice,nor a party like the Conservative People’sParty can make a proposal that raises thiskind of legal question.”

Karen Jespersen, who belongs to the LiberalParty, which is part of the currentgovernment, and heads up the integrationcommittee in the Folketing, was (to put itmildly) less than satisfied. She pointed outthat France had evaluated the situationdifferently, deciding that out of “concern forpublic order which is also mentioned in theECHR (article 9, point 2)”, religious freedomcan be curtailed. But in Denmark the juristshad not done their jobs, as their counterpartshad done in France, Jespersen believed, giventhat the French jurists had made an argumentfor restricting religious freedom by banningface coverings. Thus the politicians weregiven an entirely different interpretation onwhich to base their independent judgment. Whenthe French Minister of Justice presented theproposal for a ban, she emphasized that theburka and niqab violate human dignity andequality, and that these “garments”, whichshould instead perhaps be regarded asuniforms, can also present a security risk. Amajor argument was that the “garments”contravene the very principles on which France

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was founded: liberty, equality, andfraternity.

In an op-ed in Jyllands-Posten on 16 August2010, Jespersen continued her argument asfollows: “We have freedom of religion inDenmark. This means that one must not bediscriminated against on the basis of one’sreligion. But §70 [of the Danish Constitution]does not mean that one can do everything inthe name of religion. As the Court of HumanRights has made clear: religious freedom ”doesno protect any action whatsoever that ismotivated or inspired by a religion or aconviction, and does not always guarantee theright to conduct oneself in a way that isdictated by a religious conviction.” This isemphasized in two judgments mentioned by theMinister of Justice himself (Dogru vs. France,Sahin vs. Turkey). The point is clear: youcan’t necessarily dress in any way you want,in any context you like, and defend it bycrying religious discrimination.

In the autumn of 2010, Jespersen promised afight, and the result of this ongoing strugglecan, as I see it, go both ways. In Denmark, asin most other European countries, a veryintense conflict is underway about theinterpretation of human rights, and especiallyabout which human rights should have priorityover others. Briefly put, the debate is aboutwomen’s freedom and an open society vs.unrestricted religious liberty.

Denmark plays in its own division when itcomes to immigration and integration policiesin Europe. The country’s politicians andintellectuals, however, don’t disguise thefact that integration “is an uphill battle”there too (to borrow a phrase frequently usedbehind the scenes by leading Danish

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politicians). The justice system in Copenhagenreleased statistics for 2009 which showed that15- to 17-year-old boys with immigrantbackgrounds are strongly overrepresented: 73percent of the boys and young men who werearrested had foreign backgrounds. Most of thecharges had to do with robbery, but there werealso many crimes of violence, weaponpossession, and arson, and a high percentagewere taken into custody owing to theseriousness of their crimes. The policedescribe a dramatic rise in crimes committedby young immigrants.45 That Muslim immigrationis especially responsible for these problemscan also be seen in the crime statistics.Figures from Statistics Denmark (2009) showthat even if social circumstances are takeninto account, people with backgrounds inMuslim countries are heavily overrepresentedamong the perpetrators of serious crimes,while other people with non-Westernbackgrounds are underrepresented. If we placethe average rate of criminality in Denmark at100, Thais are at 76, Filipinos at 59, andChinese at 37. On the other side of the scaleare Moroccans and Turks at 187 and 184respectively, while at the extreme end of thescale are Somalians at 277, Moroccans at 255,and Lebanese at 243.46

When one takes into account the largenumbers of young people with immigrantbackgrounds – especially from Muslim lands –who are now growing up in Copenhagen and otherDanish cities, and the ongoing establishment

45 Extrabladet.dk, 17 February 201046 Statistics Denmark yearbook for 2009, quoted in Islams magt. Europas ny virkelighed, op.cit.

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of ghettos, it is hard not to see dark cloudson the horizon.

Dramatic new policy changes

The new immigration rules of 2001, incombination with later measures, have led tohigher employment levels among non-Westernimmigrants. There is nonetheless a clearacknowledgment that the costs of immigrationare not economically sustainable. The welfarestate cannot easily be preserved withoutradical new changes. This awareness explodedlike a bomb in 2008. In the report for itsthird quarter, the Danish National Bank (DN)presented figures that startled Europe andthat confirmed Finance Minister ThorPedersen’s 2005 statement: “…integration isDenmark’s greatest welfare reform.” DNreported these cold facts: it is only the(unrealistic) “superimmigrant” that enrichesDenmark (or other European countries)economically. The superimmigrant comes toDenmark fully educated and dives right intofull-time work and pays as much tax as anaverage Dane. She or he does not bring anyfamily to Denmark, and leaves the countrybefore retirement age.

If 5,000 non-Western persons immigrate overthe course of a year, it will cost the Danishstate 10 billion kroner annually in additionalexpenses, while for 5,000 Westerners theadditional expenses come to 500 millionkroner, DN ascertained. If Denmark achieves”perfect immigration,” on the other hand –meaning that immigrants in Denmark todaycontribute just as much to the work force andpay just as much in taxes as Danes – theDanish state will save 23 billion dollars in

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expenses every year. But doesn’t Denmark, with its low birth

rates, need (like other European countries)more people to enter the work force in theyears to come, especially now that thepopulation is growing steadily older, aspoliticians nearly across the politicalspectrum maintain? Yes, we need more workers,not least in nursing and other suchprofessions. But we do not need familyimmigration, low employment rates, and highwelfare consumption. As DN showed, it is only“superimmigration” that is economicallyprofitable, and “perfect integration” ofimmigrants and their descendants is the onlyproper medicine.47

In May 2009 another report caused asensation in Denmark. The independent analysisinstitute DREAM calculated the state’sexpenses on immigrants and Danes.48 DREAMdivided the population into five categories:Danes, immigrants from “less developedcountries” (i.e., non-Western countries), thelatter’s descendants, immigrants from ”moredeveloped countries” (i.e., Westerncountries), anf their descendants. The figuresshowed that every year a Dane costs the state5,500 kroner; a non-Western immigrant, 29,600kroner; and a non-Western descendant, 29,000kroner; while a Western immigrant, who islikely to be educated and to have come toDenmark to work, contributes 13,500 kroner to

47 “Growth, Public Finances and Immigration”, Danish National Bank, third quarter report, 2008.48 The report was done on assignment for the non-partisan libertarian Danish think tank CEPOS, and isentitled “Immigrants’ and Danes’ Influence on PublicFinances: The Need for a Policy Shift,” Cepos.dk.

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the state. Descendants of Western immigrants,however, cost the state 8,500 kroner a year.

The new integration minister, Birthe RønnHornbech, sent out a trial balloon inSeptember 2010 which was probably aconsequence of the study by DN and DREAM andthe analysis by Cepos. She warned of a radicalnew immigration policy: “The time is right fora departure from, and a revolt against, theAliens Law that we passed in 2001, because theworld is quite different today. We havemanaged to stem what we wanted to stem. Nowit’s about a development agenda. We can’tafford to exclude good workers, and we willhave a lack of workers within a few years. Inthe future, the clear and new guidingprinciple of Danish immigration policy will beto prioritize those who can contribute to thegrowth and prosperity of Denmark.” Shecontinued with these words: “I know that it’sentirely new to hear a message like this fromme. But I have become so preoccupied withDenmark’s need for growth that I now seemyself as the head of a ministry ofdevelopment. I have begun to read thenewspapers in another way. Development is theentire foundation of the welfare society.Therefore, in future legislation on aliens wewill focus entirely on the development agendaand the future of the welfare society.” 49

And so it was done. On 7 November, thegovernment entered into the agreement entitled“New times. New demands” with the DanishPeople’s Party (DF), an agreement that willstop all immigration of non-Western spouseswho do not have the skills to join the workforce, embrace Danish values, and integrate

49 Jyllands-Posten, 14 September 2010.

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into Danish society. Before immigration, forexample, a new foreign spouse must providedocumentation of higher education and/or solidwork experience and relevant language skills.Applicants will be subjected to a point systemwhereby extra points will be given if they canspeak a Scandinavian language and do notsettle in a ghetto. The couple will also berequired to have a much stronger connection toDenmark than to any other country. Previously,Denmark had the 24-year-old rule and arelatively weak connection requirement thatapplied to the foreign party; now, it will bean unconditional requirement that the foreignparty will be required unconditionally todisplay clear indications that he or she isqualified and willing to contribute positivelyto Danish society.50 In addition, therequirements placed upon the Danish party willbe further sharpened; for example, one mustnot have been convicted of terror-relatedcrimes, must not be in debt to the government,must not have received welfare payments duringthe last three years, must have been workingfull-time during the last few years, and mustpass a Danish test.

In addition, the government and DF haveasked for a report on the economicconsequences that would have resulted if thenation’s policy had not been changed in 2002.An accounting will also be made of what Danesand immigrants, and the various immigrantgroups, contribute to or cost the Danishstate.

50 The 24-year rule, moreover, will no longer be absolute. If the spouse fulfills the other requirements, it can be gotten around.

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These retrenchments, which given thecurrent European situation must be describedas dramatic, have been made even thoughDenmark halved its non-European marriageimmigration after the reforms introduced in2002, and even though the pattern changed suchthat the majority of immigrants now belong tonational groups that have a good record ofparticipation in the Danish Labour market.51

There is no doubt that the Danish politicalleadership knew very well why these measureswere necessary: the welfare state and theDanish sense of community were approaching theprecipice.

Is Norway closing in on Denmark?

An intense struggle took place in theNorwegian government in 2006 and 2007 about anew family-reunification policy. The strugglewas between the Labour Party (Ap) and thesignificantly smaller Socialist Left (SV), itsmajor partner in the governing coalition. Nomatter which measures Labour proposed in aneffort to limit undesirable marriageimmigration, SV rejected them. Neitherarguments from a feminist standpoint(regarding, for example, the importation ofyoung, vulnerable housewives) – argumentswhich SV itself usually employs successfullyin other fields – or arguments related to theways in which current rules encourage theforced marriage of young people won SV over.

51 In 2001, most residency permits were given to applicants from Turkey, followed by Iraq, Thailand, Afghanistan, and Somalia. In 2009, the list was led by Thailand, Turkey, the Philippines, China, and theU.S.

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The desperation increased within theStoltenberg camp, that is to say, at thecenter of power: like the Danish government,Prime Minister Stoltenberg and companyunderstand that marriage immigration isn’teconomically sustainable.

In the spring of 2007, Labour’s blood wasboiling over SV’s irresponsibility. HRS wascontacted privately by a member of thegovernment: “SV refuses to accept any proposedchange,” this individual said. “We have to putsomething on the table that they can’t say noto.” The member of the government came to ouroffice, and in the course of a three-hourdiscussion we drew up what we called the five-year rule: that persons living in Norway musthave worked and/or studied for five yearsafter primary and secondary school before theycan apply to import a new spouse to Norwayfrom countries outside the EU. We thought thatthe rule was ingenious and very difficult forSV to reject: it is, after all, in everybody’sinterest that young and unqualified immigrantsin the country work or study, and especiallythat young non-Western immigrant become, inthis manner, active members of andcontributors to society as a whole. Such aproposal would promote integration and improvethe economic health of the welfare state. Allin all, a humanitarian proposal.

