Some thoughts on Islamic ‘extremism’ vs. standard Islamic doctrine

One of the biggest fall outs of the intellectual decay and moral cowardness that has afflicted the western world in modern times is the increasing number of intellectuals who are no longer willing to speak truthfully on an ever expanding number of issues for a variety of very disquieting reasons. When it comes to issues dealing with religion, or more specifically Islam, many of these intellectuals will do their utmost to try and convince the general population that those who carry out Islamic acts of aggression and terror in the west are simply misinterpreting their religion and that they are merely extremists bringing their faith into disrepute. In fact this need to constantly exonerate an ideology which is almost alone in producing terrorists today has become such a common occurrence that one can almost describe it as a systematic pattern, just as A comes before B and night follows day, the excuses follow every single act of Islamic terror. In fact it has gone so far that people in the west are expecting to be presented with such feeble excuses in the aftermath of Islamic barbarity.

The latest such grovelling exculpation was offered by the British Prime Minister David Cameron and the mayor of London, Boris Johnson who both maintained that the latest Islamic terrorist act in the UK had nothing to do with Islam, despite the fact that the two Muslims perpetrators who hacked to death the off-duty British soldier while chanting Allahu Akbar and then preceded to justify their deeds in front of a camera by referring to the Koran and perceived western aggression in Islamic countries. An appropriate question to ask after having had to witness such exceptional example of cognitive dissonance from the two esteemed British politicians would have to be; what exactly is the true nature of the religion of Islam? What exactly is the difference between the ideology of the so called extremists and the majority of the ostensibly peaceful Muslims? One would assume that individuals who are making such statements, especially those who appear in the media on a regular basis, is at least qualified to speak on these issues and that they have the necessary data to back up their claims. One would also assume that they have an extensive knowledge of the religion itself and of the ideology of those that they prefer to label as extremists.

Those who maintain that there is a distinct ideological difference between the extremists and ordinary Muslims should really be pushed hard on this issue and not simply have their remarks taken at face value by gullible journalists who have no intention of pursuing the issue in an honest manner, which sadly is the case today. Nor should the questions merely deal with the difference in behaviour, but rather about the difference in religious ideology and doctrine. What exactly is it that the extremists are misinterpreting in order to justify their gruesome deeds and are these perceived misinterpretations, according to these esteemed intellectuals, completely at odds with standard Islamic doctrine? Anyone who has bothered to pick up a copy of the Koran and actually read it from start to finish knows that it is an aggressive and immensely hostile book. It is also a book that has numerous hateful verses that deals specifically with the killing and subjugation of non-Muslims. This is a fact that cannot be contested or somehow simply swept under the rug. Appropriate questions to ask are as follow;

Are these hate filled verses deliberately being toned down by mainstream Muslims and scholars as insignificant or perhaps even discredited as relics from a completely different time and era where different values and norms were in vogue? Are the mainstream Islamic nations distancing themselves from these verses?  Is the Muslim world rejecting these verses or are they in fact acting upon them and doing their utmost to emulate them?

These questions have to be answered in order to get an idea of what is considered mainstream and acceptable today in the Islamic world. Are there movements in the Islamic world that are vehemently opposed to the more aggressive passages of the Koran and that are proposing that these should be removed altogether, or are such movements pretty much nonexistent?

Dutch parliamentarian Geert Wilders made a short movie, Fitna, in 2008 which he posted online. In it he highlighted the hate filled Koranic verses that Islamic terrorists all over the world use to justify their attacks, and which they use to fuel their hatred for non-Muslims. In it Wilders has juxtaposed footage of Muslims carrying out terrorist attacks in Europe and the USA and the relevant verses from the Koran. Towards the end of the film Mr. Wilders encourages the Muslim world to purge the Koran of these evil verses and cast aside its hostility towards non-Muslims and take the plunge into the modern age. One can hear, but not see a page being torn from a book, in this case a telephone directory, upon which Mr. Wilders informs the viewers that it is not up to him, but the Islamic world to carry out the necessary reformation of Islam.

