Beware of Islamic oppression of the Samis!

Anyone following the Norwegian news the last couple of weeks could not have escaped to notice the debate about whether or not to allow the hijab in the police force. Some arguments in favor of allowing it has been presented, and many good ones against. The blogger Knut Johannessen is presenting some of them in two postings on his blog Voxpopuli, titled Tilslørte politipiker and It's not the hijab, stupid!. On Wednesday this week one of the most bizarre arguments in this debate was heard.

In the February 18 issue of the local newspaper Finnmarken, the Sami politician Jánoš Trosten claims that allowing the hijab will lead to a renewed oppression of the Sami people. As much as I agree with mr Trosten not to allow wearing the hijab with a police uniform (or with an army or any kind of official uniform for that matter), his reasoning must be one of the most ridiculous ever. According to him, the hijab must be prohibited for the reason that the Sami community will not be able to handle the islamification this would inevitably lead to. Foreign customs like this are a grave threat to "an already weakened culture," which is still suffering from the Norwegianification processes in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries.

Seriously, even in the case that his premises were true - how many female muslim cops does mr Trosten think would find their way up to Kautokeino and Karasjok in the case of an acceptance of the hijab in the police force?!? What would make us believe that the Sapmi area suddenly would experience a massive influx of hijab wearing female police officers? It beats me, but mr Trosten apparently believes that would be a probably scenario..

Mr Trosten, whom I mentioned in my post of 19 March 2008 titled Separatism in Norway, pt 2, is known to be among the more extreme of Sami politicians, if not the most extreme. Upliftingly, he seems to be quite alone in his fear that the hijab poses a large threat to the Samis and their culture. Several other notable politicians, such as president and vice presidents of the Sami parliament mr Egil Olli and mrs Marianne Balto, as well as former president of the Parliament mrs Aili Keskitalo, do not have any such fear.

As for mr Trosten's claims that the Sami culture is under any kind of threat in Norway, anyone living in Finnmark would take that with more than one grain of salt. The Norwegian policies towards Samis basically up to the mid-20th century were unfortunate and inexcusable. But with the massive revival of Sami culture and increased political power especially after the 1980s, you could not correctly claim that the Sami culture today is in any way weakened or threatened. As you could read into the post Separatism in Norway, pt. 2, some would say almost on the contrary.

The Islamic Council and Gays, continued

This post is a follow-up on two of my previous posts, The Norwegian Islamic Council and Gays, and The Christian People's Party and Gays.

The most recent developments on this issue is that the leader of the Norwegian Islamic Council, Senaid Kobilica, has called upon the Norwegian Imams and asked them to be open to talking with muslim homosexuals. According to an interview with Dagsavisen, "the Islamic Council do not want homosexuals, whether they be muslim or not, to be living in the closet. They are living in Norway, a democratic country, and are free to come out." Also, he has pointed out that the Norwegian Islamic Council are against capital punishment for homosexuality in Norway, but do not want to involve itself with legislation in other states.

Although Kobilica still holds the view that it is incompatible to be a practicing muslim and also to be a practicing homosexual, this is uplifting, and it is a step in the right direction. It is also an example that the Islamic community very much is capable of debate on defining issues. Let's just hope the debate and developments continue in the right direction.

We should also remind ourselves that a similar debate has been going on and is still going on in the Christian Church community in Norway. There is still a strong resistance towards letting homosexuals occupy religious positions in the Church. To me, there is no principal difference between the Church and the Islamic Council in this respect, at least when it comes to their stance on homosexuals in Norway.

The Norwegian Islamic Council and Gays

The Norwegian minister of social equality, Anniken Huitfeldt, threatened to withdraw the goverment financial support for the Norwegian Islamic Council last week, after the council showed itself unwilling to mark its distance towards capital punishment for homosexuality. The council is awaiting advice from the European Fatwa Council before they will take a stand on the issue of capital punishment for homosexuality. The Norwegian Islamic Council receives around half a million Norwegian Crowns (appr. 62.500€) annually in government support.

One might discuss the issue of whether the State should give any financial support at all religious institutions at all, even the State Church. Especially if the Norwegian state purports to be a secular state, that would be a relevant topic to discuss. And since we do subsidize the State Church, why not support other faiths, especially the ones that a large part of the Norwegian population belongs to? Personally, I am a bit skeptical to the idea that we should spend public money on religious organizations, whether they be Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Buddhist, or anything else, even when it comes to such small amounts as 500.000 NOK.

