Around one-third of Norwegians show considerable prejudice towards Muslims, and many seem to have a great fear of Islam. How did this come to be?
Many Muslims wonder if Norway is a safe place for them to live and practice their faith. Statistics suggest that there is a deep fear of Muslims among the general population of Norway.
In Norwegian, Islamofobia or Muslim-hate are terms used to describe prejudice, fear and hostility against Islam and Muslims. They are terms we regularly see in newspaper reports. But what is the truth behind the headlines?
July 22nd and Islamophobia
Many people may not know the terror attack July 22nd 2011, where 77 people were killed, was partially driven by Islamophobia. The terrorist, Breivik, supports a conspiracy theory where the belief is the political and academic elite in Europe is cooperating with Arab countries in order to increase Muslim immigration.
Known as Eurabia, the conspiracy theory is supported by white supremacists all over the continent. They also think the plan is to destroy European civilization, and make Europe an Islamic colony.
It seems the terrorist viewed the Norwegian Labour Party (Arbeiderpartiet) as representing the elite in Norway, and that he was convinced they were helping Muslims to take over Norway.
By shooting at people aimlessly at the Labour Party's annual summer camp for youth, it looks like he tried to prevent this by destroying their political future. Many of the victims were teenagers, and the devastation was unfathomable.
Norwegian attitudes towards Muslims
Although few Norwegians support conspiracy theories openly, there seems to be a deep fear of Muslims in the general population. A survey from 2017 found that 30% of people in Norway agree with the statement: “Muslims want to take over Europe”.
The survey conducted attitudes towards Jews and Muslims, and the conclusion is that around one-third of the population show marked prejudices against Muslims. For example, 39% agree with the statement “Muslims are a threat to Norwegian culture” and almost 50% support the statement “Muslims largely have themselves to blame for the increasing anti-Muslim harassment.”
And although the majority (80%), think such attitudes are common in Norway, few consider it necessary to do something to combat Islamophobia.
Why are so many afraid of Islam?
Current events involving terrism or violent actions, seem to intensify Norwegian’s prejudices and fear. An example is this was when two people got killed during Pride in June 2022. The terrorist was driven by radical Islam, and probably homophobia.
Another example is when a young woman recently was killed by the moral police in Iran, because her hijab didn’t meet the strict requirements.
These tragic stories are, naturally, all over the news. And are examples of occurrences that are extremely incompatible with Norwegian values.
However, many Muslims in Norway feel they are blamed for actions driven by solitary terrorists, and for unhumane practices in regimes with a strict Sharia Law.
When prime minister Jonas Gahre Støre reached out to Muslim communities to speak up against radical Islam during the memorial of 22 July this summer, it led to heated debates in the Norwegian media. Representatives for the Islamic community felt this was an attack on all Norwegian Muslims.
Furthermore, they argued Støre contributed to generalized and stereotypical views and Islamophobic attitudes. Strøre, on the other hand, insisted he had good intentions, and that it is important to speak up against all kinds of radicalism.
“Stealth islamization”
In Norwegian politics, attitudes with islamophobic components first occured around 2009 when Siv Jensen, leader of The Progress Party (FrP), introduced the term “stealth islamization” or “sneak islamization”. This was very controversial, because the rhetoric is in fact used by the conspiracy theorists that inspired Breivik.
FrP still defends the use of the term. However, today's leader Sylvi Listhaug emphasizes the party distances themselves from all conspiracies. What they want to describe is when Norwegian society in general has to accommodate special requirements from Muslims.
Examples used by FrP are when Norwegian children have to eat halal at birthday parties, the police allow Muslim women to wear hijabs on passport photos, and that Muslim girls have to have separate swimming lessons from boys.
It set the stage for using the term islamization in the Norwegian public debate. One example described as islamization by others was when Crown Prince Haakon visited an Islamic Center in 2019 and a Muslim woman refused his handshake.
Another similar example was when Iran’s minister of foreign affairs refused to shake hands with Norwegian minister Anniken Huitfeldt, and she didn’t seem to oppose this.
Anti-Islam organizations in Norway
Stop The Islamization of Norway (SIAN), is an organization which fights against what they perceive as increased islamization of Norway. They have around 12,000 followers on Facebook. SIAN holds protests around Norway and runs appeals in the major cities. They also have burned the Quran in public several times.