A fatwa, or a death sentence was issued for Geert Wilders by the senior leadership of Al Qaeda for having produced the movie. The movie received widespread condemnation from both Islamic and Western countries and numerous Islamic organisations and individual Muslims in the west who wanted to see Wilders severely punished for having offended Islam. Attempts were even made to boycott the Netherlands and Geert Wilders was subsequently refused entry into the UK to attend a screening of the movie on the spurious grounds that his presences in the UK would infuriate the Muslim community. The hostile response to the release of movie, which in reality is nothing but an suggestion to the Muslim world to reform their religion and rid itself of Islamic doctrine that encourages hatred towards non-Muslims, is a powerful reminder of the Islamic world’s view on these matters, such as their view on the overall message of the Koran and their unwillingness to reform Islam and bring the religion into the modern era. The desire to carry out this process is simply not there, which subsequently means that western liberal apologists who keep insisting that Islamic terrorist who commits atrocities in the name of Islam have nothing to do with the religion have a monumental credibility problem. If ordinary Muslims are unwilling to disregard or ignore these verses that teach them to hate non-Muslims then there is simply no evidence whatsoever to suggest that the Islamic terrorist who keep attacking and killing in the name of Islam are extremists who are merely misinterpreting or bringing the religion of Islam into disrepute. They are in fact true representatives of the religion.

It is true however that only a small minority of the Muslim community in Europe carry out such attacks, but that’s not really a convincing argument to rely upon as irrefutable evidence that the great majority of Muslims reject such acts or consequently don’t believe that such acts are mandated by the Koran. Studies carried out in Britain have shown that a large portion of the UK Muslim community support Islamic terrorism and would welcome the introduction of Sharia. It is also worth mentioning in this context a study carried out in the USA which concluded that out of 100 randomly selected Mosques in the country only 19 sold literature and other material that didn’t encourage or condone terrorism and violent behaviour, that is of course apart from the Koran itself which actively encourages both. The study also concluded that the mosques which sold such violent material were also very vocal about their support for terrorism and the funding of terrorism. There are also numerous of examples of Mosques all around Europe that claim to be moderate and embrace western values, but which upon closer examination, through undercover reporting with hidden cameras, have been exposed to be anything but moderate. The most famous case was documented in the British TV documentary ‘Undercover Mosque’, but there are also similar examples from many other countries in Europe.

Still the most accurate way of identifying Islam’s views on these issues is to look at the Islamic world itself and examine the values and morals that it promotes. When we do so we find that many Islamic nations are run in strict accordance with the Koran and traditional Islamic doctrine and that the Koran is relied upon heavily in both legal and criminal proceedings. It also goes without saying that it is strictly forbidden to mock or question the teachings of the founder of the religion, Muhammad, in these countries. We also find that in areas of conflict and war where Muslims are involved, most noticeable in the Muslim world, the more devout practitioners are carrying out acts that are very similar to those that we in the west label terrorist attacks. As a matter of fact since 9/11 - 2001 more than 20 000 Islamic terrorist attacks have occurred throughout the world.

When examining the evidence out there that are available to us, such as Muslim’s reluctance to reform their own religion, their reactions to anyone who even hint about such actions, the way Muslim majority countries are being run, the way they react whenever someone offended their religion and the way non-Muslims are being treated in these countries, it is not unreasonable to conclude that Islamic terrorists are not misinterpreting the Koran, nor are they misrepresenting their religion whenever they are carrying out terrorists attacks. They are in fact following their religion to the letter. This is a fact that needs to be relentlessly pointed out in the west and we need to do away with the standard mantra coming from liberal western intellectuals whenever Islamic terrorist attacks occur. The first step towards defeating Islamic terrorism is to realize that it is in fact Islamic terrorism and not simply terrorist acts incorrectly attributed to Islam.

