I wonder if you misdiagnose the lack of connections made by Norwegians, between what happens and what the drivers are.
One thing that is characteristic about the Norwegian culture, even compared to most Scandinavians, is the degree to which real views are hidden, especially when they are negative, or might trigger some risk of a social cost, even a partial one. I therefore doubt that people dont understand the connections - IMO it is more likely they dont wish to acknowledge the connection.
This BTW was actually how the country responded to the Breivik shootings in the first place. Stoltenberg and his crew in AP refused to take a cleanup with extremism, and instead spent the time skimming over with superficial but empty talk about "mer åpnehet" etc. And yet, if you look back all these years later, the same Stoltenberg went on to NATO where he championed NATO conducting more racist wars, and the funding and platforming of extremist regime, policies and leading figures in Ukraine. Today he is back in Norway, where he is clearly the shadow leader of the government, which continies to fund and platform outright nazis in Ukraine....which BTW is a popular policy and among the AP voters.
Høyre has been sending Frølich, Bru, Lindboe etc to profile themselved in Ukraine with photoops with armed extremists pursing a mad war. And to fund them generously, even while the norwegian government auditors warn that this money is going into their Swisss bank accounts. What is this, if not championing violent extremism?
Moreover, while closing the doors of immigration to refugees from the global south the entire political constellation in Norway has welcomed with open arms intake of these Ukranians, many of whom are.....right wing extremists, many of them involved on the 10+ years of tribal violence in Ukraine, and many of them will of course after the war will also marry and bring into Norway more violent extremists from Ukraine.
So I think the Norwegian polticians and people's actions tell you what they really think and want, and the refusal to make connections is actually a form of gaslighting, not an oversight. Right wing extremism is welcome, even the violent form, and it is only a matter of time before the mask comes off like in the 1930s in Norway.
I encourage you to read some of the many books of Bjørn Westlie that cover that period in Norwegian history. Like "Mørke År" and "Det Norske Jødehatet". These books underlines how a lot of this just sits under the surface latently. And IMO it is not long before the silent racist majority reveals itself again, but now instead of racism against jews (the "innvandrer of the 1930s era), it is the new minorities that are the target of that same existing dark undercurrent, just a new set of victims.
The roses and the empty talk are completely on purpose. It is a very Norwegian way of avoiding revealing the real feelings and intent. But as you see all of this becoming normalized by the orange one, Rubio, Elon Musk etc, the Norwegians will eventually, on time lag, become comfortable. See the DN headline ("Heng Bjellen På Katten") a couple of days ago as a marker of how all this will become far more overt. That article, upon reading, one gets the sense it was written from a very unpleasant place, and then heavily edited to decorate their main impulse with some attempts at decency. Before long, they wont be decent anymore.
It seems that your diagnosis might be more accurate than mine.
When I said that Norway “connects too little,” I may still have been overly charitable towards Norwegians and their political establishment. Apparently I thought of ignorance rather than bad intentions. Whereas your interpretation of the situation is more ruthless: It may actually be the case that people are fully aware of the connections between these issues but might be unwilling to admit them since it would reveal their own bias, interests and hypocrisy.
It seems I share these concerns to a certain degree.
The Norwegian society has mastered the art of hiding its aggressive intentions under the marbles of moderation, political correctness and politeness. The country never openly acknowledges the actions. Instead, it pretends to be innocent while the actual intentions and choices contradict the statement. The flowers, beautiful speeches and talk about “increased openness” may not be mistakes of communication but effective means of making things simple.
It seems that I was unwilling to view this behaviour as ideologically motivated since this would mean that ideology has had an effect on it. I called it national amnesia. But amnesia is still a kind of cognition. The silence is a policy. Failing to make connections can be an instance of a kind of gaslighting.
Your comparison of the present to the situation in the 1930s is very much on point here. Westlie’s research clearly shows that, despite the fact that the extreme views were professed by only a few individuals, they were widespread in many respected institutions, newspapers, professions and among ordinary people. Often the hatred was expressed not in shouting but in civilized words and wear beautiful clothes.
