Asne Seierstad, Norwegian journalist and bestselling author, has just published The Angel From Grozny: Stories From Chechnya in Danish. I guess a English translation will follow later this year. Seierstad, who’s claim to fame was The Bookseller of Kabul (2002), is a brave woman, but I am not sure if she is writing journalism or fiction, though she insists that she has been a witness to everything she is writing about.

Which is absolutely nonsense. Large parts of the book consists of the author’s reconstruction of events and lives of individuals, to which she wasn’t a witness. Seierstad insists that she is in the business of narrative journalism, but the genre requires even more meticulous research than ordinary reportage. I am sorry to say, but there are too many factual errors and distortion of events in the book to convince me that this is a work of journalism and not literature.

Seierstad covered the first Chechen war (1994-1996) for the Norwegian press and secretly returned in 2006 to write about the victims on both sides. She stayed in a children’s home in the Chechen capital that is run by ”the Angel from Grozny”, a Chechen woman who in 1995 at the height of the first war moved back from Siberia to the small republic in the Caucasus mountains.

Seierstad also finds a disabled Russian soldier who stepped on a mine in Chechnya and lost his sight and was crippled. She talks to perpetrators and victims of racist violence in Moscow. Interestingly, Seierstad doesn’t talk to any of the 200.000 Russians who were forced to leave the republic after its declaration of independence in 1991 and before the first war broke out in 1994. It’s important because she claims that her journalistic ambition is to cover the whole picture and write about the victims.

There are several factual errors in the book. Let me point out five of them:

1. Seierstad writes that the Russian poet Mikhail Lermontov in 1837 after having written a poem critical of the zar was sent to a labor camp in the Caucasus. Not true. He was sent to the Caucasus as a privileged officer in the Russian army, not as soldier in the regular army, which is comparable to forced labor.

2. Seierstad writes that president Yeltsin in 1991 called on the Soviet republics ”to swallow as much soverignity as they could”. Not true: Yeltsin called on the regions of Russia ”to swallow as much soverignity as they could, and he said it in 1990 in Tatarstan, not in 1991. This was an important moment in the struggle for power between Yeltsin and Gorbachev.

3. Seierstad writes that Lavrentiy Beria was the brain behind the Moscow Trials in 1936 and 1937. Wrong. It was Nikolai Yezhov. Beria became head of the secret police in November 1938.

4. Seierstad claims that the Chechens didn’t cooperate with the Germans during World War II. Wrong: In fact, Chechen national hero Abdurakhman Avtorkhanov writes in his memoires that he in 1943 crossed the frontline and joined the Germans. Avtorkhanov delivered a memorandum from Chechen guerilla fighters in the mountains, who suggested an alliance with the Germans if they recognized Chechen independence.

5. Writing about a hostage drama in the Dagestan village Pervomaiskoye in January 1996 Seierstad claims that Russian forces didn’t attack the village. In fact they destroyed it in an attack that was broadcasted aorund the world.

In 2006 Lawrence Harrison published a very important book, The Central Liberal Truth: How Politics Can Change A Culture and Save It From Itself.

Harrison defines culture as ”the body of values, beliefs, and attitudes that members of a society shares; values, beliefs, and attitudes shaped chiefly by environment, religion, and the vagaries of history that are passed on from generation to generation chiefly through child rearing practices, religious practice, the education system, the media, and peer relationships.”

Harrison builds a typology of progress. At the heart of his typology are two questions:

Does the culture encourage the belief that people can influence their destiny?

Does the culture promote the Golden Rule saying: Do not do unto others what you would not have others do unto you.

Harrison writes:

“If people believe they can influence their destinies, they are likely to focus on the future; see the world in positive-sum terms, attach a high priority to education; believe in the work ethic; save; become entrepreneurial; and so forth. If the Golden Rule has any meaning for them, they are likely to live by a reasonably rigorous ethical code; honor the lesser virtues; abide by the laws; identify with the broader society; form social capital; and so forth.”