 

 

 

 

A new chapter in Islam’s long running war of intimidation and terror in Europe

The grotesque murder of an unarmed lone British soldier in London yesterday, where two Muslim males first ran over the unexpecting victim with their car in order to incapacitate him, then got out and proceeded to stab and chop him to death with meat cleavers like he was some kind of rabid animal, and supposedly attempting to decapitate him, marks a new chapter in Islam’s long running war of intimidation and terror in Europe in modern times. Such vicious and barbaric tactics have of course been commonplace on other continents for a long time now; hence it is not a major change in strategy by members of the religion of peace, they have just imported one more of their barbaric tactics to Europe and upped the pace in their violent struggle to create a worldwide Islamic Caliphate. The beheading of Buddhist monks in Thailand, the massacring of Christian worshippers in Nigeria and the killing of Christian Copts in Egypt is of course old news for those who have ventured beyond the world of the political correct MSM that for some reason find it enormously inconvenient to present news that portray their favourite European based victim group in a less than flattering light. This time however the MSM had no choice but to describe how die-hard Muslims go about it when they decide to deal with their enemies and it will most definitely not be the last time that they attack in such a gruesome manner in Europe. I’m afraid that this is just the beginning and that the mostly leftwing media is in for one hell of a surprise.

There have of course been other Islamic terrorist attacks in Europe in recent times. Members of the religion of peace even struck in the same city in 2005 when four fellow devout Muslims detonated powerful bombs on the London Public Transportation network killing 52 civilians and maiming countless others, and although that was a truly horrific act of terror I would still venture that this latest attack was more gruesome in nature. The act of hunting down an unarmed, unexpecting and random individual, and then literally slaughtering the poor soul like a rabid dog leaves a far more profound and lasting mental impression on members of the public than powerful bomb explosions instantly killing whoever is unfortunate enough to be in the vicinity when they go off. The fact that the victim was alive when they started working on him, probably fully aware that he was going to be chopped to pieces with meat cleavers and quite possibly decapitated, the pain that he must have felt is a mental image that would make even the strongest of stomachs turn. This is of course something that the terrorist and their sympathisers are fully aware of and which they seek to exploit to the fullest, and the really bone chilling aspect of it all is that their deranged actions can be justified with reference to Koranic verses and various hadiths, a fact that the political correct MSM and the liberal elites seem unwilling to acknowledge.

But it’s not just terrorist attacks that have helped to instil fear and terror in the hearts of the indigenous populations of Europe. There have also been numerous of intimidations campaigns in the last few decades in which Muslims have attempted to silence those who don’t show enough deference to this deranged political vestige from the Stone Ages. This has been achieved by either threatening to use violence or in more severe cases threaten to kill critics of Islam, and there have been no shortage of Muslims who have been willing to carry out these threats, which have made them highly successful. Most people think twice before they speak out publicly if a couple of wrong words could land you in a world of trouble. This was proven once and for all when Dutch film maker Theo Van Gogh was killed in Amsterdam in 2004 by a devout Dutch/Moroccan Muslim for supposedly having insulted the 1.5 billion Muslims of the world. The latest London attack is in many ways reminiscent of this incident. The difference being that Theo Van Gogh was targeted specifically for his part in producing the Islam critical movie ‘Submission’. Theo Van Gogh also knew that he was making himself a target when he decided to start working on this film and he had the opportunity to take the appropriate precautions. Yesterday’s victim however had no reason to expect that he would be targeted and killed by violent Muslims. He was not chosen because he had made insults against Islam; he was simply chosen for being a soldier in the British army.

The fact that Muslims in Europe are now willing to attempt to decapitate randomly selected members of the public  and videotape the atrocity  in order to instil terror into the minds of the rest of population is a dramatic shift in a new direction. However, it shouldn’t come as a surprise as this is a tactic that they have employed frequently outside Europe, in Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iraq just to mention a few examples. I actually mentioned this possibility in an online exchange with an acquaintance a few months ago. I suggested that there would probably come a time in the not so distant future when jihadis’ would kidnap randomly selected people in Europe, decapitate them and publish videos clips of the events online for propaganda purposes as they have done previously in other parts of the world. Individuals who are familiar with Islam and the mindset of its practitioners, and who are not mentally paralysed by political correctness, know that this is an inevitable natural progression of things.