The politician got the Labour leadership onboard immediately, and the third party in thegovernment, the Center Party (Sp), acceptedthe new rule too, on the condition that therequirement be lowered to four years (probablya purely political move). SV, however, againput its down, and instead of taking theproposal (which the Progress Party supported)

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to the Parliament, Stoltenberg chose to buryit and thereby keep the peace with SV.

The national election in 2009, however, puta stop to SV’s opposition. Support for theparty went down three percentage points to sixpercent, while Labor received 32 percent ofthe vote and Sp 8 percent. SV’s power haddeclined, and the new Stoltenberg government’spolitical platform, the Soria Moria IIDeclaration, included the four-year rule. Asof 1 January 2010, the rule applied to allthose who have come to Norway through familyimmigration or as refugees or who have beengranted residency on humanitarian grounds.While the present government remains in power,the rule will apply to all citizens ofNorway.52

Leading figures in the Danish governmentand Folketing were very pleased that Norwayshowed, in such a manner, that it wasbeginning to follow in Denmark’s footsteps.HRS also felt that the new political course inNorway constituted a nod of respect to theoft-maligned Kingdom of Denmark.

A new government in 2013?

Yet this new measure will not help. Farmore desperate remedies are needed, remediesof the ort instituted in Denmark in 2010.Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, it seems tome, is seeking to legitimize a powerfultightening of the laws. In May 2009, heestablished the so-called Brockmann committee,whose task is to analyze the consequences ofimmigration for the future of the welfare

52 Press release from the Ministry of Justice and Police, 4 December 2009.

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state. The committee’s mandate states that “ahigh level of participation in the Labourforce is a necessary condition for the welfaresociety.” It also states that: “Increasedinternational mobility requires increasedknowledge of and a better understanding of theconnection between migration and the futuredevelopment of the welfare model and welfarearrangements – in order to provide a moresolid foundation, the next time around, for acomplete development of policy….The committeeshall also describe how the formulation ofNorwegian welfare rules can affect the flow ofmigration.” It further says that thecommittee shall “determine whether there areaspects of the immigration policy that areparticularly relevant to the futuredevelopment and formulation of the Norwegianwelfare model.” In a list of points, themandate leaves no doubt that what is at issuehere is the connection between immigration andsustainability of the welfare state:

The committee is particularly requested todetermine:

Whether the universal welfare rules,together with the specific means ofintegration, help to achieve thehighest possible level ofemployment.

What significance increased mobilityhas for the relationship betweenwelfare production and welfareconsumption.

Whether a greater ethnic andcultural diversity can be assumed to

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affect attitudes toward andexploitation of current welfarearrangements. This requires that thecommittee examine more closely thenecessary conditions for thelegitimacy and sustainability of therules, as well as norms and theestablishment of norms.”

The committee is also supposed to evaluatedevelopments in relevant neighbouringcountries, such as Denmark.53

The Brockmann committee will deliver itsreport in May of 2011. I expect that thereport will be so explosive that at the nextnational election campaign in 2013, a radicalnew immigration policy to ensure thesustainability of the welfare state will be amajor plank in the Labour Party’s platform.

Opinion polls held in the autumn of 2010,however, show that two other parties, theConservatives (H) and the Progress Party(FrP), stand a good chance of taking power in2013. FrP has made it perfectly clear that itwants to copy the Danish policy. TheConservatives, however, show no interest intightening the policy on family reunification.The party, however, seems to be splitinternally on two levels: after having givenmany talks to local Conservative Party groupsin the last four years, I am not in doubt thatthe Conservative grass roots – as well as theYoung Conservatives – have a realistic view ofthe costs and challenges of immigration andtherefore want a policy similar to the Danishpolicy. The party leadership, then, is out oftouch with the grass roots. But the leadership

53 Regjeringen.no, 8 May 2009.

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is also divided, into what can roughly bedescribed as two wings: the very liberalglobalists and the more traditionalconservatives. Perhaps the most obviousglobalist among the leading Conservatives isKristin Clemet, who has served several timesas a cabinet member and is now administrativedirector of the think tank Civita. At aseminar on the welfare state and immigrationin 2010, it was clear that she was in favourof free movement of people around the world.In her ideal world, the globe would finditself in a “win-win situation,” as she putit: Europe’s population is shrinking, whilemillions of young people in the third worldneed work. Thus: open borders. Clemetemphasized the moral aspect of immigration,for we in Norway and the rest of Europe belongto “an international overclass.” She arguedfurther that “it is a human right to leaveone’s country,” thus ignoring article 8 of theEuropean Convention on Human Rights, whichsays that a state can take action when it is“necessary in a democratic society in theinterests of national security, public safetyor the economic well-being of the country, forthe prevention of disorder or crime, for theprotection of health or morals, or for theprotection of the rights and freedoms ofothers.”

Her conclusion was that Europe is followinga “rather cruel policy.”54 She doesn’t touchthe question of how to ensure thesustainability of the welfare state if anopen-border policy is pursued. Among the more

54 Seminar at Litteraturhuset in Oslo, under the auspices of the Nordic Council of Ministers, 7 September 2010.

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classical conservatives, especially in thecircles around the rising political talentTorbjørn Røe Isaksen, I see hope that commonsense, realism, and responsibility willtriumph over feelings.

At the same seminar it was also madecrystal clear that Stoltenberg can expectpowerful political resistance within his partyif he wants to curb immigration. AnetteTrettebergstuen, a member of the party’scentral board and of Parliament, said thatimmigration “enriches the welfare society andthe welfare society is dependent onimmigration.” She also believed that thosewho say that “immigration is a threat to thewelfare state, they should just be dismissed.”She did not present a single statistic tosupport her argument.

The struggle over values

In recent years, certain elements ofNorway’s Muslim community, which makes upabout three percent of the population, havedominated the media. No other religiousgroup’s self-appointed or chosen leaders andfront men demand anywhere near as muchattention or demonstrate so clearly that theyare dissatisfied with our freedoms. How,people ask me with concern, will our societyfare when Muslims make up 10 or 20 percent?

12 February 2010 became a red-letter dayand a powerful reminder of the kind of forcesthat are on the march in Norway. At UniversitySquare in Oslo, where the Nazis held ralliesin the 1930s, 3,000 Muslim men demonstrated,many of them dressed according to the code ofthe prophet Muhammed: a long coat, ankle-length baggy pants, and head coverings, plus

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full beards. The occasion was that thenewspaper Dagbladet had published an articleabout an unknown Internet user who had linkedto a caricature of Muhammed as a pig on theFacebook page of the Norwegian Police SecurityService (PST). Even though the drawing wasremoved by the PST when it was discovered,Dagbladet ran this as a front-page story,illustrated with the pig drawing.

This was the prelude to the mass demo on 12February, at which one of the speakers, aNorwegian-born Muslim dressed like anIslamist, issued a warning to Norway, saying(among much else): “When will Norwegianauthorities and their media understand howserious this is? Maybe not before it’s toolate. Maybe not before we experience an 11September on Norwegian soil. This is nothreat; this is a warning.”55 The young man whomade this threat, Mohyeldeen Mohammad, and whowas then studying sharia at the IslamicUniversity in Medina, Saudi Arabia, was one ofthe demo’s planners.

The most disheartening aspect of thedemonstration in Oslo was not that this pureWahabbist, with his thoroughgoing Saudi styleand spirit, threatened a new 9/11. What wasreally unsettling, as I see it, was the numberof people who showed up for the rally and thefact that so many of them, by their actionsand attire, showed their support for sharia.It was the epitome of darkness, displayingitself in broad daylight. These days, more andmore extremists do not hesitate to show theirtrue – and morally repulsive – colours inpublic. I fear this is a sign of somethingthat can cause problems to spin out of

55 VG.no, 12 February 2010.

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control: young Muslims confused about theiridentity will be fascinated by the exceedinglyclear message such Islamists put out. Theseyoung people are offered a full package –sharia as the answer to all of life’s andsociety’s challenges. And they are given thechance to join a ”nation” of their own – theumma – to replace the national identity.

Such a development has obviously takenplace at Oslo University College, where thestudent group Islam Net has its headquarters.56

After only two years’ work, Islam Net hasbecome Norway’s largest membershiporganization for Muslims, with over 1,200paying members. Its goal is to clear up“general misunderstandings about Islam,”“misunderstandings among non-Muslims,” and“misunderstandings among non-Muslims withhigher education,” and to convert non-Muslimsto a conservative and controversialinterpretation of Islam by means of the so-called “convert school” it has set up.57 IslamNet itself leaves no doubt that it is anIslamist group. A key ideologue for the groupis the Indian Islamist Zakir Naik, who isregularly promoted on Islam Net’s website.Naik is regarded as so extreme that he isdenied entry into both Britain and Canada.Here are the statements that caused him to bebanned from these two countries in 2010:“Every Muslim should be a terrorist.” And:“If he [Osama Bin Laden] terrorizes theterrorists, if he terrorizes the terroristAmerica, because the U.S. is a terrorist, I

56 Islam Net has two branches, in Bodø and Tromsø.57 See its website, islamnet.no, and VG.no, 10 June 2010.

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support him.”58 Naik has also claimed that itis “obvious” that George Bush was behind theterrorist attack on the Twin Towers. He alsobelieves that apostate Muslims should bepunished with death. Other speakers whom IslamNet has flown in from abroad have alsopreached an Islamist and literalist Islam. Sofar, Islam Net has not, to my knowledge,invited a single speaker who comes close topromoting open democracy based on humanrights.

Nor, as far as I know, does any otherstudent organization in Norway manage to drawso many people to its events as Islam Netdoes. On November 7, 2010, Islam Net invitedthe former rapper den Loon, an African-American who converted to Islam in 2008 andwho has taken the name Amir Muhadith. Muhadithnow comes off as a full-fledged Salafist, andbetween 700 and 800 people showed up for theevent at the college, which had separateentrances for men and women. The head of IslamNet, the Norwegian-born Fahad Qureshi, whoalso comes off as a Salafist, explained thisgender separation as follows: “If women wantseparate entrances, I think they should getthem. (…) Many want it. It is usual if youcome from Pakistani or Somali cultures. Genderseparation in the auditorium was discussed atthe meeting, and I asked if it was true thatthe women wanted to sit with men. The answerwas a loud no from all the women in theauditorium. It is sickening, and it isoppressive to women, to force women to sitwith men against their will.” When it waspointed out to Qureshi that “it is usual formen and women to sit together and use a common

58 Youtube.com: “Every Muslim should be a Terrorist.”

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entrance,” he replied as follows: “Yes,Norwegians maybe aren’t offended by it. But ifyou have another culture, it’s different. Ithink people should accept it. It would be anoffensive act on the part of the college if itdidn’t allow people choose to sitseparately.”59

This, then, is just how “Norwegian” theNorwegian-born Qureshi and his “sisters andbrothers” are. These are students who in a fewyears will occupy key positions in Norway.