Progress-prone cultures comprises a set of values that are substantially shared by the most successful societies on earth.

World champions in progress are the Scandinavian countries. In a recent oped in the Danish newspaper Politiken Lawrence Harrison spells out the reasons behind the Scandinavian success.

The Lutheran culture in the Nordic countries promotes democracy, social justice and creativity.

Why?

Harrison points to three key factors in the tradition of Lutheran protestantism:

First, there’s a focus on literacy, so that people learn to read the Bible and establish a personal relationship with God.

Second, the Protestant ethic promotes hard work and economic growth.

And third, Lutheran protestanism identifies with the nation and supports social cohesion and a national culture.

According to international value surveys Denmark is world champion in trust. The Danes are more inclined to trust each other. 67 percent of the population say that they trust their fellow citizens. The last one on the list is Brazil, where just 3 percent of the population believe that you can trust other people.

Trust promotes cooperation and lowers the cost of business transactions, and supports the development of a democratic culture.

Also, the Scandinavian countries have small populations, they are rather homogeneous when it comes to language, customs, and traditions. i.e. they have a homogeneous culture, and homogeneity is a valuable asset because it promotes trust and identification with other members of society. And that makes it easier to promote and sustain development and interest in the well being of your fellow citizens, says Harrison.

Harrison is critical of multiculturalism. He writes:

”Multiculturalism is standing on a weak foundation, i.e. cultural relativism - the concept that no culture is better or worse than others, just different. But the evidence against multiculturalism is overwhelming… Not all cultures are equal when it comes to progress, and no one can compete with the Nordic countries in this field.”

And on integration he says:

“Regarding immigrants the Nordic countries ought to promote their integration into the national culture in stead of choosing a mythological, utopian multiculturalism. And they ought to preserve the Nordic virtues that have brougt the region this far in order to prevent the virtues from languishing due to neglect and ignorance.”

Scanorama, the passenger magazine of SAS, the Scandinavian public airline, has pulled a profile of a popular Danish politician and member of parliament who is known for his fierce stand against radical Islam.

Naser Khader, a Syrian born Palastinian with a secular Muslim background who grew up in Denmark, emerged as a rallying national figure during the cartoon crisis in 2006. Khader founded the organization Democratic Muslims when Denmark’s embassies were set on fire in the Middle East, and he spoke out against a group of radical imams in Denmark who had incited public opinion and governments in the Muslim world against Denmark.

Khader has received several death threats and is living with additional security around the clock. Last year he founded a new political party New Alliance that won five seats in parliament in the November election.

According to Khader Scanorama had been working on the profile for months, and the magazine was planning to put him on the cover of its February issue. The story was supposed to focus on his fight against islamists and the price he has been paying in terms of threats to himself and his family.

Jyllands-Posten has learned that the decision to pull the profile was made due to security. Scanorama’s editor Sandra Carpenter has refused to comment on the decision and to explain what kind of security risk the profile of Khader constitutes to SAS.

Naser Khader is dissappointed by the decision.

“If true, this means that they have given in to threats or imagined threats, and that’s bending the knee to the islamists,” says Khader.

At the corporate headquarters in Sweden SAS spokesman Bertil Ternert insists that neither the top management nor the security department have been involved in the decision to pull the profile.

Today the former editor of the Belorussian newspaper Zgoda Aleksandr Sdvizhkov was sentenced to three years in prison for having republished the Danish cartoons of the prophet Mohammed.

This case is a perfect illustration of how insult laws are being used by authoritarian regimes to clamp down on dissenting voices.

Zgoda was a newspaper affiliated with the Social Democratic Party of Belarus. They supported a candidate from the opposition in the presidential election in the spring of 2006. After the publication of the cartoons the State Committee for religious and ethnic affairs (a government department) approached the local mufti Ismail Varanovich, and brought his attention to the publication. They even made a copy of the paper that, by the way, never reached its reader, and asked the mufti to notify the police that the religious sensibilities of muslims in Belarus had been offended.