From an Islamic terrorist perspective Woolwich style attacks make a lot of sense. It eliminates the need to acquire difficult to obtain items such as explosives and firearms, it doesn’t require a lot of planning and time consuming preparations and it is almost impossible for the authorities to stop it, just like it is next to impossible for the authorities to stop ordinary murders. The added bonus is that it generates more fear than a major terrorist attack which requires a lot of luck to pull off for the terrorist and a lot of bad luck for the victims to be at the wrong place at the wrong time. Anyone however could be randomly targeted in a Woolwich style attack and the terrorists don’t need a lot of luck to carry them out. Another worrying factor which should make the authorities shiver in their pants is the fact that more and more devout young male Muslims return home from stints in war torn countries with combat experience to match and with no qualms about attacking innocent civilians. Odds are that many of these returning jihadis’ have participated in acts that are just as horrific and despicable, or even worse than the latest London attack. There are hundreds of online video clips of Jihadis’ carrying out the most gruesome atrocities in Syria and elsewhere. It’s naive to believe that these returning warriors haven’t participated in episodes of such nature.

Another worrying aspect is that the authorities in Europe are completely unprepared for this kind of warfare. One question that automatically pops up when pondering this issue is whether the authorities are willing to introduce new tough measures to combat this menace, or if they are simply going to continue to let political considerations take priority over practical manners to effectively deal with this very serious threat. If this latest terrorist attack should become a trend among the more devout Muslims in Europe it will be very hard for the authorities to stop them, and particularly if the authorities refuse to look at the problem in an honest manner. The latest riots in Sweden has shown the world once and for all that the authorities have no control over the mess that they themselves have created and that the problems can’t simply be resolved by means of political correct strategies. The million dollar question is, if this becomes the new reality, how long are the people of Europe willing to accept that they run the risk of being slaughtered by Muslim fanatics every time they venture outside the front door? Fear has always been the terrorists’ strongest weapon and a handful of horrific killings every now and then are more than sufficient to instil an ample amount of fear in the populations.

Unfortunately the silent majority still don’t seem to realize the gravity of the current political predicament that we’re in. They are unable to see that their relative peaceful and calm societies could swiftly be plunged into chaos and anarchy if things are allowed to continue. Many are also incapable of grasping that the authorities in most western nations have already lost control of their societies. They should realize that if things really start to go downhill in Europe and the politicians refuse to take the necessary steps to deal with it members from the various military branches could quite possibly decide to take control and proceed to deal with the problems as they see fit. It’s not unrealistic to expect that military coups could take place within the next decade or so, not necessarily in every country, but at least in some. That’s how it has been in the past in times of turmoil and instability and that’s probably also what it’s going to be like in the future. I sincerely hope that this isn’t the path we’re doomed to take, but with the way things are going at the moment it seem like the most likely scenario.

A short message

I have decided to create a new blog where I will be publishing video clips and other multimedia content. For those who want to check it out here’s the link:

http://thepixelsite.blogspot.com

I will continue to update this blog at regular intervals, but I won’t be publishing/republishing any multimedia material here.

T.O.

Update on removed translated article

Norway Keeps a Lid on the Truth

 

Posted on May 2, 2013 by Baron Bodissey

 

Last night we published a translation by The Observer of an article from Rights.no about the violence and intimidation experienced every day by young native Norwegians in the culturally enriched Groruddalen district in Oslo.

Between then and now — in less than twenty-four hours — Rights.no was pressured by the original publisher to take the article down.

Fjordman sends this brief account of what happened today in Norway.

 

Norway Keeps a Lid on the Truth

by Fjordman

Rights.no says that they were ordered by Finansavisen to remove the text of the Groruddalen story (in English here), despite having originally received a permission to post it. They published a follow-up entry, stating that they had received an enormous popular response to the previous article that was nearly unheard of by the standards of tiny Norway.