It has also been very unsetting to followdevelopments in Norway’s umbrella organizationfor the Muslim faith community, the IslamicCouncil (IRN), for example its positions onthe death penalty for homosexuals. At an opendebate in 2007, IRN’s then second-in-command,Asghar Ali, refused to reject the deathpenalty for gays in Iran.60 During the debate,he was challenged repeatedly to state his viewof Iran’s death penalty for gays, and hisanswers shifted between ”I don’t know” and ”Ican’t answer that.”61 The story quicklyresulted in waves of antipathy toward Ali, whothen issued a press release: “As a NorwegianMuslim, naturally I reject all forms ofviolence and persecution of people based ontheir religion, skin colour, sexuality, andethnicity. This also means, of course, that Ireject the death penalty for homosexuals,”wrote Ali. At first glance this might seemtrustworthy, if only he hadn’t said: “As aNorwegian Muslim…” He was, then, speaking as a“Norwegian Muslim,” and as a Muslim in Norway59 Aftenposten, 18 November 2010.60 The meeting was held under the auspices of Skeivt Forum in Oslo on 7 November 2007.61 Nettavisen.no, 8 November 2007.

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he is obliged under sharia to obey the laws ofthe country in which he lives. In a singlesentence, then, he took a linguisticsomersault – he rejected he death penalty onaccount of Norwegian law, but at the same timedid not reject it as a Muslim, therebymaintaining his support for the sharia-decreeddeath penalty for homosexual acts

It must also be mentioned that one of theparticipants in the same debate was the thenmedical student (now doctor) and former leaderof the Muslim Student Association andPakistani Student Association, Muhammad UsmanRana. He also made use of the sharia tactic:“As a Norwegian Muslim I consider the deathpenalty entirely out of the question, and thatapplies also to the death penalty forhomosexuality,” Rana told NRK after the debateat Humanismens Hus. “I also said this duringthe debate. But in a theological discussion Iwill defer to academic scholars of Islamabroad. I am not going to get into thatdiscussion.”62

I call such conscious manipulation, whichso many journalists and politiciansunfortunately allow themselves to be seducedby, “sharia talk”.

IRN refused to say whether it is for oragainst the death penalty in Iran, and soughtthe guidance of the European Council for Fatwaand Research (ECFR), whose misanthrophicmentality is discussed in chapter 6 of thisbook. Now, three years later, ECFR has stillnot provided IRN with a ruling on the deathpenalty question and thus the government-supported IRN still has no official positionon it.

62 NRK.no, 9 November 2007.

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In the Western humanistic tradition, onewould expect that rejecting the murder ofpeople on the grounds of whom they love andhave feelings for would be automatic.

There is no doubt that Norway is beingdivided increasingly along religious lines.The picture of a people who stand shoulder toshoulder has cracked. Precisely for thisreason, the government is trying to shape anew way of thinking about Norwegian society.There is talk about “the big we” – a newNorwegian community in which there will beroom for a broad diversity of expression andlifestyles. Yes, diversity is essentially agood thing. But i can seem as if the lesson ofhistory about what binds a nation together hasbeen forgotten.

Barometer of values

The situation is undeniably this: Islam ison the march. You can see it grow, from yearto year, with the naked eye – whether it isthe spread of hijab in public spaces, men withbeards and ankle-length baggy pants, or theconstruction of flashy new mosques. I noticemore and more uncertainty and anxiety on thepart of “ordinary” people who feel likestrangers in their own country. People wonder:what is the goal of this project? Do we, as anation, not have a right to pass on our owncultural heritage, our traditions and values,to our children and grandchildren? Will we, inthe name of tolerance, give in to the demandsof “the others” as their numbers grow and asthey become increasingly visible and vocal?

A major politician put it this way in aprivate conversation with me: “What do youthink will happen to liquor licenses in Oslo

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on the day the majority of members of the citycouncil are Muslims?” Another politician whohas been a high-profile figure for two decadesput it even more bluntly when I asked, in aprivate exchange: “What do you think of theimmigration from the Muslim world?” Theanswer was concise and so merciless that I wastaken aback and unable to speak: “What havethey given us?” (And no, neither of these twopoliticians belong to the Progress Party,which of all Norway’s parties is consideredthe most critical of immigration.)

Let it be said: of course there are manyMuslims in Europe who get along just fine, whoget the same chills down their spines thatEuropeans get when they think of sharia andthe lack of freedom that traditional Islambrings with it. But we know who has the mostpower in the public square, who has the power“on the inside” over the “ordinary Muslim,”who is best organized and has managed todevelop exceptionally strong and close ties togovernment leaders. It is not the secularMuslims, those who want a Europeanized Islam –that is, a privatized Islam isolated frompolitical and judicial influence. It is, inother words, not the generally secular, well-integrated, and well-educated Persians fromIran who hold the cards in the Muslimcommunities in Europe. (One thought, moreover,has occurred to me many times: can anyonepoint to a single mosque in Europe that wasestablished by Persians? Interesting, no?)Persians have generally become a part ofmainstream European culture. They haveassimilated into our values, even as they havepreserved traditional from Persian culturewhich do not conflict with human rights.

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As a rule, then, Persians have been animmigration success, an enriching presence,who take full part in European society, inopposition to the large groups of immigrantsfrom the tradition-based countryside in otherMuslim nations. It is precisely theirunwillingness (and inability?) to become anatural part of European society, toappreciate such cardinal values as equality,religious liberty, and freedom of speech, andto embrace a life based on personal freedom,participation in society, and taking one’sshare of the responsibility for the community,that I think is decisive in understandingpeople’s increasing concern about the future.

For at some point or another, Europe mustput its foot down – if we are going to be ableto preserve the society we know today. Thereare, for example, limits to how many minaretswe can live with, how many hijabs and baggypants Europe’s streets can tolerate, for ourpublic spaces can become as unfree as thestreets in a country like Pakistan. It isabout standing up to maintain our coreculture, a successful culture that is the veryreason why Muslims stream to our continent,and why the stream is not flowing in the otherdirection. My clear impression is that theattitude of the people of Europe is: you arewelcome to come to Europe to be a part of us,but don’t come here to overturn our cultureand our values.

Norway will no longer be Norway, and theWest will no longer be the West, if our coreculture is not preserved, and Christianity isan inextricable part of that culture. Whetherone likes or dislikes religion, this is anindisputable fact, as Ayaan Hirsi Ali so

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brilliantly explains in her most recent book,Nomad.63

If Islam were to become our core culture,most people understand – if they make theeffort – that the Norwegian way of life wouldbe over, unless something takes places thatseems more and more like an impossibility:namely, a revolution (in the true meaning ofthe word) within Islam that would turn all

63 Nomad: From Islam to America: A Personal Journey Through the Clash of Civilizations (2010).2 Those who wish to read more about the murder ofAnooshe can find a great deal of material online.The most extensive coverage is at Dagbladet.no andrights.no.

4 On several occasions, HRS has ordered statisticsfrom Statistics Norway on marriage immigration fromNorway’s major immigration countries. The last setof statistics are from 2005 and concern 18 immigrantgroups in Norway, from Bosnia, Chile, China,Eritrea, Ethopia, Gambia, India, Iran, Iraq,Morococo, Pakistan, the Philippines, Serbia andMontenegro, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Turkey,and Vietnam. We wanted to know how many people inthese resident groups in Norway married in the yearin question, whether they married a Norwegianresident with the same national background asthemselves, with another foreign background, or witha Norwegian background. The statistics had to bedivided according to sex and between first- andsecond-generation immigrants; they also had to showthe average age of both the spouse living in Norwayand the spouse being imported from abroad. It isimportant to note that (for example) a boy of 20 mayjust as easily be a first- as a second-generationimmigrant. What matters is whether he was born hereor abroad. This material was published in January

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inhuman actions by Muhammed into purestorytelling, just as the Christian worldturned its back on the inhuman aspects of theOld Testament. Of course such a revolutionwould require all of the violence and hatredin the Koran to be stricken from that book forever. But Islam has failed for around 1,000years to carry out such revolution. This is,after all, the main reason why people are

2006 in the report “Ekteskap blant utvalgteinnvandrergrupper” (Marriage in selected immigrantgroups), which can be read at rights.no.

5 To be precise, Statistics Norway says that itexpects that those in the group who have married“abroad” have married, almost without exception, intheir families’ homelands. There can be exceptions –for example, a Norwegian Pakistani who has gottenmarried to a Pakistani in the U.S. Such exceptions,however, do not significantly alter the generalpattern of the statistics. The Norwegian Directorateof Immigration’s annual statistics regarding newlyimmigrated spouses from Pakistan, moreover, arehighly consistent with Statistics Norway’s marriagestatistics.

6 Statistics Norway has on several occasionsasserted this hypothesis. Their argument is thatthere are still many members of the secondgeneration who are of marriageable age but who havenot yet married, and that many of these will likelymarry in Norway. This is a hypothesis, and whetherit is true or not will not be established for adecade or so. My hypothesis is that the overallpattern of fetching spouses from one’s family’shomeland will continue in the second generationbecause integration is still going slowly, andbecause statistics from other European countries

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pouring out of these failed states. The bigquestion of our time, therefore, is this: howcan Islam in Europe come to assume a form thatis the very opposite of the form it takes inthe Muslim world?

Naturally, Norway should not accept anycultural or religious phenomenon that findsits way here. But where to draw the line?There is no one answer to this question. The

show high levels of fetching marriage among thechildren of immigrants. Among major groups, thepercentage of marriages with cousins in the familyhomeland actually increases in the secondgeneration. I will return to this in Chapter Two.

7 See, for example, “Vil avlive innvandrermyter”(“Wants to Kill Immigration Myths”) in Bergens Tidende,15 July 2005.

8 The reader can confirm this by looking atStatistics Norway’s own report: “Rapport 2004/I,”page 46.

9 After HRS asked to see this material, we werepermitted to do so in the autumn of 2005. On thebasis of the data we examined, we published, inDecember of the same year, the report “Gift tilNorge med slektning” (“Married to Relatives inNorway”), available at rights.no. 10 The Children’s Law was changed on 19 December2003. The law now invalidates marriages arranged onbehalf of children.

11 See, for example, the interview with theNorwegian-Pakistani Jeanette and the Norwegian-Moroccan Nadia in Dagbladet, 26 January 2002, under

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answer will vary according to the nature andstrength of the challenge. But if wecompromise our core culture, and relativizeit, and support a constitution that is a long,dusty catalogue of rights, we can end up withdemocratic ideals that that are nothing morethan empty slogans and that do not provide uscitizens with a real map or compass by whichwe can steer our society in terms of values.

the headline “Vi krever handling!” (“We demandaction!”).12

? HRS is not an aid organization. On rare occasions,however, we involve ourselves in specific cases. Wedo so when individuals’ cases are not being followedup by the authorities and when the specificsituations may reveal conditions that are ofpolitical significance.

13 In the essay “Fra turistvisum til ekteskapsvisum”(“From tourist visa to marriage visa”) in Brox,Lindbekk, and Skirbekk, eds., Gode formal – gale følger?, Ihave documented the immigration situation circa 1970from non-Western countries to Norway.

