Comments on: Of Being a Woman, Empathy and Multiculturalism in Norway

By: Tor

Tor — Fri, 15 Nov 2019 09:24:49 +0000

I couldn’t agree more about the former minister of immigration. Her views are not only extreme, when she later got the post of Minister of Justice, the first thing she did was to try to force through a law that would bypass due process, so that people could lose their citizenship without going through the judicial system (courts etc). So, we had a minister of justice who don’t believe in the three pillars of democracy, what we in Norwegian call “den lovgivende, den utøvende, og den dømmende makt”. If those three are not kept separate there’s no democracy. There’s a name for that particular political view, and it starts with “F” and ends with “ism”.

What happened though was that the politicians, including the prime minister, *only* focused on the fact that some people in the Labour party (Arbeiderpartiet) felt offended. And *that* was the only reason she lost the post. Who cares if a politician feels offended? That happens all the time. No, the prime minister should have kicked her out of the position the moment she, as a “Minister of Justice”, showed that she had no idea about how the legal system and democracy must work. And unfortunately she’s still in the system, uttering her xenophobic views. As a Norwegian (and a conservative one) I’m appalled.

I’ll end with saying that I live in a small town (on global standards anyway) with people from more than a hundred nations and as many languages. The immigrants (temporary and otherwise) are living here and there as everybody else, not clustered as in some places in Norway. I feel that this town is a much better place to live in than when I was a boy here (now I’m nearing retirement age).. And that’s because there are people from everywhere here, integrated and still bringing new culture to the table.

By: Jeanette

Jeanette — Mon, 09 Sep 2019 11:21:37 +0000

Thanks for this insightful piece of writing. Sincerely, a Norwegian who is exasparated by how racist this country can be sometimes – but your experiences and clarity of thought makes me more optimistic.

By: Wayne Boyer

Wayne Boyer — Fri, 16 Aug 2019 15:22:29 +0000

You make some great points about the public’s perception of arranged marriages. Western culture teaches us assumptions about what people need. Often these assumptions are false. I had to laugh at your GREAT POINT that your marriage should be equally welcomed, as a marriage from a whim. The sudden decision is respected, at least OUTWARDLY. Some say, “Oh that’s so romantic.”

Personally, I would support arranged or on-a-whim marriages. The first seems to be rooted in parental respect. That should have a high value! But the whim marriage, has no forethought – parental or otherwise. On the inside I’m thinking, “OK, you knew each other for 2 or 6 weeks and just decided to make it permanent.” It’s not romantic to me, it’s romantically idiotic.

I assume that many people are surprised about your contentment, BECAUSE there are scenarios presented in many movies and TV shows. This is like a propaganda effort. You can gleefully announce that fiction writers did not interview you for the plot planning!!

If I heard things like this about my marriage, then it would be like a nasty wood saw dragged across my arm. It grates against your soul experience. However, I FULLY ENJOY being an exception to people’s expectations. We can be have gusto to explode expectations and stereotypes. This can relate some to the cultural assimilation issue also. False expectations can be fun to expose.