It spread like wildfire via alternative media on the Internet, including Twitter and many thousands of references on Facebook.

 

Norway faces national parliamentary elections this fall, and the left-wing coalition government is now trailing in the polls. Most of the political elites and the mass media do not want to talk about the problems mentioned in the article, especially not in an election year. People might get the wrong — or rather the right — ideas.

Human Rights Service, which republished this article online from the paper edition of business newspaper Finansavisen, is an excellent organization. However, they are vulnerable to political pressure because they receive public funding. Attempts have been made by left-wingers to slash their funding, but the right-wing Progress Party (Fremskrittspartiet) has lobbied to protect the state support for them.
I believe they did lose some of their funding by the left-wing government after Breivik, since they were branded “Islamophobes” who had spread “hatred,” but I’ve heard that some of this was later restored. I’m not familiar with all the details.

Of course, the many Muslim and left-wing “anti-racist” organizations hardly ever have their state funding questioned. Only the very rare organizations that criticize Multiculturalism, such as HRS, ever experience these kinds of threats.

 

The problems the article described — the harassment and violence directed at the natives in their own capital city — are very real, and rarely talked about as explicitly as in the Finansavisen piece. Many influential people want to keep a lid on any open and honest discussion of these problems, which are caused by the immigration policies promoted by the establishment mass media and the ruling political elites.

“Everything You Have Learned in School is Wrong”:

Rights.no had to delete the Norwegian version of this article. Therefore I have decided to reposted the translated version here:

“Everything You Have Learned in School is Wrong”

Posted on May 1, 2013 by Baron Bodissey

Our Norwegian correspondent The Observer has translated an article from Rights.no about the ghastly predicament in which young Norwegians find themselves within heavily culturally enriched districts of Oslo.

Well-off natives can afford to move to safe, pleasant white enclaves, where they may send their children to school among white native speakers of Norwegian. Less affluent citizens are not so fortunate, however, and are forced to endure the humiliation and degradation of the Multicultural behavioral sink in which their political masters have consigned them to live.

The translator includes this introductory note:

This report shows the real consequences of the enormous betrayal of their people by the ruling elites in Norway. Sadly, the same thing goes on in every Western European country today, and on both sides of the Atlantic.

There is something seriously wrong with politicians who actively pursue policies that have such horrific outcomes. Nor is this ground-breaking information that is being presented in this article — it has been going on for a couple of decades now in Norway.
The politicians know it, but they keep their mouths shut and let the vulnerable ‘youths’ pay the price for their betrayal.

As a matter of interest, Finansavisen (which published the original piece) is one of the very few newspapers in Norway that don’t receive press subsidies. Every Norwegian newspaper journalist is subsidized by the authorities to the tune of $75,000 per year. Which is perhaps also why (as far as I know) no other MSM newspaper has covered this story — for them, Norwegian ‘racism’ against non-Norwegians is all that matters.

The translated article:

Norwegian boys in the new Norway

Over the past few weeks, Finansavisen [Financial Newspaper] has focused on immigration and its economic consequences. We have commented on several of these previously. Last weekend the journalists Kjell Erik Eilertsen, Ole Asbjørn Ness and the photographer Iván Kverme left behind their calculators and computers and met with some of the individuals who are growing up in the new Norway. They decided to focus on the youngsters, Norwegian boys, who are growing up in the most immigrant-dense area of Norway — Groruddalen [Grorud valley] in Oslo. And they have produced an article that other media would probably refuse to print.

Groruddalen is an area that covers four neighborhoods: Stovner, Alna, Grorud and Bjerke. All the neighborhoods have an immigrant population approaching 50 percent.
Finansavisen has made contact with two young boys in the “valley”. One of them, Marius Sørvik, has decided to go public, and his name and picture appear in the newspaper. The other one has decided to remain anonymous. Finansavisen refers to him as “Andreas”. One boy was interviewed twice and the other one on three occasions. They were given copies of the article to read through before it was published, and confirmed that they have been quoted correctly. In addition to this Andreas’ father has read the article and given the newspaper the approval to publish his son’s story.