14 “Data om utenlandske statsborgere” (“Data onforeign citizens”), Kommunal- ogarbeidsdepartementet (Ministry of Local Governmentand Labour), 1983. 15

? This woman was on disability mainly because ofanxiety problems. During a 2003 conversation withher, it became clear that she bitterly regrettedwhat she had gotten herself involved in, especiallybecause she had been physically and sexually abusedby both Mina’s husband and his brother, with whomshe entered into this pro forma marriage. That shehad reported the rapes was confirmed by a police

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And what can come to happen in crisissituations if the people do not have a realsense of community? How can we ensure a broadsense of belonging if freedom of speech isreally threatened or if we are subjected to aterrorist attack? Can we risk acquiring thecivil war-like conditions that we see inEurope’s no-go zones?

source, but the report was shelved because there wasa lack of damning evidence.

16 This young woman herself said in a conversationwith HRS that the marriage was genuine. This is notpossible, since only the brother of Mina’s ex-husband knew that the marriage provided the groundsfor his Norwegian residency. No one in the extendedfamily knew he was married, and he lived with them.It was Mina herself who came to us and asked us tofind out why this man, who (she had been told) hadentered the country on a visitor’s visa, had managedto stay in Norway for several years. Mina, as wellas others in the extended family, were more thansurprised when we told them about his “marriage.”17

? The reason why I didn’t delete her text messageswas my fear that she might be killed, and that thetext messages might prove useful to policeinvestigators.

18 Based on research in Pakistan and England,Katharine Charsley concludes that Pakistani men whoimmigrate to Britain to live with their BritishPakistani wives have cultural and gender-relatedconflicts that result from moving in with a womanand her family. Violence in such marriages istherefore widespread, Charsley writes in the article“Vulnerable Brides and Transnational Ghar Damads:

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People must also have feelings – of apositive kind – about one another. Last winterI had a thought-provoking experience indowntown east Oslo on the way home from work.A thin layer of snow covered the patches ofice on the streets. A Somali woman dressed inankle-length hijab slid as I passed her. Iinstinctively reached for her and managed tocushion what could have been a bad fall, andof course helped her to her feet again. IGender, Risk and ‘Adjustment’ among PakistaniMarriage Migrants to Britain,” Indian Journal of GenderStudies, 12:2 & 3, 2005.

19 The doctor has confirmed this state of affairs inconversations and by referring us to a writtenstatement in which she told the father that Minamight be in danger of an honour killing.

20 The woman who had reported Mina’s husband for rapeis the same one who entered a pro forma marriasgewith a brother of Mina’s husband who was twentyyears her junior. 21 Two employees in the Barnevernet are now workingwith Mina’s children in an effort to unlearn themthis game.

22 Ayaan Hirsi Ali chose to resign from the DutchParliament in May 2006. She was at that timereceiving more death threats than any other publicfigure in Europe. After a long struggle with Dutchauthorities, she was able to live in an ordinaryapartment complex with twenty-four-hour bodyguards.The neighbors went to court to force her to move outbecause the presence of the guards resulted in noiseand a feeling of insecurity. While the neighbors wonthe day in court, a TV documentary was aired in

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asked if she was all right, but she hurried onwith a completely expressionless face. Not asingle gesture, not a single glance at me. Iwas left standing with an empty and alienatedfeeling, completely rejected as a fellowcitizen.

There doesn’t seem to be a broad politicalunderstanding in Norway and the EU system of asociety’s and a culture’s need for the people

which it was reported that Hirsi Ali had given afalse identity when seeking asylum in theNetherlands in 1992, in order to ensure that shewould not be forced to return to Kenya where she hadlegal residency. This information was far from new;she had herself publicly discussed this on manyoccasions. But only now did the Dutch authoritiesreact, and cabinet minister Rita Verdonk sought torevoke the citizenship she had received in 1997. Inthe documentary Hirsi Ali’s family also maintainedthat she had not been forced, but had freely agreed,to marry a cousin in Canada. Hirsi Ali rejectedthis claim, but decided to leave both Parliamentanad the Netherlands and move to the U.S., where shehad already gotten a job in a leading think tank,the American Enterprise Institute.

23 “Sej kamp mod import av ægtefæller,” Ugebrevet A4,no. 33, 29 September 2003.

26 This information is from Katharine Charsley’sarticle “Vulnerable Brides and Transnational GharDamads: Gender, Risk and ‘Adjustment’ amongPakistani Marriage Migrants to Britain,” Indian Journalof Gender Studies, 12:2 & 3, 2005.

27 In 1997 the then Labour government revoked the so-called Primary Purpose Rule, which said that if themain intention underlying a newly established

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living in it to have a sense of sharedbelonging. There doesn’t seem to be anunderstanding that the national culture, withits folk songs, traditional holidays and holydays, the flag and national anthem, issomething entirely different from a generalconstitution based on ideals of equality, atext that cannot replace a feeling ofcommunity. A viable society is about things

marriage was to migrate to England, the entry visawould be denied. After this rule was revoked,marriage immigration nearly tripled. The annualfigure of 150,000 is from telegraph.co.uk (16 April2006). 28 Weekendavisen, no. 15, 12-13 April 2006. 29 Ibid. 30 In November 2003, the then government introducedan absolute support requirement for people under 23years old of 160,000 kroner a year in income. Thepurpose was to protect young people against forcedmarriage. HRS and others warned the government thatsuch a requirement could have negative consequences,notably that young people could risk being taken outof school in order to work and thereby finance theirown forced marriages. Hera was one of the victims ofthis new policy. She had finished secondary schoolwhen she was married off to a cousin. She had beenaccepted to a college, but was forced to go to work.

31 This information came from a source in 2005 whoinsisted on anonymity but agreed to allow theinformation to be made public.

32 Telegraph.co.uk, 16 November 2005.

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close to home, about traditions, abouttangible things, about something as obvious asa shared language and a sense of belonging tothe country, whether it is one’s fatherland ornot. And it is also about church spires andthe rituals and traditions that have theirplace within the church. The people cannot bebound together by measures adopted bypoliticians; it takes more than that: trust

33 Ibid.

34 “Birth Defects and Parental Consanguinity inNorway,” American Journal of Epidemiology, Vol. 145, No. 5,1997. 35 William Jankowiak and Edward Fisher, “A Cross-Cultural Perspective on Romantic Love,” Ethnology31:22, 149-155, University of Pittsburgh, 1992. 36 In 2003 I gave a lecture about these problems toemployees of the Hundvåg and Storhaug socialsecurity office in Rogaland and of the county socialsecurity office in Oslo. (The latter lecture wasalso attended by employees of social securityoffices in the county of Østland.)

37 Between November 2005 and January 2006 I held atotal of five lectures for the National PoliceDirectorate and the National Police ImmigrationService. It was these encounters that led to myreceiving this information.

38 This information, too, came to our attention as aresult of a lecture given under the auspices of theNational Police Directorate in November 2005, andseveral lectures given under the auspices of the

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between citizens, loyalty to the country, anda shared understanding of the freedoms uponwhich the society is built and theresponsibilities that each individual has tothe community.

Edicts by politicians to tolerate somethingone has absolutely no fondness for, moreover,will only strain the national culture. Youcan’t make tolerance grow by pointing fingersor moralizing.

In light of the immigration from the Muslimworld, it is very important to be aware of thehistory of our Western democracy. It was notthe case that we adopted democracy, with allof its magnificent values, and then developeda sense of community. It was the other wayaround. Our free society is a historicalresult of a society based on mutual trust, a

National Police Immigration Service in December 2005and January 2006. 39 Ibid.

40 The account of Samira’s story is based onconversations in Tromsø in 2003 with her friends,teacher, principal, father, and the police 41 HRS was contacted in December 2002 by Samira’sprincipal, Nina Breines Johnsen. On our agenda wasthe topic of shipping children abroad. Together withJohnsen and the school principal, therefore, weagreed to use Samira as a test case to discover thepossibilities and limitations of current law andpractice. The full story of our effort to get thegovernment to pay attention to Samira’s case can beread in the report “Ute av syne, ute av sinn. Norskebarn i utlandet” (“Out of Sight, Out of Mind:Norwegian Children Abroad”), HRS, 2004.

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shared culture in which Christianity played acentral role. Norway would not have acquiredits constitution at Eidsvoll in 1814 if thecountry had been divided along cultural andreligious lines. It was a country founded on ashared culture and religion which could reachagreement on a shared text upon which thecountry would be built. It is thus sharedcultural norms, and not theoretical andabstract ideals of equality as spelled out ininternational conventions, that make peoplestand shoulder to shoulder and contribute tosociety. A liberal democracy such as Norway isnot and never has been self-preserving.

It also seems to be very difficult for thegreat majority of our politicians to admitthat Islam is as much an ideology and a socialsystem, a religion of laws with politicalambitions. To an extraordinary extent, Islamand Christianity are still treated by theNorwegian state as identical twins. Thisgrossly mistaken view may end up costing usdearly.

The greatest of these

Few prominent individuals have emphasizedthe difference between Islam and the WesternChristian world more clearly than Ayaan HirsiAli, who, having grown up in Somalia, Kenya,and Saudi Arabia, and spent her adult life inthe Netherlands and U.S., must be acknowledgedto have the requisite experience to pronounceon these matters. When she visited Norway inconnection with the publication of theNorwegian edition of her book Nomad inNovember 2010, she first pointed out this: “Inone European country after another thepopulation growth speaks clearly: in 2020, 15

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percent will be Muslims. In 2050 – give ortake a few years – 50 percent will be Muslims.The question then is whether the Europeansocieties will still be free, equal societiesbased on individual rights and politicaldemocracy, or whether they will be marked bygroupthink, major tensions, and perhaps civilwar-like conditions, as we see in many Muslimcountries today.”64 These are very brutalwords, but the scenario is not at allunrealistic.

Hirsi Ali then offered what she thinks maybe the solution: “The only solution is forMuslims to give up thinking in terms of clansand tribes and become fully assimilated inEuropean societies. The idea of the so-calledmulticultural society must be given up, as theGerman chancellor Angela Merkel recentlystated. In order to achieve this, we have toliberate the Muslim women from the power oftheir husbands, fathers, and male familymembers. If the Muslim women are liberated, wewill crush the Muslim patriarchy’s foremostbastion, namely control over women.”

Then she came to the key question: canIslam become an integrated part of the West?Hirsi Ali replied: “First of all, Islam has toan extreme degree conserved the mentality ofthe pre-modern patriarchal tribal society asit existed in Arabia in the 7th century.Second, the religion places an unbalancedemphasis on the hereafter – that is, on whathappens after death. This death culture drawsthoughts away from how society can be improved

64 This and the following quotations from Hirsi Ali, which were presumably made in English but reported in Norwegian, have been translated back to English from the Norwegian. (Translator’s note.)

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here and now….Finally, the case is thatMuslims look back to Islam’s golden age, whenit ruled an empire from India to the Atlantic.That the empire collapsed, they claim, was thefault of Islam’s enemies, and they take on adestructive victim role. Together, these arethree elements that I think have been decisivein shaping a Muslim world most of whichdisconnected from modern developments.”

But can’t a modern interpretation of theKoran modernize Islam? Hirsi Ali doesn’t buyit: “The problem is that two strong forces inthe Muslim world are absolutely literal: it isabout the ruling class in the Arabiccountries, and it is about the extremefundamentalists. Those who claim that one caninterpret away the difficult chapters of theKoran meet with massive opposition from bothof these powerful forces. The Muslims areunfortunately brought up, from when they’revery small, to believe without reservation inwhat Allah and his prophet Muhammed say. Whenthe Koran unambiguously legitimizes violenceagainst people with other beliefs and clearlystates that a woman’s testimony is worth halfof a man’s, it’s not something you canreinterpret without making both Allah and hisprophet look like meaningless figures. The so-called new interpretation ends up in a blindalley.”

