Norway’s Very Own Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Racist. Xenophobe. These are just a couple of the epithets Europe's cultural elite like to hurl at critics of Islamic fundamentalism. Bruce Bawer reports on the character assassination of Hege Storhaug, author of the new book Covered. Uncovered. and a courageous advocate of freedom.
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As Europe’s Islamization proceeds apace, the gap widens between ordinary folks’ growing recognition of the outrages that are going on all around them and the movers and shakers’ cynical insistence on pretending that everything’s just hunky-dory.
Case in point: the responses to Covered. Uncovered., a new book on hijab. Its author, Hege Storhaug of Norway’s Human Rights Service, is this country’s answer to Ayaan Hirsi Ali - a gutsy advocate of freedom who doesn’t mince words about the illiberal conditions (especially for women and girls) in Europe’s Muslim communities. In Covered. Uncovered. she explains why the increasing visibility in these parts of hijab - a potent symbol of totalitarianism and sexual oppression - should not be taken lightly.
The result? A full-scale media assault - marked not by honest engagement with Storhaug’s arguments but by lies, more lies, and sheer personal abuse. Norway’s Dagbladet alone has published pieces by Amin Asskali of the Arabic Student Association, who accused the “woman-hating” Storhaug of “creating intolerance”; by Iffit Qureshi, who labeled her a “totalitarian…out to crush religious freedom”; and by Dagbladet opinion editor (and, ahem, former head of the Communist group Red Youth) Marte Michelet, whose litany of charges against Storhaug included “burkaphobia,” an “irrational fear of Islam,” “paranoid delusions,” and “hateful contempt” for Muslim girls.
“It is absolutely crucial,” said Michelet in a radio interview, “that Hege Storhaug’s campaign to undermine the Muslim religious minority’s rights in Norway be stopped.”
Yes: “Storhaug’s campaign…must be stopped.”
As some readers will recall, it was just this sort of rhetoric that led to the 2002 murder of Pim Fortuyn. Fortuyn, like Storhaug, believed passionately in individual rights - but because he dared to point out that many Dutch Muslims despised those rights, his country’s pols, profs, and pundits labeled him a racist and xenophobe (precisely the words, by the way, that Magnus E. Marsdal, a veteran of the Communist organizations Attac and Red Youth and of the Communist newspaper Klassekampen, hurled at Storhaug the other day on taxpayer-supported Norwegian public radio). In short, Fortuyn was demonized as a threat to the very liberty he was fighting to preserve. Among those who heard that this fascist must be stopped was a man named Volkert van der Graaf.
The rest is history.
Fortuyn’s murder should have put an end to the character assassinations of the advocates of freedom. Nope. Instead they’ve only grown more sophisticated. Nowadays when someone like Ayaan Hirsi Ali assails Islamic fundamentalism, the clever thing to do is call her a fundamentalist - because she’s so uncompromising in her insistence on liberty, get it? In this spirit, a hijab-clad Dagbladet staffer compared Storhaug’s call for Muslim women to “take the hijab off and embrace freedom” to “the rhetoric of the bearded fundamentalists” - thus equating an advocate for the victims of forced marriage and honor killing with the perpetrators of these barbarities.
Such, in 2007, is the cultural elite’s line on Islam. But who’s buying it? To scroll down on newspaper websites from the anti-Storhaug screeds by reporters, bureaucrats, professors, etc., to readers’ comments - which number in the thousands - is to turn from multicultural mendacity and vile ad hominem invective to commonsensical comebacks by sane citizens who prize liberty.
Responding, for example, to Qureshi’s insistence that we shouldn’t allow “the fear of the unknown [i.e., Islam] to control us,” one reader noted dryly that at this point Islam is hardly an “unknown.” Another answered Asskali’s description of Islam as woman-friendly: “Yes, we can see this…in practice in Iran, Pakistan, and Afghanistan.” Yet another directly addressed Michelet and social geographer Kirsten √òvregaard (who, in assaulting Storhaug, had compared hijab favorably to Western girls’ “sexualized attire”): “What will you do on the day your daughters are forced to wear hijab? Why do you hate your own culture and embrace one that degrades and oppresses women? I just don’t get it.”