But since we do in fact subsidize religious institutions with government money, that leads to the question of to what extent it should be expected that the recipients of financial support aligns itself to what is acceptable viewpoints. You could argue that the Islamic Council is free to express whatever viewpoints it choose, as long as it respects Norwegian legislation. On the other hand, its viewpoints might influence the attitudes of its members, and that as long as they receive government support, they need to adhere to some basic values that we base our society on. In either case, to abolish any kind of financial support for such institutions would eliminate that problem altogether.

The issue of the Islamic Council's stance on homosexuality has raised a hefty amount of debate. Reading through the comments on some of the articles in various online newspapers, I must say that I am slightly taken aback by a large part of those comments. Judging from the comments, the level of antagonism towards the Islamic Council itself and towards Muslims in general seems to be quite high. Now, it's probably mostly those that are emotionally involved that bother to post their comments, so its fair to argue that those do not give a representative overview of the Norwegian people's general opinion. Nevertheless, it is clear that there is a great deal of animosity towards the Muslim population because of this issue.

I find it truly tasteless to express the view that homosexuality should be punished by death - just as much as it is tasteless to express the views that Jews should be annihilated, that women's rightful place is in the kitchen, or that people of different skin colors are of lesser intellect than whites. Still, not all, even most, of Norwegian Muslims hold the view that homosexuals should be stoned to death. And we also need to be aware that many Christians hold fundamentalist views on many issues, such as homosexuality. Religious texts are after all interpreted in the context of our society. If you read the Bible to it's literal meaning (or what you believe it's literal meaning to be), you could find many a place where it will be incompatible with our modern society. The same goes for the Quran.

That homosexuality is to be punished by death, or that women should be wrapped up in burkas, or that a sister who does something the brother does not approve of needs to be killed in order that the family not lose their honor is just abhorrent. But you could argue - and I do that - that such viewpoints are more the expressions and norms of a culture than the religion as such. It is perfectly possible to be a liberal and progressive Muslim, just as much as it is possible to be a liberal and progressive Christian. Still, there is no doubt that some in the muslim community hold views that are unmodern and barbaric.

The Western culture have some values that we should be very proud of, such as equality, freedom of speech, and tolerance for others that are different from ourselves. Those are values that we should stand up for and fight for. And we should try our best to spread and foster those values in our society. We can punish people who break the law, but to have the "wrong" values is not a punishable offense in itself - we cannot force people to hold the "right" values. That is actually one of our values - that people can believe what they will. We can - and should - try to convince others that our set of values on the whole are right and good, but that needs be done with reason, debate and open discussion, not by trying to deny others the right to hold values that we ourselves believe are wrong.

More on flags..

The controversy about flags on May 17 goes on. After the Commitee for May 17 initially had decided that only Norwegian, Sami, and the UN-flags were allowed in the official procession on May 17, the mayor of Oslo, Fabian Stang, have now overruled that decision - which means that any flag from any country will be allowed in the procession. After this, several members of the Commitee for May 17 have resigned from the committee.

As stated in my post on April 8, May 17 coming up, I am opposed to using other flags than the Norwegian one in the official procession on May 17, even the Sami one. What people do outside of the official procession is a matter of freedom of speech. If people want to wave the flag of their country of origin - fine. But it should not be done in the official procession. That one should be reserved for the Norwegian flag. That is what we are celebrating.

Some, including journalist Hege Ulstein of Dagsavisen, have presented the issue as innocent little children being brutally thrown out of the procession should they not be deemed sufficiently nationally correct. That is missing the point. What we are celebrating on our national day is the Norwegian nation, which is symbolized by the Norwegian flag. That nation encompasses everyone living in Norway, not only people with hundreds or thousands years long Norwegian pedigree, but also people of recent immigrant heritage.

There is no contradiction in reserving one day of the year for celebrating the Norwegian nation, and embracing all our nations inhabitants, wherever they might originate from.

May 17 coming up..

The May 17 celebrations are not far away. in just a little more than one month the Norwegian nation will be celebrating its national holiday.

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.