Hirsi Ali’s thoughts are somber. Perhaps itis out of sheer defiance (or despair?) that Ihesitate, at present, to endorse her short-term predictions. To do so is simply toopainful. At the same time I no longer doubtthat Europe (with the exception of EasternEurope) is in the process of giving birth toan Islamic state. I would predict that thisstate will be born in some part of Britain,

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where (for example) the judicial authorities –without debate – introduced five officialsharia courts in 2008.65

Still, I continue to hope that the strugglefor values that lies ahead of us will be wonby the spirit of the Enlightenment. This hopesprings out of the fact that Europe, on threeoccasions in recent history, has managed toconquer the forces of totalitarianism,inhumanity, darkness. Nazism, fascism, and

65 Sharia courts render verdicts in so-called familyquestions such as divorce, inheritance, family financial conflicts, child support, child custory, and domestic violence. In addition to these officialcourts, there are several unofficial ones. Accordingto the report “Sharia Law or One Law for All?” by the British think tank Civitas, at least 85 unofficial sharia courts are operting on the BritishIsles.

42 The reply, dated 27 April 2004, came after a six-month wait.

43 Both I and the director of HRS, Rita Karlsen, tookpart in this conversation in Tromsø.

44 Correspondence between HRS and the ParlimentarySecretary in the Ministry of Local Government andRegional Development, Kristin Ørmen Johnsen.

45 Almost without exception, the tracking serviceaccepts assignments only from the families of peoplebeing searched for. They made an exception forSamira, and defined her friends as being thoseclosest to Samira.

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Communism alike were obliged to give way tothat which is the greatest of all: freedom.

H.S., 1. December 2010

46 Sent 7 October 2003. The document sent by HRS tothe police can be read in “Ute av syne, ute avsinn,” on pages 13-25.

47 Police chief Truls Fyhn replied to this inwriting: “I have gone through the documents yousent, and compared them with our own documents.After careful deliberation I have come to theconclusion that we cannot do anything more aboutthis case, for which I apologize to HRS. My decisionis based on an evaluation as to whether there anyonehas committed a punishable act. There areindications that Samira’s father has told untruthsto the police, which, from an objective viewpoint,is punishable, but this, however, is not asufficient reason to follow up the case, in that aninvestigation of him would obviously not have anyimportance in relation to the principal case, namelyto get Samira back. I have also placed considerableemphasis on the fact that a follow-up on our partwill involve a use of resources that is notjustifiable in relation to what we can reasonablyexpect to accomplish. Whatever way we look at it, itcannot be the police who solve problems such as thematter in hand. I would rather not say anything inregard to the question of which Norwegianauthorities should have responsibility for ensuringthat Samira and others in the same situation returnhere.”

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Selected Literature

48 Samira was the main story on NRK’s “Lørdagsrevyen”(“Saturday Review”) program on 8 November 2003.

49 The meeting took place on 29 September atSolberg’s office.

50 It is known that Somalians fetch children who arenot their own to European countries, and thephenomenon appears to be especially widespread inthis group.

51 The story was first reported in BT on 21 April2003. The newspaper revealed both Samira’s situationand the extensive swindling of the social securitydepartment by Somalians in Denmark, who among otherthings take their children out of school for severalmonths and send them to imaginary parents inBritain. In this way they can collect child benefitsin both Denmark and Britain.

52 BT, 25 April 2003. 53 She is one of the few people I have met who,despite such experiences, have avoided life-inhibiting psychological damage and managed verywell in life.

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Amara, Fadela, Varken hora eller kuvad, 2005Berman, Paul, Terror and Liberalism, 2003Björkman, Ingrid, Jonathan Friedman, Åke

Wedin, and Jan Elferson, Exit folkhemssverige –en samhällsmodells sönderfall, 2005

54 Kåre Vassenden of Statistics Norway performed astudy in 1997 among Norwegian-Pakistani seventeen-year-olds. Of the then 268 seventeen-year-olds ofthe second generation who lived in Norway in 1996,fully 40 percent have had at least one foreign stayrecorded in the national register during theirlifetime – that is, trips involving at least sixmonths’ intended absence from Norway. In the sameage group, among the first generation, 20 percenthad one registered foreign stay after moving toNorway for the first time. Vassenden concluded asfollows: “It happens in all immigrant groups thatsome move to Norway several times, but only amongPakistanis is the phenomenon downright widespread.”

55 The guide “Norske familier i utlandet,” Ministryof Children and Equality, March 2005.

56 The reason why the majority of children sent outof the country are Pakistani is that Pakistanis arethe largest immigrant group in Norway, that manyNorwegian-Pakistanis have acquired sizableresidential properties in Pakistan, and that contactwith Pakistan is close.

57 Confirmed by embassies, such as those in Gambia,Morocco, and Pakistan. The embassies base this onthe increased number of applications for passport

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Brox, Ottar, Tore Lindbekk, Sigurd Skirbekk(eds.), Gode formål – gale følger? Kritisk lys på norskinnvandringspolitikk, 2003

Brix, Helle Merete and Torben Hansen, Islam iVesten. På Koranens vei?, 2002

Brix, Helle Merete, Torben Hansen and LarsHedegaard, I krigens hus. Islams kolonisering avVesten, 2003

renewals for children residing in the countries inquestion.

58 This situation also can be found in Turkey andMorocco: most of the immigrants come from one area.In Morocco it is the city of Nador and thesurrounding Berber villages, and in Turkey it is thecity of Konya and the surrounding Kurdish villages. 59 A Norwegian-Pakistani visited Idara Minjah ul-Quran in Norway to ask whether they could recommenda Koran school in Pakistan for girls. This schoolwas especially recommended as a school with highstandards and a high level of professionalism, andit was also said that Norwegian-Pakistani childrenwent there, and that many others had gone there.Other Norwegian-Pakistanis were able to namespecific girls from Norway who attended the schoolin the winter of 2004.

60 The description of the tour of the school isprovided by HRS director Rita Karlsen. None of therest of us –Halvor Tjønn of Aftenposten, interpreterHumera Ejaz, and myself – was allowed to enter theschool.

61 Our interpreter reacted especially strongly to thefact that the girls were under male supervision. The

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Dahl, Tove Stang, Den muslimske familie: enundersøkelse av kvinners rett i islam, 1992

Enzenberger, Hans Magnus, Skrekkens menn. Om denradikale taper, 2006

Esposito, John L., Islam: The Straight Path, 2001Fallaci, Oriana, The Rage and the Pride, 2003Fallaci, Oriana, The Force of Reason, 2004Hirsi Ali, Ayaan, The Caged Virgin, 2006Khan-Østrem, Nazneen, Min hellige krig, 2005

reason was that the sexual abuse of children iswidespread in Pakistan, including in schools, as hasbeen reported by many of the country’s English-language media. The well-known, independent human-rights organization Human Rights Commission ofPakistan (HRCP) has also reported on the sexualabuse of children at religious schools on severaloccasions. HRCP receives financial support fromNorway and several other Western countries. Theirvery good annual reports can be read at www.hrcp-web.org.

62 When Norwegian-Pakistanis began to buildresidences in Pakistan, most of them did so in theirnative villages. Now it is a status symbol to builda residence either in the Kharian Cantonment, whichis the name of the military area in Kharian, or inthe capital, Islamabad.

63 Norwegian-Pakistanis in the region say that a plotof the usual size can cost up to a million Norwegiankroner and that the house can cost an additional oneto two million kroner. I cannot vouch for theprecision of these estimates.

64 Because the principal’s comments are socontroversial, he will remain anonymous.

460

http://www.hrcp-web.org/

http://www.hrcp-web.org/


Lewis, Bernard, What Went Wrong? Western Impact andMiddle Eastern Response, 2002

Lien, Inger-Lise, Ordet som stempler djevlene, 1997Mawdudi, Abu Ala, Purdah and the Status of Women in

Islam, 1991 Mernissi, Fatima, Beyond the Veil: Male-Female

Dynamics in Modern Muslim Society, 1985

65 Sources in Norway told us about the girls beforeour trip to Pakistan.

66 We captured this tableau on film.

67 Fifty percent of the children who are enrolled inpublic schools drop out during the first five years.Thirty percent drop out during the next few years.On average, boys go to school for 1.9 years andgirls 0.7 years, according to statistics from theHuman Rights Commission of Pakistan.

68 About half of the national budget goes to themilitary, mainly because of the conflict with Indiaover Kashmir. Virtually all other Muslim-dominatedcountries in the world are better off than Pakistan,whether one is talking about education, health, orthe economy, according to reports from UNDP. Thesignificantly lower level of expenditure oneducation over so many years is seen as one of themain reasons for the catastrophically low level ofdevelopment in Pakistan. All of the other countriesin the region, such as India, Bangladesh, Nepal,Bhutan, and Sri Lanka, have a higher level ofdevelopment than Pakistan.

69 Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, variousannual reports.

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Mumtaz, Khawar and Farida Shaheed, Women ofPakistan: Two Steps Forward, One Step Back?, 1987

Pittelkow, Ralf, Efter 11. september. Vesten og islam,2002

Pittelkow, Ralf, Forsvar for nationalstaten, 2004Pittelkow, Ralf and Karen Jespersen, De lykkelige

danskere, 2005

70 Ibid. 71 Zia ul-Haq overthrew the democratically electedZulfikar Bhutto in 1977 and executed him in 1979.Ul-Haq governed the country with a brutall hand upto 1988, when he died in a helicopter accident whichis popularly viewed as a “holy conspiracy betweenAllah and the CIA.” Intellectual democrats inPakistan view ul-Haq as the most destructive leaderthe country has ever had, because of the strongIslamization he forced upon the country, and whichwas especially manifested in Pakistani criminal law.The law remains essentially the same today. Forexample, women who cannot prove a rape are convictedof infidelity.

72 The truth is that Jinnah warned in the strongestterms against allowing religion to be the foundationfor the nation. He noted the conflicts that wouldarise: Which kind of Islam should be followed? Whoshould interpret Islam? The movement for thefoundation of Pakistan did not have an ideology ofits own. Not until 1962, during a parliamentarydebate, did a member of the Islamist party Jamaat-i-Islami propose that Pakistan’s ideology be defined.The same Islamist forces, including the leadingIslamic ideologue, Mawdudi, opposed the foundationof Pakistan.

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Pittelkow, Ralf and Karen Jespersen, Islams magt.Europas ny virkelighed, 2010.

Qutb, Sayyid, Milepæler, 2004Roald, Anne Sofie, Er muslimske kvinner undertrykt?,

2005Storhaug, Hege, Mashallah. En reise blant kvinner i

Pakistan, 1996

73 Pakistan has a number of minorities. About twopercent of the population is Christian, while onepercent is Hindu. Another minority is the Kalashpeople in the north, who are animists.

74 My discussion of the Islamization of teachingplans and schoolbooks is based on material in therespected South Asian Journal: Quarterly Magazine of South AsianJournalists & Scholars (October-December 2003), in whichthe educationist and physicist A.H. Nayyar at Quaid-e-Azam University in the article “Islamisation ofCurricula” presents specific national teaching plansfor various subjects at the various grade levels.

