contexploration

The last few years I have written extensively about the challenges posed by populism, religion and nationalism to European liberal democracies. Here, in this debate, some key players came together (a main protagonist was absent, of course, the Islamic fundamentalist himself). The complexities of these issues, and the enormous pace that the public discussion has taken the last few years astonish me.

A series of events has shaken this society: In 1993 the Norwegian publisher of the Satanic Verses, William Nygaard was shot by Iranian agents in Oslo (he survived), the teenager Benjamin Hermansen was stabbed to death by Neo-Nazis in January 2001 because of the colour of his skin, the aftermath of 11th of September 2001 led Norwegian troops to reconstruction and peacekeeping missions in Afghanistan and Iraq. After the Madrid bombings in 2004 the troops were withdrawn from Iraq. Confrontations with Islamists sparked by comedian Shabana Rehman and editor of Magazinet Vebjørn Selbekk have resulted in death threats. In a cowardly warning, the Rehman family’s restaurant in Oslo was sprayed with bullets under cover of night. Cartoon riots led to the torching and destruction of the Norwegian embassies in Beirut and Damaskus.

Today, for the first time in history, an opinion poll show that the Populist Party is Norway’s largest with 32 percent. Carl I. Hagen and the Populists have surfed The Fear of the Unknown for years, talking about “Norwegian values”, making a fetish of the “Norwegian family”, mocking multiculturalism and trying to curb immigration. In the 1980s the party was a frequent critic of single mothers, welfare recipients and others in society that they considered “lazy” or “unproductive”. Political interest or social knowledge doesn’t seem to be a requirement for joining the party. It has always attracted the used-car salesmen and petty criminals of Norwegian society. If you think taxes are too high, that alcohol is too expensive, or that there are too many “foreigners” in the streets, this is the party for you.

In the hunt for cheap political points the Populist Party has tried everything. There doesn’t seem to be problematic for its leaders to address the wallets of consumers of alcohol, gasoline, pornography, Norwegian property-holders in Spain, while at the same time attempting to reach out to the “moral values” of fundamentalist Christians and nationalists. There is abolutely no core in its politics. The Populist Party sides with the egocentric majority in every case. (That’s also why it has neither been a vocal proponent nor an adversary of Norwegian membership in the European Union, a question that cleanly divides the electorate in half. It would, of course, try to appeal to both sides, if it were possible.)

After the Salman Rushdie fatwa the Populist Party unsuccessfully tried to remove the (inactive) blasphemy clause in the penal law (strl § 142). A few years later it observed the success of George W. Bush’s alliances with Christian organisations and his emphasis on “moral values” in his re-election campaign: The Populist Party then shifted its stance in the Parliament and voted to maintain the blasphemy clause. But now, after the cartoon controversy, it again wants to remove it, because opinion polls show an extreme hostility among Norwegians of any religion. Only 29 percent say they believe in God, and this number is shrinking fast.

Not to say that the Populist Party is totally hopeless. To its credit, it has behaved rather civilised in the heat of the cartoon controversy, and Siv Jensen actually did a fairly good job siding with secularism and “law abiding” immigrants in a televised debate with Per Fugelli. If it could abandon its appalling practice of populism all together and seek alliances with Norwegian-Muslim democrats and democratic forces in Non-Western countries, it could perhaps transform itself into a political force different from the Klan of European Xenophobes to which it currently belongs.

At the Kafé Stenersen debate, I was reminded of all these events and also, for the first time in years, I was present in a room full of ambitious politicians (and a couple of celebrities as well). During my years as a youth politician I developed a revulsion towards organised politics. The horrors of spending my evenings going to meetings, standing up to sing morbid socialist songs, participating in endless debates on how to efficiently “change people’s attitudes” and then, late at night, conspiring to gain a peripheral position in an hierarchy of some of the most uncharismatic young people imaginable… finally it made me shun party politics all together. I scrapped my memberships and exorcised my political ambitions.

Being in the same room as these future political leaders was almost unbearable. The rhetoric is well rehearsed and unoriginal. The standardised “humorous” remarks are cruel and personal. To watch these passionless professional enthusiasts is at first embarrassing, then discouraging.

A Pakistani-Norwegian woman in the audience took the microphone and in a moving plea she told of Muslims’ fear of reprisals after the destruction of the embassies. She was of the opinion that the Government had done a good job calming the situation, and she voiced hope for the future. But afterwards, as the panelists drifted back into a discussion of Samuel Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations” as if it were a natural phenomenon, I saw her becoming more and more dispirited. The heated verbal attacks on the Foreign Minister by the well dressed young Populists fresh from blogosphere anonymity didn’t help much either.

The whole debate and the atmosphere of the event made me realize that the last two months have quietly traumatized a large segment of this society. The safe harbours of “religion” and “nation” appear more unattractive than ever. (This disillusion has physically been symbolized by the artistic mocking of the so called Prophet and the burning of the Norwegian flag.) But at the same time, our alternative - secular society - is perceived as cold, transparent and rational. This is the moment of truth. Globalisation is here and now.