“Do you think we’re entirely brainwashed?” one indignant reader asked Asskali. But that’s precisely the goal of Asskali and his bien pensant accomplices: to convince the public that the problem here isn’t him, or his religion, but people like Hege Storhaug. As Dagbladet reader Hans-Christian Holm cogently put it, Norway’s media are engaged in “a sick tolerance competition, in which whoever tolerates the most intolerance wins, and the one who suggests that we perhaps should not tolerate so much intolerance is automatically branded as the most intolerant of all.” Storhaug’s own concern, as expressed in an email the other day, is that the relentless demonizing of persons like herself by those who are determined to suppress open liberal debate about these vital issues can only strengthen the hands of both right-wing nativists and Islamists.
And it’s not just happening in Norway, of course. The question is: how much longer can the tension continue to intensify between the plain, unvarnished truth and the outrageous flimflam churned out by a cowardly and conscienceless elite?
Bruce Bawer’s book %%AMAZON=0767920058 While Europe Slept%% is now in paperback. His website is at www.brucebawer.com. He has written for Human Rights Service’s website, www.rights.no, and translated Storhaug’s book Human Visas.
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20 Comments
Aimee:As usual Bawer is right. I’m a Norwegian woman and I’m afraid for my children’s future.
Nov 2, 2007 - 3:07 am David Thomson:The issues raised by Hege Storhaug must not be ignored during our own political campaigns of 2008. It is imperative that we push both the Republican and Democratic Party candidates to find out where they stand on the threat of Islamic totalitarianism. As matter of fact, why haven’t such questions been asked in the recent debates? Wouldn’t you like to know the views of Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, Hillary Clinton, and Barack Obama? Also, how many Americans realize that the typical Democratic Party “elite” believes the concern over Muslim extremism is greatly exaggerated?
Nov 2, 2007 - 6:23 am JohnAdams:This is all just another round of name-calling.
“You’re a racist!”
“No, you’re a racist.”
“You’re a fascist!”
“No, actually you are a fascist!”
From the above:
Norway’s media are engaged in “a sick tolerance competition, in which whoever tolerates the most intolerance wins, and the one who suggests that we perhaps should not tolerate so much intolerance is automatically branded as the most intolerant of all.”
I think that the biggest racists of all are the white neo-Marxist liberal elites of the West, who have baptized themselves as such by washing the blood from their hands caused by the oppression of people of color by the white colonial racists of western civilization.
Think Ward Churchill and you’ll get what I’m after here.
For these people, white people can do nothing right, and indeed carry with them the Original Sin of the West and are therefore beyond redemption–unless of course they partake of the same ritual handwashing.
And of course, then also the “people of color” can do absolutely nothing wrong, even those who embrace a barbaric, oppressive, totalitarian ideology such as Islamism.
The neo-Marxist white elites of the West do not even see themselves as “white.” They have purified themselves, risen above it. And those of us who express amazement at their inability to defend their own native democratic nation-states (Norway, Denmark, Great Britain, etc.), the very cradles that give them the right to free expression–all of us are really missing the point.
They hate the West, they are ashamed of its civilization, its traditions, religions, and governmental systems. The usual “if you don’t like it, leave” argument used against these people, or against radical Islamists who express total disgust for their host countries in the West, is really quite contrary to the point.
They want to take us over, hearts, minds, land, and booty.
Nov 2, 2007 - 7:07 am Chip:Can you prove Hege Storhaug isn’t a Nazi, inciter of religious hatred, racist, or Islamophobe?
And if you can’t, is there any point in opposing the Islamization of anything? Don’t taze me, bro.
Nov 2, 2007 - 7:22 am RE:You have that exactly backwards, Chip.
‘Innocent until proven guilty’ is the standard we use. But even that is trumped by freedom of speech. It’s fair to challenge the substance of the message, but character assassination should be called out for the dishonest tactic that it is.
Nov 2, 2007 - 8:31 am Chip:Just saying, Norway was pretty friendly with the Nazis during WWII. Almost as bad as the Albanians on that score.
Nov 2, 2007 - 8:49 am Anthony (Los Angeles):Will “Covered, Uncovered” be available in an English translation soon?
Nov 2, 2007 - 8:55 am Chip:Before my schtick gets any more confusing.