75 The first known civilizations were Mohenjodaro,Harappa, and Taxila, which existed about 2500-3000years before Islam.

76 For example, a new national grade-school teachingplan in Urdu says that the pupil should “be aware ofthe blessings of Jihad, and must create yearning forJihad in his heart.” This is also according to theabove-mentioned article by A.H. Nayyar.

77 The most democratic period in Pakistan was underthe popularly elected prime minister Zulfikar AliBhutto (1971-77), who led the Pakistan People’s

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Storhaug, Hege, Hellig tvang. Unge norske muslimer omkjærlighet og ekteskap, 1998

Storhaug, Hege and Human Rights Service, HumanVisas, 2003

Vogt, Kari, Kommet for å bli. Islam i Vest-Europa, 1995Vogt, Kari, Islam – tradisjon, fundamentalisme og reform,

2005Warren, Ibn, Hvorfor jeg ikke er muslim, 2003.

Party. Bhutto was loved by the people for hisattempt to lift up the poor. He raised the status ofwomen, too. But he also founded the Federal SecurityForce (FIS), which answered to him personally.Though the motive may seem noble – he wanted to stemthe military’s considerable influence – this didn’thelp as long as Bhutto used the FSI to suppress hispolitical opponents, several hundred of whom wereimprisoned and mistreated.

78 In 2002, there was an election for the nationalassembly. Six religious parties formed an alliance,Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), and thus got manyrepresentatives elected to the national and regionalassemblies. Both nationally and internationally, itis feared that MMA will further the Talibanizationof Pakistan.

79 The family told us this through a translator inFebruary 2004. HRS has photographically documentedthe Drammen man’s living situation and residence.

80 Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Somali-born member of theDutch Parliament, also tells of having been broughtup with this blind and irrational hatred (The CagedVirgin, p. 38). She did not meet Jews for the firsttime until she came to the Netherlands as an adult.She writes: “the first time I saw a Jew with my owneyes, I was surprised to find a human being of flesh

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and blood.”

81 Asma Jahangir, who has led the Human RightsCommission for many years and served as a SupremeCourt lawyer and a special rapporteur for the UN, isone fo those who describe Pakistani views of womenin this way. Because of her political and legal workshe has lived with armed guards twenty-four hours aday since I first met her in 1993.

82 There are government-run crisis centers, but theyare largely in a pitiful state and also unsafe. Itis reported that women’s families bribe personnel toget them out, that women are forced intoprostitution and subjected to other forms of abuse.There are, however, other centers that are runproperly by voluntary organizations. 83 Young Norwegian-Pakistani girls and boys, too, areinhibited in their daily lives by this attitudetoward socializing between the sexes. They say thatsimply to be observed at a streetcorner in aconversation with a passerby of the opposite sexleads, as a rule, to gossip that one is having arelationship with that individual.

84 Annual reports by the Human Rights Commission andPakistan, for example, make this clear.

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85 Human Rights Watch: “Crime or Custom? Violenceagainst Women in Pakistan” (1999).

86 Communicated to me in an interview by AzizSiddiqui of the Human Rights Commisssion of Pakistanin 1997. 87 Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (2003).

88 I know several such elite families. Theirrelationships to values and norms is overwhelminglycomparable to our liberal values in the West. Butthey are compelled to deal with the society theylive in, and thus must (for example) takeprecautions with regard to girls’ and women’smovements in public and the lack of tolerance fordissenting views.

89 I have seen a photo taken at an art school inKarachi at the end of the 1960s, where the youngwomen might just as easily have been photographed inParis. The female Pakistani painters had their haircut short or had somewhat longish modern hairdos,and wore tight, short-sleeved Western dresses. At anaart school in Lahore in 2004, I encountered anotherworld, in which some of the young women wereentirely covered, while most of the others dressed

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in traditional Islamic attire. 90 The estimate was presented at a meeting betweenHRS and embassy personnel in January 2004. Theembassy had two alternative replies, one short andone long. The short one was: We don’t know what thenumber is. The long answer was based on how manypeople renew their passports at the embassy or addtheir children to their own passports. In 2003, theembassy had abour 500 such cases, which suggeststhat there may be 4000-5000 Norwegian citizens inPakistan at a given time. This number is not brokendown by age or sex, and therefore a new hypothesisis that a high percentage of the individualsinvolved are children. The embassy believes that the“most correct” answer is the following: “There aremany children who are Norwegian citizens inPakistan.”

91 “Norske barn i utlandet,” SSB Notat (2004/7).

92 The parliamentary secretary in the Ministry ofLocal Government and Regional Development said thefollowing to Aftenposten, 20 December 2004: “The reportfrom HRS was accompanied by an estimate that seemsrelatively high; therefore, we want to ensure thequality of the figures. We are glad that we havesecured tangible figures.”

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93 “Rapport om en styrket indsats modgenopdragelsesrejser og andre længerevarendeudlandsophold af negativ betydning for herværendebørns skolegang og integration,” Ministeriet forFlygtninge, Indvandrere og Integration, June 2006.

94 Estimate accepted by the World HealthOrganization, among other institutions. 95 Based on statistics purchased by HRS from SSB inJune 2006. These figures do not include girls from(for example) Kurdish regions in Turkey, Iraq,Syria, and Iran, where genital mutilation also takesplace. The reason is that Norway does not collectdata based on ethnic identity.

96 According to the report “Female Circumcision,” acolLabourative project between the London BlackWomen’s Health Action Project and the London Schoolof Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (March 1998), about50 percent are mutilated after settling in Britainor after being born in Britain. Experts inScandinavia also estimate that about 50 percent aremutilated after migrating. But the head of theBritish organization Forward, Adwoa Kwateng-Kluvitse, believes that far more than 50 percent ofthe girls in question are mutilated (Dagbladet.no,29 August 2005).

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97 World Health Organization, 1995.

98 Law of 15 December 1995, no. 74. 99 Gøteborgs-Posten, 26 June 2006.

100 I believe it must be acknowledged here that someforms of Type 4 genital mutilation can be difficultto observe. But Type 4, as noted, is not common.

101 See, for example, VG, 3 June 2005.

102 Astrid Meland’s articles about the trip appearedon Dagbladet.no.

103 The entire history about the trip to Gambia canbe read in the report “Norskfødte jenterkjønnslemlestes” (HRS R-2 2005).

104 Mernissi, 1985:45.

105 Mernissi, 1985:148. 106 Mernissi, 1985:60.

107 Retstidende 1974, p. 1121.

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108

? A fatwa is a passing of a sentence by an expert inIslamic law. 109 Kari Vogt, 2005:121.

110 The group is called Bedari Women. Another groupis called Sahil (sahil.org).

111 In the report “Ungdom, fritid, organisasjonslivog deltakelse” (Fafo 2005), which containsinterviews with 3000 young people in Oslo, itemerges that Pakistani girls, in particular,participate infrequently in organized leisure-timeactivities, with the exception of religiousactivities. Many of them said that they wished totake greater part in such activities. The higher theparents’ financial status, the less likely thePakistani girls were to participate in suchactivities.

112 In 2003, 26 percent of Norwegian-Pakistani womenwere employed. For women from Iraq and Somalia, theemployment rate was 19 percent. For women from SriLanka, Vietnam, Thailand, and India, the employmentrates are 50 percent or higher (figures from the SSBstatistics bank, 2005).

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113 This view is preached, for example, by theNorwegian Muslim congregation the Islamic CulturalCentre. See islamic.no and the article “Kvinnersstilling i Islam.”

114 Islamonline.net is run from Cairo and has over100 employees (Kari Vogt, 2005:109).

115 The fatwa can be read at the fatwa bank atwww.islamonline.net, 7 February 2004. Here al-Qaradawi cites the hadith and expresses his personalsupport for this position in the modern world.

116 See the website of Det Islamske Forbundet,islam.no.

117 It is worth noting that the word for rape in theUrdu language means “honour robbery” – the pointbeing that the man has robbed the women’s, and thusher family’s, honour.

118 The change was approved on 6 June 2003 by a LocalGovernment and Regional Development committee of theNorwegian Parliament, by means of “Dok.8:122 (2002-2003),” under pressure from HRS.

119 I am aware that if a majority of the members ofthe Norwegian Parliament were personal Christians,

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it would have consequences for Norwegian law; forexample, abortion would be outlawed and the same-sexpartnership law revoked. These changes would havebeen justified with reference to Christian morality.But it is entirely unrealistic to imagine that suchpoliticians would base Norwegian laws andpunishments on Old Testament prescriptions, on thegrounds that the latter are divine and thuseternally valid. 120 Many non-Muslims in the West associate shariawith the brutal methods of punishment such asamputation, whipping, and stoning. For mostbelieving Muslim, the question of whether theyreject sharia is an impossible one to answer with asimple yes or no. To reply with a categorical yesmeans that one, equally categorically, rejects Islamitself, since sharia is a divine presence at theheart of the life of believers.

121 Muhammed Naceri is a member of the MoroccoCouncil of Religious Scholars. The quotation istaken from the website No to Political Islam(www.ntpi.org).

122 No other countries that belongs to other greatreligions have gotten together to formulate areligious (and political) reply to the UN’sDeclaration of Human Rights.

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123 Cairo Declaration on Human Rights in Islam,approved on 5 August 1990 in Cairo by 45 membercountries of the Organization of the IslamicConference (OIC). OIC has 57 member countries, andhas a permanent delegation at the FN(Wikipedia.org). In 1981 a similar Islamic human-rights declaration was approved, the UniversalIslamic Declaration of Human Rights. I have chosento focus on the more recent of the two declarations.

124 In 2002, the United Nations Development Programmepublished the first report in the series “ArabRegional Human Development Report,” with the title“Creating Opportunities for Future Generations.” In2003 it was succeeded by “Building a KnowledgeSociety,” and in 2004 by “Toward Freedom in the ArabWorld.” This year yet another report, focusing onopportunities for women, will be published.

125 See the report “Building a Knowledge Society,” p.118-121.

126 It would not be correct to place all the blamefor the extensive problems that have afflicted theArab world on conservative Islam. Some would arguethat entirely different causes underlie thestagnation, oppression, and the dramatic democracy

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deficit – for example, that Western capitalism hassystematically undermined development in the region,that the strongly state-centralized economiespromote clientalism and prevent popularparticipation in political processes, and that theArab states did not establish themselves through warand power games but were rather created by the greatpowers in negotiations after World War I. See, forexample, the article in the Danish newsmagazineRæson: “Hvorfor er det så lidt demokrati I dearabiske lande?” (7 February 2005).

127 The belief of leading Muslims of those times thatthe end of the road had been reached reminds one ofthe history professor Francis Fukuyama’s book The Endof History and the Last Man (1992). After the fall of theBerlin Wall, Fukuyama believed that we had reachedthe end of history itself: the liberal Westerndemocracies and capitalism had won, and the victorymarked the culmination of humankind’s ideologicaldevelopment. It may safely be observed thatFukuyama’s theory was exceedingly bold.