Even though victims have changed, the mechanisms of injustice seem to be the same: Different standards are applied to the ones in Europe and the states of the Global South. The extremism in the West is denounced while promoted abroad.
I believe I would not want the situation to be oversimplified and put all the blame on Ukrainians. However, I agree with you that the issue of selective humanitarianism is more than evident here. The Norwegian political elite has shown that there are various types of welcoming attitude depending on the race, geography and political situation.
No not all Ukrainians are to blame, but unquestionably it has long been a broken country, and this has shown in all social and political indicators from the world bank, OECD; you name it. Mafia gang crime at extreme levels, high inequality, political corruption, poor public health and high rates of infectous disease, decaying educational institutions, civil war, neonazi extremists running amok - everything. And that is in fact how they ended up being a country that got coopted and pushed into a civil war since 2014, and then a proxy war war after that,
For Norwegians to look at that and insist that the thing they need the most is free supply of money and weapons? This is mind boggling to me.
I also learned that the other motivation of the Norwegian oligarchy in this Ukraine involvement is money. The Norwegian oil fund is invested in a lot of companies in Norway, and I believe many many Norwegian government companies and private investment funds have ownership stakes in assets in the Ukrainian energy and farming and agricultural and mining sector.
So this "støtte" that all Norwegian taxpayers are pouring out into Norway can also be seen as trying to secure the financial assets of the Norwegian oligarchy (this while many of these Norwegian financial oligarchy are moving to Switzerland to avoid paying Norwegian taxes!). So this is the other hidden motivation, along with ideological support for the extremists over there.
The mask is really coming off for Norway as a nation as the world unravels. What is back there is not so pretty, let's put it that way. And the callous disregard of the Norwegian oligarchy for the ordinary people of Norway, is another factor that will fuel the growth of right wing extremism in the population - just as we see the same has happened in Sweden.
I wonder if you misdiagnose the lack of connections made by Norwegians, between what happens and what the drivers are.
One thing that is characteristic about the Norwegian culture, even compared to most Scandinavians, is the degree to which real views are hidden, especially when they are negative, or might trigger some risk of a social cost, even a partial one. I therefore doubt that people dont understand the connections - IMO it is more likely they dont wish to acknowledge the connection.
This BTW was actually how the country responded to the Breivik shootings in the first place. Stoltenberg and his crew in AP refused to take a cleanup with extremism, and instead spent the time skimming over with superficial but empty talk about "mer åpnehet" etc. And yet, if you look back all these years later, the same Stoltenberg went on to NATO where he championed NATO conducting more racist wars, and the funding and platforming of extremist regime, policies and leading figures in Ukraine. Today he is back in Norway, where he is clearly the shadow leader of the government, which continies to fund and platform outright nazis in Ukraine....which BTW is a popular policy and among the AP voters.
Høyre has been sending Frølich, Bru, Lindboe etc to profile themselved in Ukraine with photoops with armed extremists pursing a mad war. And to fund them generously, even while the norwegian government auditors warn that this money is going into their Swisss bank accounts. What is this, if not championing violent extremism?
Moreover, while closing the doors of immigration to refugees from the global south the entire political constellation in Norway has welcomed with open arms intake of these Ukranians, many of whom are.....right wing extremists, many of them involved on the 10+ years of tribal violence in Ukraine, and many of them will of course after the war will also marry and bring into Norway more violent extremists from Ukraine.
So I think the Norwegian polticians and people's actions tell you what they really think and want, and the refusal to make connections is actually a form of gaslighting, not an oversight. Right wing extremism is welcome, even the violent form, and it is only a matter of time before the mask comes off like in the 1930s in Norway.