Two different worlds in 35 minutes

When the decision to travel to Groruddalen was finally made, Finansavisen decided that the journalists should travel there in the manner that most of the youths choose, namely by riding the subway train. The trip from Smestad to Stovner takes approximately 35 minutes, according to Finansavisen, and I guess that during the journey they were shown two different worlds.

When they arrive in Stovner, they hear the voice of “Andreas”:

“A few weeks ago,” he says, “I was entering the schoolyard. They were attacking Lars. There’s a whole heap of them. They always attack as a group. They are dogs, they hunt in packs. They are beating him up. I run in between them and I punch one of them. Then someone comes rushing to and separates us, and yet again I’m being hauled off to the principal’s office, and yet again I am being told that even if they punch us we are not supposed to retaliate. Do you know how insanely provocative such a statement is?”
Finansavisen‘s description of Andreas leaves no room for doubt:

He is sixteen. He is angry. He’s scared. He is brave. He is tired. He wants to tell. He’s got the face of a boy and the eyes of a man.

“I would have gone public with my full identity had it not been for the fact that I have younger siblings. People need to realize what it is like to grow up here,” he says.
Home is a place somewhere in Groruddalen. That’s where he grew up. He spends one week at his mother’s place and the next one at his father’s place. His stepfather is nice. His father is great. His mother is great, but naïve.

That is not the problem. This area is what’s the problem.

“My mum told me that it would be good for me to grow up here. I would get to know the new Norway, get to know different cultures.”

Then we are introduced to Marius Sørvik.

He is nineteen. He is articulate. He is brave. He’s scared. He is weak. He is successful. He has dropped out of school. He has a beard. He is too young to have beard. He is pretty in the eyes of young girls. He is only 19, but he has made four movies. He earns money. Right now he is staying with his mum.

He came to Groruddalen from Fredrikstad when he was one year old. Soon he’ll move back to Fredrikstad.

“They are to be pitied”

The boys have difficulties defining themselves, “the others” and animal metaphors are often used:

They both belong to an animal species that is rapidly diminishing in Groruddalen. They do what all animals do: Come up with survival strategies. Trying to find a way to show off their feathers in all its glory, run and hide when they are outnumbered.

Human nature: The wish to retaliate: revenge, vengeance, one day they might be the strongest, and not be outnumbered. Them. Against them. The others. Strangers with Norwegian passports. The ones they were told to be considerate of when they attended elementary school. Their species has as of yet not been officially labelled. For want of a better term, we chose to use the term that Marius uses to describe himself, a young ethnic Norwegian male.

“All the teachers told me, the principal told me, if I had an altercation with them I had to understand that they were to be pitied, that they came from countries where there had been war. I thought that he was joking. Their grandparents emigrated from Pakistan. So if I hit someone no one would scold me because my grandfather had been a member of the Norwegian Resistance Movement? But I believed in it.”

Duped by the school

The elementary school in Groruddalen is a pleasant experience for both of them in the beginning. They sing the songs, they believe in the songs, they live the songs. Then it starts to sound false, the childhood comes to an end, fifth grade:

“You discover who you are,” says Andreas.

“People are different; everything you have learned in school is wrong,” says Marius.
You have the ethnic Norwegian boys, and then there are the others. Faced with these two choices, the two boys chose different strategies:

Marius’ strategy

He doesn’t lower his head. He refuses to take any crap. He answers back. He’s loudmouthed. He is who he is. It does not matter. But that’s not why they target him. It is an autumn evening in seventh grade. He is playing tennis. When he leaves the court to collect some tennis balls they appear. They are seven or eight Somalis. The beat the crap out of him, he has to get new teeth put in.

Marius doesn’t slow down. He calls a Roma girl a gypsy, something that isn’t appreciated. When her brothers and cousins come for him, he hides in the principal’s office. It has begun.