128 As quoted by Ibn Warraq (2003:429).

129 Kari Vogt quotes woman criticism fromconsiderably earlier dates. She refers to a “brieftext” by the philosopher Ibn Rushd (1126-98): “Oursocial system does not give women any chance to show

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what they are good for. Their fate is concernedexclusively with giving birth and taking care ofchildren. This condition of subordination destroyswomen’s ability to do something great. Their livesdevelop like the lives of plants” (2005:117ff). 130 In the case of Pakistan, the criticism of theWest for supporting dictators is largely justified.Pakistan’s worst dictator, Zia ul-Haq (1977-88) wasprotected by the U.S., because the U.S. neededPakistan as an ally in the struggle against theSoviet Union during the latter’s invasion ofAfghanistan.

131 Memri.org, 6 December 2002.

132 “The Islamization of Europe,” article by theBritish political analyst David Pryce-Jones,Commentary, No. 5, Vol. 118, December 2004.

133 “The Muslim Brotherhood’s Conquest of Europe,”Middle East Quarterly, Winter 2005.

134 The largest Muslim organization in Sweden isSveriges muslimska förbund, with 70,000 members. Itsleader is named Mahmoud Aldebe, and he confirms thatsupporters of the Brotherhood belong to hisassociation: “They are everywhere in our mosques,”

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Aldebe said on “Uppdrag granskning” on the Swedishtelevision network SVT1 on 2 May 2006.

135 “Livingstone invites cleric back,” bbc.co.uk, 12July 2004.

136 Berlingske Tidende, 6 February 2004.

137 The Americsan Thinker, 3 May 2004.

138 “The World Muslim League: ‘Agent of WahhabiPropagation in Europe,’” Terrorism Monitor, 6 May 2005,Jamestown Organization. 139 Euro-islam is the principal theme of his book ToBe a European Muslim (The Islamic Foundation, 1998).

140 For example, the college principal Nazneen Khan-Østrem, who writes in the book Min hellige krig: “TariqRamadan is a great inspiration. For me, too”(2005:101). VG’s journalist Kadafi Zaman also wrotewarmly about Ramadan, as did Basim Ghozlan of Detislamske forbundet.

141 For example, Caroline Fourest’s book Frère Tariq:Discours, stratégie et méthode de Tariq Ramadan, and FiomettaVenners’s book OPA sur l’Islam de France: les ambitions de l’UIOF.

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142 Berlingske Tidende, 6 February 2004.

143 Quoted from Jens Tomas Anfindsen’s op-ed inDagbladet, 17 July 2005.

144 Salafism is directly tied to Wahhabism. Thereare, in short, violent and non-violent forms ofsalafism.

145 The list of lecturers that weekend also includedOddbjørn Leirvik, priest and now associate professorin interreligious studies at the Faculty of Theologyat the University of Oslo. The seminars areannounced on the website of the Islamic Association(Det islamske forbundet), islam.no.

146 The article “What Is Behind the Veil” gives agood idea of the book’s contents and ideologicalfoundation (muslim-canada.org/purdah.htm).

147 John L. Esposito, 2001:255.

148 The history behind this law is that one ofMuhammed’s wives, Aisha, was suspected of having anaffair. It became the subject of gossip, andMuhammed responded by requiring that for an act ofadultery to be considered proven, four honourableMuslim men must testify to having witnessed it.

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149 Dagbladet.no, 8 July 2006.

150 The report “To moskeer i Norge – med blikk påkvinners status,” Human Rights Service, R-2 2006.

151 Human Rights Service, R-2 2006.

152 In Denmark, Minhaj ul-Quran has been shown to bean extremist organization. In the book Islam i Vesten. PåKoranens vej (København 2002) one chapter by HelleMerete Brix is devoted to Minhaj ul-Quran and itsleader, Tahirul Qadri. Qadri’s Islamist,totalitarian ideology is revealed in his ownwritings, in which he supports sharia deathsentences and the cutting off of hands and feet.Qadri also supported Zia ul-Haq’s introduction ofthe Hadood Ordinance, personally selects leaders ofthe movement in various European countries, andregularly visits congregations in Europe, includingNorway.

153 Both of these congregations have websites,minhaj.no and islamic.no, and both strongly promotetheir respective leaders in Pakistan.

154 Human Rights Service, R-2 2006.

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155 Dagbladet, 2 February 200.156

? Cultural statistics from Statistics Norway showthat 83 Muslim congregations were registered inNorway as of 1 January 2004.

157 Fadime Sahindal’s murder in January 2002unleashed a debate about whether Muslim women canmarry non-Muslims. The then leader of Norway’sIslamic Council, the convert Lena Larsen, addressedthe question on NRK television by categoricallyinsisting that Islam does not permit such marriages.I did not note the date.

158 “Freedom in the World” (2006), Freedomhouse.org.

159 “På tro kan demokrati ikke bygges,” opinion pieceby professor Mehdi Mozaffari, Berlingske Tidende, 15 July2005.

160 Kristelig Dagblad, 6 March 2006.

161 Weekendavisen, no. 16, 21-27 April 2006.

162 Ugebrevet A4, no. 12, 27 March 2006. The study wascarried out for Ugebrevet by Catinét Research.

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163 Berlingske Tidende, 27 June 2003. The study is basedon interviews with 900 young people. 164 International Herald Tribune, 15 July 2005.

165 The Daily Telegraph, 19 February 2006.

166 The Daily Telegraph, 23 July 2005.

167 The Times, 5 March 2005.

168 TNS Gallup, April 2006, performed for TV2.

169 Dagens Nyheter, 5 July 2005.

170 I think the term “enclave” is more appropriatefor such areas than “ghetto.” The latter term isassociated in many minds with social decline, while“enclave” means an area that is dominated byimmigrants and characterized by significantintegration problems. It does not necessary indicatethat the neighbourhood and its infrastructure are indecay, even though this is often the case.

171 The following is based on Aje Carlbom’s article“På vej mod integration i etniske enklaver,” SocialForskning, theme issue, March 2005.

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172 Pictures of such an event were shown on Fox News,26 November 2004.

173 Sydsvenskan, 18 April 2006.

174 Svenska Dagbladet, 5 December 2004.

175 Expressen, 21 August 2005. The source of theinformation is a report from Det nasjonaleBrottförebyggande rådet.

176 Dagens Nyheter, 23 April 2005.

177 Dagens Nyheter, 15 June 2005.

178 Berlingske Tidende, 21 January 2006.

179 Opinion piece by Södersten in Dagens Nyheter, 28December 2003.

180 This study was done on assignment from theSwedish government in 2002. See Jyllands-Posten, 14August 2004.

181 Sundsvall Tidende, 3 October 2005.

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182 Studieförbundet Näringsliv & Samhälle, “Arbete?Var god dröj! Invandrare i välfärdssamhället”(2002).

183 This seven-page letter to the Swedish Parliamentcan be read at svt.se, 27 April 2006.

184 Mikael Tossavainen’s raport “Det förnekandehatet: Antisemitism bland araber och muslimer iSverige” (2003), here quoted from DN.debatt, 20October 2003.

185 See Ralph Pittelkow (2002:121). Pittelkow refershere to the book Deutschkei by the German-TurkishBetigül Ercan Argun, which has been translated intoEnglish as Turkey in Germany (Routledge, 2003).

186 Pittelkow (2002:122).

187 International Herald Tribune, 15 July 2005.

188 This figure is presented by Kelek in an articleshe wrote for “Materialen und Informationen zur Zeit– Politisches Magazin für Konfessionslose undAtheistinnen” (no. 1 – 2005). The figure is referredto in the book Allahs Frauen – Djihad zwischen Scharia undDemokratie by Hans-Peter Raddatz (Munich 2005). Anacquaintance of mine, the Danish historian Torben

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Hansen, reviewed the book at sappho.dk. I was unableto reach Kelek before the present book went to pressin order to get more detailed information relatingto this figure.

189 Selecting the youngest son in the family to killa sister is a familiar phenomenon in Turkey andelsewhere. The reason is that young felons receivemilder punishment.

190 Seyran Ates, a lawyer of Turkish ancestry,estimates that half of young Turkish women areforced to marry (The New York Times, 4 December 2005).There is no public documentation on the extent offorced marriage in Germany or any other Europeancountry.

191 There is extensive material about this honourkilling available online. See, for example, BerlingskeTidende, 8 March 2005; The New York Times, 4 December 2005;and bbc.co.uk, 14 March 2005.

192 See interview with Necla Kelek in International HeraldTribune, 1 December 2005.

193 The estimates vary between five and ten million.There is actually no one who can say how many peoplewith immigrant backgrounds live in France. There are

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historical reasons for this, namely the registeringof Jews during World War II. The French philosophyabout immigrants and integration is this: If youhave French citizenship, you are by definitionFrench and therefore registered as French. Everyoneis equal according to the French republic’s values.This makes it very difficult, of course, for Frenchauthorities today to get an overview of theintegration situation so that they may come up withsolutions to the extensive problems they face. See,for example, Jyllands-Posten, 11 April 2005, and WeeklyStandard, 17 July 2002.

194 Samira Bellil, Dans l’enfer des tournantes, Paris 2002.

195 Fadela Amara, Varken hora eller kuvad, Stockholm 2005.

196 BBC.co.uk, 8 April 2006; Time.com, 2 October2004; and Signandsight.com, 22 November 2006.197

? SignandSight.com, 22 November 2005.

198 Fadela Amara (2005=. Samira Bellil died the nextyear of stomach cancer, aged 31. At the time she hadbeen rejected by her family and neighbors becauseshe had talked publicly about the shamefulconditions for girls in the enclaves.

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199 Times Online, 4 December 2004.

200 CBS News, 16 May 2004.

201 Time, 24 November 2002.

202 “Madame, skolen er muslimsk! – Sharia vinnerinnpass i Europa,” av Helle Merete Brix,www.rights.no, 15 February 2005.

203 Signand Sign.com, 22 November 2005.

204 Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, faz.net, 16 November2005.

205 Helle Merete Brix, see above. The book Brixrefers to was written under the pseudonym EmmanuelBrenner and is entitled Les Territoires perdus de laRepublique, Paris 2004. The same conditions aredescribed in a report that the French Ministry ofEducation tried to keep secret, “Les signes etmanifestations d’appartenance religieuse dans lesétablissements scolaires” (2004).

206 Weekly Standard, 15 July 2002.

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207 Times Online, 26 January 2004. Regarding myremarks about fetching marriage, there are not, tomy knowledge, any official statistics about thistopic. Nonetheless it can be established that thefetching of spouses is, as in other Europeancountries, the most important source of immigration.There is no reason to believe that French immigrantsfetch spouses from their countries of origin to alesser degree than immigrants in other Europeancountries. On the contrary, taking the poorintegration into consideration, there is reason tobelieve that the practice is widespread. In March2003 I asked the head of the Turkish organizationElele in Paris, Pernaz Hüküm, about the extent offetching marriage. Hüküm estimated that around 90percent of young Turks in France are married off in“the interior of Anatolia.” Elele works againstforced marriage among Turks.

208 Jyllands-Posten, 11 April 2005.

209 It was especially Eivind Vesselbo’s study offetching marriage among Turks (described in Chapter3) and a prognosis that showed a sevenfold increasein the group of marriageable young non-Westernimmigrants within twenty years that attractedattention and caused unease. This sevenfold increasewas viewed in the context of forced marriage andincreased immigration through fetching marriage.