I encourage you to read some of the many books of Bjørn Westlie that cover that period in Norwegian history. Like "Mørke År" and "Det Norske Jødehatet". These books underlines how a lot of this just sits under the surface latently. And IMO it is not long before the silent racist majority reveals itself again, but now instead of racism against jews (the "innvandrer of the 1930s era), it is the new minorities that are the target of that same existing dark undercurrent, just a new set of victims.
The roses and the empty talk are completely on purpose. It is a very Norwegian way of avoiding revealing the real feelings and intent. But as you see all of this becoming normalized by the orange one, Rubio, Elon Musk etc, the Norwegians will eventually, on time lag, become comfortable. See the DN headline ("Heng Bjellen På Katten") a couple of days ago as a marker of how all this will become far more overt. That article, upon reading, one gets the sense it was written from a very unpleasant place, and then heavily edited to decorate their main impulse with some attempts at decency. Before long, they wont be decent anymore.
It seems that your diagnosis might be more accurate than mine.
When I said that Norway “connects too little,” I may still have been overly charitable towards Norwegians and their political establishment. Apparently I thought of ignorance rather than bad intentions. Whereas your interpretation of the situation is more ruthless: It may actually be the case that people are fully aware of the connections between these issues but might be unwilling to admit them since it would reveal their own bias, interests and hypocrisy.
It seems I share these concerns to a certain degree.
The Norwegian society has mastered the art of hiding its aggressive intentions under the marbles of moderation, political correctness and politeness. The country never openly acknowledges the actions. Instead, it pretends to be innocent while the actual intentions and choices contradict the statement. The flowers, beautiful speeches and talk about “increased openness” may not be mistakes of communication but effective means of making things simple.
It seems that I was unwilling to view this behaviour as ideologically motivated since this would mean that ideology has had an effect on it. I called it national amnesia. But amnesia is still a kind of cognition. The silence is a policy. Failing to make connections can be an instance of a kind of gaslighting.
Your comparison of the present to the situation in the 1930s is very much on point here. Westlie’s research clearly shows that, despite the fact that the extreme views were professed by only a few individuals, they were widespread in many respected institutions, newspapers, professions and among ordinary people. Often the hatred was expressed not in shouting but in civilized words and wear beautiful clothes.
Even though victims have changed, the mechanisms of injustice seem to be the same: Different standards are applied to the ones in Europe and the states of the Global South. The extremism in the West is denounced while promoted abroad.
I believe I would not want the situation to be oversimplified and put all the blame on Ukrainians. However, I agree with you that the issue of selective humanitarianism is more than evident here. The Norwegian political elite has shown that there are various types of welcoming attitude depending on the race, geography and political situation.
No not all Ukrainians are to blame, but unquestionably it has long been a broken country, and this has shown in all social and political indicators from the world bank, OECD; you name it. Mafia gang crime at extreme levels, high inequality, political corruption, poor public health and high rates of infectous disease, decaying educational institutions, civil war, neonazi extremists running amok - everything. And that is in fact how they ended up being a country that got coopted and pushed into a civil war since 2014, and then a proxy war war after that,
For Norwegians to look at that and insist that the thing they need the most is free supply of money and weapons? This is mind boggling to me.
I also learned that the other motivation of the Norwegian oligarchy in this Ukraine involvement is money. The Norwegian oil fund is invested in a lot of companies in Norway, and I believe many many Norwegian government companies and private investment funds have ownership stakes in assets in the Ukrainian energy and farming and agricultural and mining sector.
So this "støtte" that all Norwegian taxpayers are pouring out into Norway can also be seen as trying to secure the financial assets of the Norwegian oligarchy (this while many of these Norwegian financial oligarchy are moving to Switzerland to avoid paying Norwegian taxes!). So this is the other hidden motivation, along with ideological support for the extremists over there.
The mask is really coming off for Norway as a nation as the world unravels. What is back there is not so pretty, let's put it that way. And the callous disregard of the Norwegian oligarchy for the ordinary people of Norway, is another factor that will fuel the growth of right wing extremism in the population - just as we see the same has happened in Sweden.