Andreas’ strategy

He lowers his gaze, he wants to be like them, talk like them, he alters his language, limits his vocabulary, makes deliberate spelling mistakes — ‘an school’, kebab-Norwegian, buys a soft gun, wants to be like the older, tougher, cool Pakistani guys that have cars and money and no job, why not become a Muslim, become a brother?

He wants to be like them, but he doesn’t become like them, something inside him is resisting.

Fragments: the bad grades in the Norwegian classes, the bad friends, Islam, he notices how they view women, as an object, how they react when he tries to discuss Islam with them, how they talk about respect, but don’t show any respect, how they refer to Norwegians as f***ing Norwegians, whitey, potato; something inside him resists.

He withdraws. They notice that he withdraws. Then it starts.

Constant fear

We learn about the suffering of Marius:

He heads off to school an hour before it starts in the morning. He heads home before it finishes in the afternoon. More episodes, more threats. Fear is not an isolated event, but rather a continuous stream.
In tenth grade he goes to see the doctor and lies about having social anxiety. He is given a medical certificate so he can spend as little time as possible in school. He’s scared. Says that they always come in packs. Says that they always stare when he sees them on the subway when there are twenty of them, and when he gets a girlfriend they cry out to him:

“‘Hey Marius have you got yourself a girlfriend,’ and it’s not the words that are threatening, but the way they are being uttered, do you understand, how they look at me and my girlfriend who starts to cry, do you understand?”

NRK’s “concept” of “our valley”

We are being told that Marius’ fears have subsided, although they can still return:

It has been three years since he graduated from high school. He can still feel a twinge of fear whenever he meets the gangs on the subway, but he doesn’t give a ****, he has made four movies, he says what he thinks, he is who he is, the valley is what it is, he writes op-eds about life in Groruddalen and gets them published in VG and Dagsavisen, he is only nineteen but he has already had a heart attack and he has been interviewed twice by the producers of the Norwegian TV series ‘Dalen Vår’ [‘Our Valley’], Elisabeth Brun (see separate article) to find out if his story fitted in with the story about Groruddalen.

It did not.

“Your views do not fit in with our concept,” she said. That TV series is state-funded propaganda. A documentary where the angle has been determined in advance is no documentary, but a half-mockumentary where they have full control of what is being said. If you are going to tell a story about what a great place Groruddalen is, then you can’t talk to young ethnic Norwegian boys, because most of them will tell you that it is a horrible place.

Worried about murders

Andreas is also suffering, despite attempts at hiding it as much as possible:

He has withdrawn into himself, although he still has a Muslim friend from a very religious family. Let’s call him Omar. He tries to persuade Andreas to become Muslim. Omar tells him about the judgment and the hell that awaits all those who refuse to submit to Islam in time. Omar tells him that he needs to stop enjoying life, but rather prepare himself for the next life. Forsake. But Andreas says that he is wary of Islam; actually it’s more than that: he doesn’t like Islam, not the strictness, vengefulness, its view of women, all the talk about the chastity of women, hijab, not because they want to but because they have to.

They discuss. The discussions descend into verbal altercations. “He told me that he was going to kill me. I threatened him back.”Andreas allies himself with ethnic Norwegians in the motorcycle community for protection, a 1% club.

“Had it not been for them he would have killed me.”

Cowardly Muslims

Andreas doesn’t deny that he’s still scared. That he lift weights to gain strength. He also says that he’s contemplating carrying a knife, but that he fears the police knife controls. He says that he’s made deals with his friends, that they will all stand up for each other. Friends who also lift weights and that are into martial arts.

“Muslims don’t fight you on a one-to-one basis. If you meet them alone they are cowards. If I run into Omar alone, he will just walk past me. If I am alone and meet him in a crowd, the best outcome I can hope for is a beating.”

Marius has lifted his gaze. Now he can start to analyze it all.

“There is a hierarchy, where ethnic Norwegian boys are on the bottom rung on the ladder. They will be targeted unless they accede to their rules, if they don’t they become Norwegian immigrants. If a Norwegian boy gets into trouble, odds are that he has a small family and a tiny social network. Unlike a Pakistani or Somali boy, he doesn’t have a clan of brothers and cousins and uncles who come rushing to his aid in the event of a conflict. Most of the time the only thing he has is a single parent.”