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210 ”Professoren og prognosen,” Jyllands-Posten, 21 August2005.

211 Ibid.

212 Information, 28 February 2006. The article takes asits point of departure a seminar about the report“Interesser og holdninger til arbeijde – Fokus påinvandrerkvinder og beskæftigelsesindsatsen” (LGInsight, 2005). The report was commissioned by theDanish government and is available online. 213 ”Indvandrerkvinder holdes i isolation,” Jyllands-Posten, 19 February 2005.

214 Ibid.

215 ”Interesser og holdninger til arbeijde – Fokus påinvandrerkvinder og beskæftigelsesindsatsen” (LGInsight, 2005). The report was commissioned by theDanish government.

216 There is no data to indicate whether or not anyof these women may have been pressured by theirhusbands to present themselves as less resourcefuland unqualified for the labour market than they are.

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217 ”Udlændige på ungdomsuddannelserne – frafald ogfagligekundskaper,” Tænketanken om udfordringer forintegrationsindsatsen i Danmark, 2005.

218 Rockwood Fondens Forskningsenhed, technical noteno. 10, by Claus Larsen (2005).

219 Cabinet member Rikke Hvilsøj’s comment in thenewspaper Information, 28 February 2006, after thepublication of the report “Interesser og holdningertil arbejde focus på indvandrerkvinder ogbeskæftigelsesindsatsen,” by Lars Larsen in LGInsight (2005).

220 Dagbladet Børsen, 3 May 2005.

221 Jyllands-Posten, 27 May 2005.

222 Berlingske Tidende, 6 April 2005.

223 Naser Khader has his own website, www.khader.dk.

224 I am not going into detail about the publicationof the Muhammed cartoons, their principal aspectsand the many consequences. I will, however, notethat the reason for their publication was thatauthor Kåre Bluitgen wrote a children’s book ab out

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Muhammed. He and his publisher thought that the bookneeded illustrations. But the publisher couldn’tfind any artist who would take on the job under hisor her own name. When an editor at Jyllands-Posten heardabout this, he invited artists to illustrateMuhammed in order to see if it really was true thata form of self-censorship about Islam had developedin Danish society.

225 The most famous deception was a picture of a manfrom a pig festival in France, wearing a pig nose.This picture was taken to the Middle East by Danishimams, who said thast it was one of the images ofMuhammed published by Jyllands-Posten. Another major liewas that the Danish government was planning topublish a censured and edited edition of the Koran.

226 Jyllands-Posten, 3 February 2006.

227 “Toneangivende musloimer har kun få med seg,” LOUgebrevet A4, no. 11, 20 March 2006.

228 See, for example, opinion pieces in Aftenposten, 24May and 29 June 2006.

229 “European Employee Index 2006,” from the Danishanalytical institute Ennova.

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230 “Udviklingen i udlændines integration i detdanske samfund,” June 2006, Danish Ministry ofRefugee, Immigration and Integration Affairs.

231 See for example Ugebrevet A4, 10 April 2006.

232 Karen Jespersen and Palph Pittelkow, De lykkeligedanskere. En bog om sammenhængskraft, Copenhagen 2005.

233 Ugebrevet A4, no. 10, 13 March 2006.

234 The conflict between cultural rights andindividual rights in a democratic perspective is acomprehensive topic. For more discussion of it, seefor example David Beetham, Democracy and Human Rights,Cambridge 1999, Chapters 5-7.

235 The book Forsvar for nationalstaten (2004) by theDanish author Ralph Pittelkow argues that a broadpopular society is utterly crucial for maintainingand furthering a peaceful democratic national statesuch as Denmark or Norway.

236 Ole Jørgen Anfindsen and Jens Thomas Anfindsenhave formulated alternative population forecasts andcollected extensive materials relating to populationchange in Norway and Europe at their websiteHonestThinking.org.

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237 The figure is calculated by HRS and based onSSB’s population statistics regarding the number ofchildren and young people up to 19 years old withroots in Asian, African, and Balkan countries whichalready evince a high level of spousal fetching. Theestimate is low, since children from countries likeChina and Chile, only to name a couple, are notincluded. One may expect that a good many childrenfrom countries like China and Chile will also fetchspouses from those countries.

238 The study was performed by the Frisch Center atthe University of Oslo. Aftenposten, 2 November 2004.239

? This study was also performed by the FrischCenter. Aftenposten, 4 September 2005.

240 Aftenposten, 31 October 2004.

241 “Gjennomstrømning i videregående opplæring,” SSB,2004. The total national dropout rate is 25 percent.There are no figures for the dropout rate amongethnic Norwegian students.

242 Horisont: Næringspolitisk tidsskrift, no. 2, 2006.

243 Oslo-speilet, no. 3, 4 June 2006.

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244 Bredo Berntsen in the book Gode formål – gale følger?

245 Berlingske Tidende, 6 April 2005.

246 Memo, no. 1-2006.

247 In 1998 I had a meeting, in my capacity as aprivate citizen, with the then leader of theNorwegian Parliament’s justice committee, KristinKrohn Devold. The reason was that I had publishedthe book Hellig tvang and I was worried about the abuseof young people as living visas. I had the idea thenof increasing the age limit for fetching new spousesto Norway, which I also proposed in Dagsavisen. I hadgotten the idea from public documents published bythe Danish bureaucracy under the social-democraticgovernment.

248 Politiken, 24 January 2006.

249 “Ny utlendingslov,” Norges offentligeutredninger, NOU 2004:20.

250 Documented by SSB statistics in the report“Innvandring gjennom ekteskap,” HRS, May 2005, pp.69-74.

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251 Communicated in conversations with leading Danishpoliticians.

252 For those who wish to learn more about the newpolicy, two websites are most useful: that of thedepartment in Denmark that is responsible for thepolicy, inm.dk, and HRS’s site, www.rights.no.253

? “Pardannelse blant etniske minoriteter i Danmark,”Socialforskningsinstituttet 2004.

254 There is reason to assume that many of those whoapply to study and work and who have been grantedresidency are people with a partner in Denmark whohas lost the required “connection” to Denmark by(for example) residing for some time in the foreignparty’s homeland. For resourceful couples, then, theloss of the Dane’s “connection” to Denmark can beremedied by arranging for the non-Dane to study orwork in Denmark.

255 Politiken, 24 January 2006.

256 The European Court of Human Rights, 28 May 1985(Abdulaziz, Cabales and Balkandi).

257 An exemption has been given for the establishmentof a Muslim school in Drammen, with a planned start-

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up in the autumn of 2006. The convert and doctorTrond Ali Lindstad is behind the initiative.

258 In a documentary entitled “I skolens vold,”Swedish TV covered conditions in Muslim schools thatare highly deserving of criticism (SVT, 8 May 2003).

259 The embassy personnel have told me that somepeople who are deported from Norway turn up, newly“married,” at the embassy with another identity toapply for a visa. At various embassies in Islamabad,in addition to other agencies there that verifydocuments, it is estimated that 60 to 80 percent ofthe documents presented at the embassies are false.I myself purchased a valid marriage contract in1993, stating that on 17 May of that year I marriedKing Harald of Norway in Islamabad.

260 Guardian, 10 June 2006.

261 VG, 26 September 1998. Mukhtar has for years beenspokesman for Norway’s Islamic Council.

262 “Verdibørsen,” NRK P1, 6 May 2006.

263 “Migrapolis,” NRK1, 11 January 2006.

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264 Norwegian-Pakistani Jeanette was married off atage sixteen in Pakistan. For periods of time priorto her marriage, she was put on a strict diet by herfamily.

265 Among those who practice “reasonable marriage,”the Internet has become a popular means of seeking aspouse. Among people from the subcontinent a commondemand is that prospective spouses have a “palecomplexion.” Nobody ever demands dark skin. Thephenomenon can probably be compared directly withthe trend in Europe during the Victorian Age, whenupper-class women made an effort to avoid sunlight,while workers out in the field grew brown in thesun. Light skin thus signals prosperity; dark skin,poverty. Thus it was that pale skin came to beperceived as beautiful.

266 In Islam, it is virtually a religious obligationto marry, as recorded in the Koran, sura 24, verse32. Parents interpret this verse as placing uponthem a religious obligation to marry their childrenoff.

267 Collett was first brought back in from the coldwhen the Norwegian Association for Women’s Rightswas founded in 1888. She became its first honourarymember.

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268 See, for example, the article “Åpenhet for andretyper ekteskap,” Aftenposten, 7 April 2006.

269 Weekendavisen, no. 6, 10-17 February 2006.

270 Online there are a number of photographs of ArabIslamist leaders being visited by the likes ofHitler and of Muslim armies marching in goosestep.See, for example,tellthechildrenthetruth.com/gallery/ andjewishvirtuallibrary.org.

271 The ties among Mussolini, Hitler, and Islamistleaders in the Arab world were also discussed byOriana Fallaci in the book The Force of Reason (Rizzoli2006). She quotes Mussolini during a political visitto Libya in 1937, when he greeted a religious leaderwith the following words: “Fascist Italy wants tosecure the Muslim peoples peace, justice,prosperity, and respect for the prophet’s laws, andshow the world its sympathy for Islam and theMuslims” (p. 99). The neo-Nazi group Vigriddocuments on its own website its sympathy formilitant Islam: see www.vigrid.net.

272 Weekendavisen, no. 22, 2-8 June 2006.

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274 The manifesto was published in Aftenposten on 4March 2006.


276 Jyllands-Posten, 23 October 2005.

277 Jyllands-Posten, 30 October 2005.

278 “Hold religionen indendørs,” Politiken 20 May 2006.

279 Aftenposten, 5 March 2006.

280 ”Kvinnens stilling i islam,” islamic.org.281

? Jyllands-Posten, 23 October 2005.

282 Helle Merete Brix, “Sløret – islamisterneskrigsmachine,” rights.no, 1 June 2005. ChadorttDjavann’s book is entitled Que pense Allah de l’Europe? (Hvatenker Allah om Europa?), Paris 2004.

283 Opinion piece by Karen Jespersen in BerlingskeTidende, 19 February 2005.

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284 www.wikipedia.org.

285 Communicated in private conversations withintellectuals and politicians. 286

? “The Islamization of Europe?”, Commentary, December2004.287

? Ibid. See also Townhall.com, 17 November 2004.

288 Pim Fortuyn was the first Dutch politician inmodern times to be a victim of a politicalassassination. The murderer was a left-wingextremist who killed him because of his desire toput the brakes on immigration to the Netherlands. Hewas killed shortly before a national election inwhich it looked as if he would be very successful.

289 Klassekampen, 16 November 2005.

290 Dag og Tid, 20 May 2006.291

? Dagbladet, 6 May 2003.

292 See for example the report “Det förnekande hatet:Antisemitism bland araber och muslimer I Sverige” byMikael Tossavainen (2003). Also see such articles as“Jødehatet lever” (Aftenposten, 29 November 2003), “The

498

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Murder of Ilan Halimi” (Front Page, 7 March 2006), and“Mugged by la Réalité” (Weekly Standard, 11 April 2005).

499

Documents

But the Greatest of These is Freedom