In Europe certain political views are illegal. You can either change the laws or submit meekly as you’re supposed to. Islam is off the table. Read the EU regs and new religious incitement laws in the UK. Norway absolutely has racism laws to deal with this.
As it happens, they’re shrewdly bootstrapping all these new laws on statutes making holocaust denial illegal. So you’ll turn to the chapter on holocaust denial and Islamophobia when you’re looking for the correct charging statute. It’s usually “racism.”
I oppose thought control laws, even the ones made to sound good. There’s a legal context for what Bruce is discussing. If you don’t get that you’re really in the dark.
Nov 2, 2007 - 9:02 am wtlf5555:I did not live through WWII but was always interested in the historical contrast between those who stood for freedom such as Churchill and those proclaimed to but whose actions seemed to say otherwise (Chamberlain). Living in this time I am fascinated to see how liberals become nihilists and nihilism becomes a petry dish that allows fascism to flourish. I am not an apologist for conservatism but I was always led to believe that conservatism was at the root of fascism. However, real life seems to prove otherwise.
Nov 2, 2007 - 9:31 am iconoclast:chip
Sweden was the Scandinavian country friendly with the Nazis. To the point that they allowed trains of Nazi troops to pass through their country on the way to Norway. Norway was conquered.
Norway had collaborators of course. We even coined a term for collaborator from the name of the leader installed by the Nazis–Quisling.
There are always collaborators waiting to betray. Think Kucinich for a domestic example.
Nov 2, 2007 - 9:36 am David Thomson:“Living in this time I am fascinated to see how liberals become nihilists and nihilism becomes a petry dish that allows fascism to flourish.”
American liberals became goofy after the assassination of John F. Kennedy. They refused to believe that the president of the United States was murdered by a committed Communist. Instead, these leftist members of the Democratic Party blamed “the right-wing purveyors of hate.” Their own country’s alleged vileness was responsible for JFK’s death. Perhaps the most important book of 2007 is Camelot and the Cultural Revolution: How the Assassination of John F. Kennedy Shattered American Liberalism by James Piereson. You should obtain a copy immediately.
Nov 2, 2007 - 10:33 am ERS:Character assassination is often the tactic of choice for people who have nothing of real substance to offer by way of rebuttal.
It’s a cheap, cheap shot when used against someone who is only putting forth a cogent argument for basic, universal human rights.
Ellen R. Sheeley, Author
“Reclaiming Honor in Jordan”
Nov 2, 2007 - 12:22 pm Amy:While I agree that fundamental Islamism is of concern, I would hesitate to say that the hijab is a symbol of oppression. I have met Muslim women who are feminists and they wear the hijab because they want to– not because it makes them feel oppressed.
It is rather coercion of women to wear the hijab, as anything else, that is oppressive.
Nov 2, 2007 - 12:39 pm deathtosocialism:The modern socialist European culture takes great pride in the idea of “tolerance.” Yet when one gets down to specifics (rather than feel-good theory), if you tolerate values and cultural practices that are the antithesis of your own you commit slow but sure suicide.
Islamists know this. They prey on the Western leftists’ feeling of guilt that leftists themselves have created. Leftist elites, usually white and educated, loathe themselves and the bounty that has been created from Western Judeo-Christian thought. This self and cultural loathing leads them to be unable to defend themselves, and the Western civilization that has produced so much for them. It is truly sad.
Europe is done, caput, over. America after WWII handed Europe the gift of freedom without having Europe have to pay to defend it. Europe in the ensuing years became weak, decadent, and still unable to correct its childlike mindset. Europe embraced Godless socialism, the reduced workweek, and dependence on the state. Again, sad sad sad.
Bye bye Europe. Your multiculturalist, “all cultures are equal” policies are like AIDS — they infect your body and reduce its defenses from other diseases. Islamism has infected you and yet you are too weak to fight back.
Nov 2, 2007 - 4:15 pm GCA:Chip, you obviously know nothing about Norway.
Firstly, Norway resisted Nazi occupation longer than France. That’s occupation, not collaboration. I know. My father was a 15 year old Stavanger schoolboy in April, 1940 and 20 years old in May, 1945 when the war in Europe ended. I first went to Norway in 1961 and have been hearing the stories of friends and relatives who survived Nazi occupation, some in concentration camps others as active particpants in the resistance, my whole life. One of my father’s 7 brothers actually thought the Nazis were good for Norway and was banished from my grandfather’s home from the day he expressed that opinion until just before he(the son)died years after the war’s end. Collaborators were hated and stigmatized by “average joe” Norwegians, certainly during the war, and for a number of years following it.