Norwegian is weakness, Norwegian culture is on the way out

Andreas believes that the Norwegian culture is being squeezed out.

“Nobody wants to be a Norwegian here. Norwegian is synonymous with weakness. This is a feeling that is also being conveyed by the teachers.

“They are afraid. They don’t dare to speak out. You should have a look at the number of principals that have come and gone at Vestliveien school in recent years, and ask them why they left. They don’t have control, but they do everything to accommodate the Muslim students. In home economics classes everybody has to prepare halal meat. Immigrants do not have to attend ‘NyNorsk’ classes [literally New-Norwegian, which is a different dialect and a different way to write Norwegian — there are two forms of written Norwegian]. I have to attend these classes. The Muslim girls do not have to attend the physical activity classes; because of course they cannot undress in front of other girls. We have to adapt to their culture. They don’t have to adapt to ours.”

Andreas’ views on girls:

“There is one thing that annoys the hell out of me. They can start chasing Norwegian girls, but we cannot go after theirs. It’s something you learn early on. You just don’t go after a Pakistani girl, but Norwegian girls are available to immigrant boys. Norwegian girls prefer them. I don’t know why. I guess it must be that brown skin. That they are tough, that they have money despite not having jobs. They don’t see that they fight in packs, that they are cowards. I asked my best female friend if we could get romantically involved, and she told me that I have the right personality, but the problem was that I’m Norwegian. She wants to become involved with a foreigner.”

He believes that Oslo will eventually become Oslostan.

“It’s not going to happen straightaway, but it that’s the way its going. More and more Muslims arrive here from abroad, and many Norwegians convert. Personally I know of five converts. Here it’s all about Islam; Islam is strong, so why fight it?”

The betrayal and the silence

Andreas says that he feels betrayed. And his conversation with the journalists from Finansavisen is the first time that adults let him speak freely, the first time that he doesn’t have to hold back and place restrictions on himself. He says that he wants to become an actor. He wants to make a movie. Maybe a movie about the real “our valley”. He says that he wants to join the HV youth (the youth division of the National Guard). “He wants the uniform. He craves the authority that a uniform gives. No one messes with a soldier.”

Finansavisen’s reporters suggest that adolescence can be tough for everybody, and they wonder how much of it is actually about growing up in the valley and how much is trauma that many adolescents experience, such as differentness, loneliness and exclusion. They even ask them if they are paranoid — if there really is something to be afraid of. Maybe they have deliberately isolated themselves and gone into hiding and started worshipping imaginary horrors that have replaced reality?

The boys’ response is laughter:

They laugh. They smile. The journalists have not understood.

“It is not imagination when they shout after me, when they threaten me, when they hit me,” says Andreas.

“Are you afraid to walk around alone?”

“I’m not. Not any more,” says Marius.

“There are many places that I don’t go alone. Especially at night,” says Andreas.
We follow Andreas to the subway station.

“Do you see?” he says, and guides our attention to two immigrants. “Do you see how they stare back?”

He’s right. They do stare. We lower our gaze first.

Once again we hear the animal metaphors that permeates their language:

“They are like cats, says Andreas — cats never back down. They challenge you. I get so f***ing mad.”

The subway train arrives. We get on. After a few stop Andreas gets off. We lean back in our seats and try to let the rattle of the train carriage rock us into a kind of sleep. But sleep doesn’t come.
The subway ride from Stovner to Smestad takes approximately 35 minutes.
Epilogue: After having read the draft, Marius gave us a call.

“You can delete the statement that I can walk around safely.”

“Why?”

“I got beat up on the way home from the pub yesterday.”

Additional links to articles that deal with Groruddalen and white flight from Oslo:

• It’s Hard to be Norwegian in Groruddalen
• Mugged by Reality in Groruddalen
• Norwegian kid with hippie parents who get a reality check