The reputation of Norway stands high in the world. Its efforts to mediate peace in the Middle East (the Oslo Accords) and in Sri Lanka have been much appreciated even if, in the end, they came to nothing. However, not many people in the Middle East (or anywhere else in the world for that matter, apart from Scandinavia) know much about Norway, its politics or what makes it tick — apart from the country being the sixth largest oil exporter in the world.
It comes as a shock, then, to discover a strong vein of intolerance in the country, one that is distinctly anti-Muslim in character. On Sunday Norwegians went to the polls to elect a new government. The choice was the existing center-left government of Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg (representing the country’s liberal tradition) and a right-wing opposition led by the far-right Progress Party whose populist leader Siv Jensen campaigned, among other things, on an anti-immigration, anti-Muslim ticket. There will be sighs of relief around the world that Stoltenberg has won. But it was close. His coalition took 86 seats, just one more than needed for a majority in Parliament. The opposition won 83; Jensen’s party notched up its best performance ever, winning 40 seats. Had the opposition not been split, it might have won.
In Norway, the far right, with its anti-Muslim agenda, is now mainstream. Not just Norway. Most of Europe. In the European Parliament elections in June, anti-Muslim parties made major gains in Austria, Denmark, Finland, the Netherlands, Slovakia and the UK. In the Netherlands, the so-called Freedom Party of Geert Wilders who wants the Holy Qur’an banned came second. Since then, these bigots have been turning up the heat across the continent. Last week in Denmark, the far right People’s Party, the third largest in Parliament and a key supporter of the government, launched a media campaign against mosque building after the first was given approval in Copenhagen. In the UK, the newly formed, virulently anti-Muslim English Defense League recently brought chaos to Birmingham and Luton and last week tried to target a mosque outside London. It is easy to dismiss it as a bunch of football hooligans; that used to be said of the British National Party — and now it has seats in the European Parliament.
The fact that the overwhelming majority of Europeans are not anti-Muslim should be reassuring. It is not — not just because the far right is growing but because the existing political mainstream is so busy pandering to it. This week, French President Sarkozy’s plans to ban the burqa took a step closer to reality with the announcement by Immigration Minister Eric Besson that he now supports the move. It is so ridiculous; there are no more than 2,000 burqa wearers in France out of some two and a half million Muslim women. A PR disaster too; it is not the admirable reorganization of timetables for the benefit of Muslim employees during Ramadan by French companies like carmakers Renault that has been picked up in the Muslim world, it is the pointless burqa ban.
Given these trends, is it any wonder that so many people in the Muslim heartlands, already sensing themselves a target of the West, should worry about the future of their brothers and sisters in Europe?
Talk to Iran in good faith
Excerpts from the editorial that appeared in Monday’s Independent:
The news that Iran and the six major powers — the US, China, Russia, the UK, France and Germany — are to resume talks over Tehran’s nuclear ambitions at the beginning of next month has to be welcomed. Of course, you can argue that it is just a gesture by Iran to stave off the sanctions threatened by the West should the country proceed with its uranium enrichment. Given Tehran’s insistence on its absolute right to pursue uranium enrichment whatever the United Nations’ objections, and given an internal crackdown which presages a sharp swing to the right, then it is easy to dismiss any talks as a sham behind which Iran will accelerate its plan to become a nuclear power.
But then think of the alternatives to talks. If negotiations were not resuming, we would be faced with an impasse in which the West is committed to introducing a whole range of new and punitive sanctions on the country and the Israelis might well feel free to bomb the facilities to prevent Tehran reaching its goal. Both avenues would bring on a confrontation that would play into the hands of Tehran’s hard-liners and risk, in the case of a military strike, a conflagration that could suck in the whole region.
Nor is it necessary to embark on such alternatives. Tehran may, or may not, wish to obtain command of nuclear technology, but at this moment it remains formally committed to a religious edict against such weapons and a continued membership of the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty that would ban it from developing them. True, it has been accused of continuous evasion over its plans by the International Atomic Energy Agency. True, too, the government in Tehran seems to be swinging toward more oppression at home and greater anti-Western rhetoric abroad.
But the nuclear negotiations have always been handled separately from the rest of the government by a regime that treads carefully where its international interests are concerned. The Iranians are a proud and deeply nationalist people. But they are neither foolish nor xenophobic. It is better to take them at face value and pursue talks in good faith, rather than play crude power politics in a manner that could so easily end in disaster.