According to SIAN’s website, Islam is a totalitarian ideology and movement contrary to the Constitution of Norway, legislations and Norwegian society.
Additionally, they argue Islam is incopatible with democratic and humane values worldwide through the legislative system sharia. They claim to be not racist or dislike Muslims in general. However, the leader, Lars Thorsen, has previously been convicted for expressing hateful utterances against muslims.
There have also been attempts to cause harm to him personally. In July, when Thorsen burned the Quran outside a mosque in Oslo, his car was chased, hit, and rammed onto its roof. Nobody was seriously injured, although the two women have been charged with causing or being complicit in bodily harm.
Is it legal to burn the Quran in Norway?
Yes it is legal, because it is considered a statement towards an ideology, and protected by freedom of speech. Neither is it illegal to burn the Norwegian flag.
Freedom of speech is a human right in Norway and an essential part of our democracy. Prejudice and expression of hate towards systems and ideologies, including Islam or and religious symbols, is considered within the boundaries of the Constitution.
However, according to the Norwegian criminal code, it is illegal to express hate against a person because of ethnicity, color of skin, or religious beliefs.
As such, there are many gray areas. Burning the Quran in combination with racist comments in public might not be within the boundaries of Norwegian Law.
One place where some people challenge freedom of speech is on social media. More often than not, Norwegian newspapers had to close their comment fields this summer when reporting news stories regarding Muslims or Pride. It looks like social media amplifies prejudices towards Muslims, but also negative stereotypes against other minorities.
Political action to prevent Islamophobia
The previous Norwegian Government initiated an action plan to combat discrimination and hatred towards Muslims.
The intention is to decrease islamophobic tendencies, through cooperation with Muslim organizations, dialogue with the police, schools, kindergartens and civil society. In addition, the goal is to increase knowledge in general and especially about the labour market.
The question is if this will result in less prejudice towards Muslims and less fear of Islam in Norway in the future. Watch this space.
This is an important issue that needs to be discussed openly, so I was glad to see the article. One big problem I have with it is the repeated use of the words “prejudice(d)” and “Islamophobia”. To be prejudiced means to have “an adverse opinion or leaning formed without just grounds or before sufficient knowledge”. And to have a phobia means to have “an exaggerated usually inexplicable and illogical fear of a particular object, class of objects, or situation” (both definitions from Merriam-Webster). So the strong implication (unintentional, I would hope) is that anyone with anti-Islamic views is out to lunch — irrational and/or ignorant. In fact, one can be justifiably critical (a word that never appears in the article) of Islam without being irrational or ignorant. And as the article points out, it is legal and acceptable in Norway to be critical of an ideology (e.g. Islam). As I see it, a major factor in this clash of cultures is the unwillingness of Muslims to tolerate ANY criticism of their faith.
What do you have to say about “ The Taliban “ in Afghanistan? When Muslims take power they are as bad if not worse than the Taliban!
Why do you have to force people to follow Islam?
Muslims , Christians, Jews and Hindus could never live peacefully together because Muslims (all Muslims) are extremists and promote Mohammed as the only prophet!
I have never seen so many wrong things said in 5 sentences. Do your research about Islam and how jews, christians, and hindus lived under islamic rule. Anyone that forces islam on other people is not a true muslim.
What is the basis of your criticism? Heresay? If you have taken the time to research, explore discuss the aspects of the religion you so keen to past judgement on and not base your assumptions on what a small group of people practice, you will learn that we are extremely tolerant, especially to criticism, since this is the only way we can show you why we believe so strongly. That there is logic and scientific proof behind our beliefs and it is not simply and ‘ideology’ as you put.
If you read my comment again, you’ll see that my criticism was primarily aimed at the article itself, rather than Islam. However, you’re right that I’m critical of Islam too (full disclosure: I’m an atheist, and I’m also critical of Christianity and other religions). You claim that Muslims are “extremely tolerant”. Unfortunately, that has not been my experience. When I criticize Islam, I am usually told to shut up and “respect” the religion. … By the way, to take just one example, can you provide “scientific proof” of the belief that jihadists who are killed will get 72 virgins in heaven?