Secondly, while the left in Norway is just as vapid and disingenuous as the left anywhere, perhaps more-so because Norway has had an oil windfall for the last 40 years that has made socialist expansionism painless, and the Norwegians seem to suffer from an inordnate amount of guilt over their prosperity, Norway has had sense enough to stay out of the European Union. Thus, the Norwegians as a whole are apparently still smart enough, and wary enough (perhaps in part because they were occupied by the Nazis?)to preserve their national sovereignty and aren’t subject to the onerous laws you reference.
By the way, Dagbladet is nothing more than a Norwegian version of the National Enquirer published by leftist ideologues. Verdens Gang is its right wing counterpart. Both spoon feed propaganda interlaced with sports, celebrity gossip, and the like. Dagbladet’s pandering pusilaminity is the same reaction we could expect to publication of a book comparable to Ms. Storhaug’s from an American tabloid were its editor an admirer of Ward Churchill.
Nov 2, 2007 - 9:53 pm L. Williams:Enlightening article. A combination of a tolerance competition and self-hatred leads liberals to embrace exactly what they claim to most despise in western culture. Don’t expect logic, rationality, or consistency in these people.
If the first principle is that tolerance is most important, the so-called progressives can embrace a fundamental Islam that seems to embody all the features they most despise: the hideous death penalties, all sorts of discriminations, and denying women the opportunity for any semblance of equality. This tolerance does not include any expression of Christianity, conservatism, or many western traditions. Self-hatred permits them to override the first principle.
Add to that the communists who will support anything that may lead to the destruction of the free market and representative government and the nature of the struggle becomes apparent. Leftists and fundamental Islamists are natural allies and enemies of western civilization in their own ways and for their own purposes. Liberals simply have no sense, no immutable principles, and no historical vision. Easy prey for anything anti-west.
How does turning back the clock 1300 years advance the human condition?
Nov 3, 2007 - 9:57 am E Foster:Amy : “While I agree that fundamental Islamism is of concern, I would hesitate to say that the hijab is a symbol of oppression…”
The symbolism is historically documented and crystal clear: an exposed female head is an abomination-it is unclean and shameful. Her hair is of the devil, causing men to lose control. And her flesh must be covered for society to be decent.
Is that a kind of symbolism you would hesitate to oppose?
This twisted thinking has appeared in other religions, and still remains for figures that are career representatives of certain faiths, but in terms of the general populace believing that uncovered heads are obscene, most societies have moved beyond this notion.
I do agree with you, though, that the most offensive aspect is “coercion of women to wear the hijab”.
Nov 3, 2007 - 11:09 am tanstaafl:an exposed female head is an abomination
The Koran mentions the advisability of “covering” the head/hair so the antagonistic tribespersons don’t covet your women.
Today, lots of people with all kinds of agendas (not the least of which are “control and ownership” of the person of women) have expanded on that idea.
It’s perfectly absurd, physiologically speaking, to completely “cover” (burkah) in 100¬∞ + F heat.
Insane, really.
Nov 3, 2007 - 6:11 pm HU:Well, I don’t think Storhaug really is suited as your liberty martyr.
She advocates prohibition of the hijab! No wonder that is controversial in our very value liberal society. I vehemently dislike and dissaprove of the symbolic function of hijab. But still, not allowing my well educated, strong and opiniated friend to wear it in public? That would be a serious infridgement of her rights.
And besides from that, I think Storhaugs work is weak, in an academic sense. Her arguments are inconsistent.
Nov 5, 2007 - 7:40 am rammer:Does it really matter her argument is weak in an academic sense. The big picture is she has the courage to speak her mind, and express her views. Those views which generally a lot of people agree with and feel that there is most definitely an issue with the dynamics of muslim intergration in Europe. Some of the most oppressive gov’ts are where? Maybe people who come to new countries that roll out the red carpet for them should respect and value that. I am sure if you relocated in reverse that wouldn’t be anything like the same.
May 5, 2008 - 12:58 pm