The authorities immediately pressed criminal charges against Aleksandr Sdvizhkov for ”inciting racial, ethnic and religious hatred” (article 130, 2 of the criminal code). Sdvizhkov fled to Russia and the newspaper was closed in March 2006, two days before the presidential election. President Aleksandr Lukashenko won a third term receiving 86 percent of the vote.

This tragic event stresses the point that in an increasingly globalized world supporters of the right to free speech have to fight insult laws on a global level. That means that Denmark and other European countries have to get rid of blasphemy laws and anti-racism laws, because oppressors in other parts of the world will point to those laws defending their own that are being used against critics, dissenters and minorities.

They will claim:

“You have laws against blasphemy, religious hatred and racism, and so do we. So why all the fuzz? We are just acting as a civilized country.”

The only limitation on speech we need are laws against incitement to violence. All other laws should be removed from the books. In a democracy no one has a right not to be offended.

On Friday the trial against Belarussian editor Aleksandr Sdvizhkov opened in Minsk, the capital of Belarus. Sdvizhkov, former deputy editor of the now closed independent weekly Zgoda, is charged with ”incitement to religious hatred” after having published the Danish Mohammed cartoons back in February 2006. If convicted Sdvizhkov can be sentenced from three to ten years in prison.

Eigth of the 12 original cartoons were printed alongside an editoral with the headline ”Political creation”, which chronicled the international uproar protesting the Danish cartoons in the beginning of February 2006.

At the time of publication Belarussian KGB-agents confiscated the weekly’s computers, discs, and other electronic equipment.

The probe against the paper was initiated after authorities received complaints from the state Committee for Religious and Ethnic Affairs on behalf of the small Muslim community in Belarus.

Deputy editor Aleksandr Sdvizhkov fled to Russia before criminal charges were brought against him, but he was arrested two months ago when he returned to Belarus.

The paper was closed down in March 2006 two days before the presidential election March 19 which paved the way for a third term for dictator Aleksandr Lukashenko. The cartoon affair was seen as a pretext for taking action against an outlet covering the candidate from the opposition.

Sdvizhkov was in charge of the publication of the cartoons, but the newspaper never made it to the reader. The top management interferred and stopped distribution of the issue before it reached newspaper vendors in Minsk.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists in 2006 nine countries around the world took punitive actions against publications or their editors for reprinting one or more of the 12 cartoons run by Jyllands-Posten in September 2005. Six newspapers in three countries have been forced to close and at least nine journalists in four countries have been arrested and faced potential criminal prosecution. Governments also issued censorship orders and sponsored protests.

Sweden and Norway were ready to deploy 400 soldiers in Darfur to support the UN peacekeeping forces, but due to the cartoon crisis in 2006 the regime in Khartoum has refused to accept troops from Scandinavia.

”The Opposition from Sudan makes it impossible to keep the promise of a Norwegian-Swedish commitment,” the ministers of foreign affairs from the two countries said in a statement.

Sudan’s President Omar al-Bashir stated in November that he won’t accept soldiers from Scandinavian countries, where newspapers published cartoons of the prophet Mohammed.

”No one who speaks blasphemeous of the prophet will be allowed to set foot on Sudan soil,” said President al-Bashir.

The Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published cartoons of Mohammed in September 2005, and the Norwegian newspaper Magazinet reprinted the cartoons in January 2006. None of the big Swedish newspapers published the cartoons, but in the fall of 2007 they reproduced drawings of Mohammed as a dog by Swedish artist Lars Vilks that were censored by several Swedish art institutions.

