The Norwegian Forum for Immigrants would like children of "non-Norwegian" origin to be allowed to wave their home-country's flag in the official procession on May 17. The committee for May 17 says no. The arguments from the Forum of Immigrants are that this can make the procession more colorful, and that minorities' cultures are part of the Norwegian culture. Yes, immigrants' culture should be considered part of the Norwegian culture. We do, in fact, have large minorities of both immigrants and indigenous people in Norway. They should no doubt be considered part of our culture and of our nation. But this is done not by waving different flags in the procession. It is done by showing one flag, namely our Norwegian one.
Personally, I think it is wrong that the Sami people are allowed to flag with their national flag on the national holiday. There are very heavily weighing historical reasons why they are allowed to do that, and of those the Norwegian nation have no reason to be proud. As stated before, I have great respect for the Sami people and their culture and history. Still, I do not think it is appropriate that they are allowed to flag with their own national Sami flag on May 17.
The plurality of our nation should be celebrated and appreciated. But this can be done in other ways, especially on this particular day. For instance, national dresses of any kind are accepted in the official procession.
By waving the flags of their home-countries or preferred nationality in the case of Samis, they are signaling that they are not part of Norway, but something else, different from our Norwegian nation. That is not what our national holiday is about. We should be celebrating unity under the Norwegian national flag.
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Looking forward to that day soon of course - and I do support your random thoughts - thats how it is!
Here is my post from last year.
This year I'll be celebrating May 17 in Liverpool. I guess that will be something a bit more low-key than in Oslo :) I look very much forward to it, as I think it will be kind of special/different. As I heard, they have some kind of organized celebration in town somewhere..
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