Please could you share some of your scientific proof?
Is it true Muslims are allowed to marry nine year old girls?
I understand you believe it to be acceptable because your prophet did it, but why in this 21st Century ?
Why do you not accept criticism of your religion!
Why are the laws of Norway not acceptable to you?
Do you say Muslims are “extremely tolerant”?
Tell that to Salman Rushdie, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Theo van Gogh, and the other endless victims of Muslim tolerance.
The very first thing Muslims should do is to condemn openly when a terrorist attack happens to civilians or LGBTQ communities or to women in any part of the world, as the prime minister said. It is a proven fact that radical Islam does not care about human rights, LGBTQ, and women’s rights e.g Middle Eastern(except Israel) and all Muslim-majority countries. You can not say that it is not my Islam, it is also an Islam(by terrorists) which causing havoc.
Muslims should develop Scandinavophobia – an aversion to tall, overfed, white, privileged people. Meanwhile fix your problem with Putin
May I ask where you live?
Dear First of all there is no such thing like: radical islam or liberal Muslim, so please stop this stupid stuff!
YES, there is still a difference of opinions, basic practice and approach to analyze the opponent but this is still democracy of opinions.
The extremest or fundamental factor exist in human being nature from ver early ages of human life in this planet but it doesn’t mean to blame one side of the coin.
Lets suppose, look how many extremism is available outside of Muslim world, for example. Nazism, far right, white supremacists, zero tolerance by the extremist extent from atheist believes.
So in my opinion all the form of extremism are to be opposes otherwise these Stupids will keep creating problems in our societies.
In Islam there is a full right of difference of opinions.
These extremists ha been preposedly been funded by the wester hypocrites, capitalistic elite, so world expect from you civilized word to stand against this and make the world better then just being an hypocrite.
I deeply respect to people of Norway and I understand that one may have concerns about anything he/she does not have a good framework of knowledge around.
However, knowing that the only way to overcome a fear about a thing is to actually begin to know about it, one needs to refer to the references of the religous knowledge and then perform critical thinking over the higlights with the experts of the issue.
What do commoners do nowadays? Well, they seem to find any person who claim to be Muslim and justify the hatred on their ignorance. Same could be done to any follower of any belief or ideology today. But hey, we are talking about a religion which is followed by nearly 2 billion people today. Come on guys… If all would be extremists, there would not be life on the surface of the beautiful earth. Extremism is itself a made up strategy that came out after WW1 to use the ignorance of some people (Yeah, ‘some’ people. I mean, if billions of people would explode themselves, probably Norway would get seperated from Europe geologically and begin floating towards north pole.).
Let’s put it in a correct frame, Islam is not extremely tolerant. Islam is tolerant. A Muslim can co-exist with non-Muslims with respecting their way of life while preserving himself in his own religious limitations. This is called social integration. Expecting a Muslim to be assimilated (e.g.: forcing a lady to remove her Islamic dress, mobbing a Muslim colleauge since he/she has refused to participate in an alcoholic event which is not even relavant to the business) is where one cross the limits of the Islamic tolerance.
One of the many examples of that social integration is Jarusselam under Islamic ruling throughout the history. No no, not from your highschool books. Read the academical work of various experts or just go for the records concerning the Jews and Christians of that time.
Here you have a nice beginning point to intellectually investigate Islam: https://www.youtube.com/@BloggingTheology
You would like to understand what Quran is all about? Read Tafseer (Britannica: Tafsir, the science of explanation of the Qur’an -the sacred scripture of Islam- or of Qur’anic commentary.) instead of the translation. It does not work in the way Bible works.
You would like to have a logical framework of the Islamic belief? Read Risale-i Nur Books: http://erisale.com/index.jsp?locale=en
You would like to understand Muslims? Go share some cup of tea/coffee with them and talk about their history instead of the religion directly. That will give you an understanding of what background pushed that particular person towards your land and/or his/her roots.
You would like to have a happy life? Don’t just ask questions, go for the answers. You won’t find the answer at first trial most often. Keep trying if you care.
Ah, but if you are a person who is mainstream media addicted, not knowing how to learn something, and therefore getting fed by whatever the information is given to you… Well, as you wish then. Sorry for you.