Farshad Kholgi, an Iranian born Danish comedian, actor and writer, has been reading John Steinbeck’s satirical novel The Short Reign of Philip IV from 1957. The novel was published in Danish the same year with a special dedication to the Danish reader:

I not only hope that you will like my small book. Due to my knowledge of Danish humor I am acutally convinced that is the case. I have always thought that one of the national virtues of the Danes was their comically serious and almost deadly satirical attitude to life, an attitude that probably served them well as one of the most important and deadly weapons in the fight against Hitler.

Kholgi who fled Iran at the age of 13 thinks that the Danes have changed for the worse since the time of Steinbeck’s satirical novel. He is disappointed that intellectuals, writers and artists refrain from joining the fight against Islamism. Kholgi tells Berlingske Tidende:

”They don’t want to get involved in the fight even though Denmark lived through the cartoon crisis, and even though Danes were threatened, and flags were burned. Not a single movie have been made about the crisis, not a single play, not a single stand-up monologue.”

Kholgi who recently published a powerful book about growing up in Iran and living under a totalitarian theocracy, is working on a comedy about the cartoon crisis. He is very critical of colleagues using all their satirical fire power against the government coalition in stead of taking issue with Islamism.

”It’s like focusing on a candle light when your house is on fire.”

In a multicultural, multiethnic and multireligious society no citizen has a special right not to be offended. That’s an important precondition to keep democracy alive and safeguard the right to free speech. That doesn’t mean that one gratuitously should offend anyone, though there may be situations when there is no other way to express the content of what an individual wants to say.

This is important in a society where groups with different taboos, histories and codes of conduct live side by side, because no one can be obliged to know everything about every other group and individual and take this into account before one speaks publicly.

This is evident from a recent incident in Germany. December 23 the state funded tv-station ARD broadcasted an episode of the popular show Crime Scene (Tatort), in which murder and incest within a modern Alevi family in Germany takes place.

The Alevis belong to a more tolerant and progressive Muslim minority that has been persecuted in the Middle East because they insist on equality between man and woman and the sexes are allowed to pray together. The Alevis preach tolerance towards people of other faiths and ethnic groups. According to the Alevis in the Ottoman Empire the Sunni Muslims circulated an incest libel against them because of their liberal brand of Islam.

Last Sunday 20.000 Alevi Muslims gathered in front of the Cologne cathedral to protest the broadcast of the crime show. The protest was peaceful.

”The Alevis respect freedom of the press and are opposed to any ban on cultural expression. But these values must not be used to insult the dignity of a minority,” Mehmet Ali Toprak, leader of the Alevi community in Germany, told AFP.

Angelina Maccarone, the director of the episode, said that she wasn’t aware of the Alevi incest libel, and explained that she had no intention what so ever to support any prejudice against the Alevis.

Before the broadcast of the episode Alevi community leaders approached the television network to pursuade it to cancel the show. They refused to do so, but in the opening credits they ran a statement making it clear that the episode was fiction.

I am reading the works of the Chechen historian Abdurakhman Avtorkhanov (1908-1997) and stumbled upon his obituary on the Soviet dictator Joseph Stalin. At the time of Stalin’s death (1953) a lot of reasonable people in the West either paid tribute to Uncle Joe or gave what they saw as a balanced view of the life and work of the Soviet dictator. How wrong they were.

Avtorkhanov would have none of it. He spend five years in Stalin’s jails from 1937 until 1942, was tortured, witnessed a mock execution and then fled to Nazi Germany, where he spend the rest of the war writing about his experience in the Soviet Union.

A Russian proverb says: About the dead you either speak well or you keep silent. Well, Avtorkhanov didn’t exactly follow that advice. Here is his obituary published in the magazine Free Caucasus in March 1953:

“Stalin has finally died. His wolfish heart has stopped beating, his diabolical mind has stopped operating. A man has passed away who had nothing human about him what so ever, no soul, no love, no compassion. A professionel tormentor’s cold hearted brutality and a bestial instinct for survival put him closer to the species of beasts than to mankind.

A war of destruction on his legacy! That’s the verdict of our people. And that verdict will live on with future generations.”
Not bad.