A Touch of Madness: 4. Advocaat and apartheid

I.

"I am convinced that the Jew can never become a good citizen of any State where the Jew does not rule. A religion which does not have anything but hate and despise towards those who do not confess to it, forces the Jew to be more or less in constant opposition to that which does not hail Judaism"
— Christian Magnus Falsen, «the father» of the Norwegian constitution

When Norway got its constitution in 1814 it was amongst the most liberal in Europe, inspired by the American, French and Spanish constitutions. But on one count the majority of Norwegian founding fathers were anything but liberal; on that of religion. The second article of the law read:

«The evangelical-Lutheran religion remains the public religion of the State. Those citizens that confess their faith in it, are obliged to raise their children in the same faith. Jesuites and monk orders must not be tolerated. Jews are still excluded from accessing the Kingdom».

In fact, the Jews were not allowed to enter the country until 1851. And the Jesuites had to wait until the 1950s, when the article was changed in connection with Norway's ratification of the European Convention on Human Rights. Interestingly, a number of Norwegian MP's voted against the constitutional change. These parliamentarians were not fascists; they were protestants – and in some Christian circles their view was anything but odd. In fact, Olav Valen-Sendstad, a theologist, linked the Jesuites to the fascists when he argued against religious freedom:

«Is the Norwegian government aware that the papal, Jesuite-fascist contrarevolution and its politics is continued [...] to this very day, in spite of its defeat in the WWII».

Thankfully, the votes against the constitutional change were too few to block it. Still, the voices advocating Valen-Sendstad's arguments did not disappear.

One of the oddest outshoots in Norwegian politics, Folkeaksjonen mot EU-medlemskap (The Popular Movement against European Union Membership), upholds that tradition. The group attacks a number of Norwegian parliamentarians for being «traitors», claiming that Norway has been changed into a «Jesuite state». For good measure, you will also find conspiracy theories involving Freemasons and – of course – Jews on their website. Recently, the website published a letter claiming that Norway following the end of the Second World War was «judicially» occupied by the Allies, and governed by «Allied propaganda experts, most of them of Jewish background». The letter, riddled with expressions like «moles», «state coup» and «Jesuite agents», even hints at the possibility of Jens Christian Hauge, a central figure in the Norwegian resistance and the post-war defence minister, being «the agent Oskar Mossad was so proud off».

Obviously, the ideas of Folkeaksjonen do have a few things in common with the ideas of some neo-Nazis. The Norwegian Nazi-Odinist cult Vigrid, which portrays Hitler as a hero, is obsessed with the Freemasons. The webzine New Stürmer, run by a Julius Streiker, an obvious pseudonym and an equally obvious historical reference, had the same focus. Still, labelling Folkeaksjonen fascist wouldn't be right. Their views have much more in common with some extreme Christian and pseudo-Christian cults in Northern America.

The movement has also won very limited interest outside narrow evangelist Christian circles – and has hardly received media attention outside the Christian weekly Norge IDAG. In fact, one of the few other organisations who have taken Folkeaksjonen even slightly serious is Demokratene, a small party founded in the wake of a split in the right-wing Progress Party, one of of Norway's largest parties.

II.

«I fear for a social bomb. Immigration is the biggest political challenge of our time.»

The Norwegian news magazine Memo was quoting the Norwegian minister for labour and social inclusion, Bjarne Håkon Hanssen (Labour). The front-page quote was accompanied by a picture of a man of Middle Eastern lineage. He is yelling and raising his fist. He looks angry. The social bomb is for everyone to see.

- From a press ethics perspective, a reviewer in a competing newspaper, Dagsavisen, wrote:

«I also wonder who this angry man on the frontpage is. It is definitely not Hanssen. Is he Norwegian? What has he done to deserve [...] the words «social bomb» smeared over himself?»

The man depicted is Ahmad Youssef el Youssef. What he had done was simply to take part in a perfectly legal demonstration. Since the demonstration targeted the cartoons of Muhammed, first published in Danish Jyllandsposten – assuming the looks of an angry Middle Eastern man – he had it coming.

El Youssef complained to the Press Ethics board, who agreed that Memo's portrayal was in breech with press ethics, but editor Kristine Moody shows no signs of remorse. She speaks of Truth with a big T. It set off a debate in Norwegian media, and in the browner outskirts of the political Norway, the debate was picked up by a man named Bjarne Dahl.

In a letter to a number of Norwegian newspapers and to so-called «national activists», Dahl, a veteran on the Norwegian far right, referred to the Press Ethics board as lickspittlers, the PFU decision as «pathetic» and asked whether «anyone have ever seen a smiling [Muslim]»: - If a Norwegian was walking around in the capital, screaming and making grimaces, and absolutely acted threathening and frightening, he should expect to be photographed, arrested [and eventually given] psychiatic treatment.

On the website of Demokratene Dahl writes that Norwegians are second-rate citizens in Norway, and that Somalis, Pakistanis, Turks and others have established colonies on Norwegian earth, and besides, that they really let a chance go past them when it comes to demonstrating that «they are masters in our house». Seemingly, one of the examples of that – described by Dahl elsewhere - is an employee for the state-run TV-channel who dared to refer to a mosque as a house of God, «a provocation against the Norwegian people». Dahl, who is a former resistance fighter himself, even states that it is understandable if «the Germans want SA and SS back in the streets, and Gestapo in the police offices».

Dahl is a prominent member of Folkebevegelsen mot Innvandring, the Popular Movement Against Immigration. Of course, FMI is not popular at all.

But as a political phenomenon it is revealing. While a number of elderly men have played prominent roles in the movement, it has also drawn some support from youth with overt connections to neo-Nazi groups such as Viking and Boot Boys. Today one of its most prominent spokesmen besides Dahl is Amund Garfors, who is also figuring in Demokratene. He refers to Islam as «a ruthless psychosis of a religion, spreading like a virus in the country», immigrants «hate us, create their ghettos where they want to live in their own society? And why did they come? Do they only want to exploit us? Or maybe destroy the national state through creating a majority? [...] with support from leftist radical antinationalists and corrupt media, as well as politicians with no spine, the Norwegian nation is slowly going under».

If you think you have heard it all before, it is because you have. In November 1938 a group of young activists from the two Nazi parties Nasjonal Samling and Norges Nasjonalsosialistiske Arbeiderparti hung up posters in Oslo. The poster showed a classic «Evil Jew», stating that Norway «is being flooded by this people, which is like a cancerous growth wherever they have settled. Help us stop the flood».

It could be noted, of course, that Demokratene is strongly pro-Israeli and hardly to be criticised for hatred against the Jews. But the distance from Jewish cancer outgrowths to Muslim viruses does not seem that long. Garfors has also suggested banning Islam, and has declared that Muslims should either leave Islam or be forced to leave Norway. Oddly enough, Garfors is also a fan of Fidel Castro. Norway should ban the use of hijabs in school, he writes, pointing to the Cuban use of school uniforms as an example to follow, before adding:

«I would claim that our democracy is so weak that it puts the conditions in place for conflicts, something we will see more and more of in the future, where people from different cultures are set up against each other as boxers in a match. Therefore, I repeat: make use of school uniforms at once! And then the youth will be focused on learning instead of on conflicts, [...] fashions and cultural differences. We would avoid the rabid behaviour of extremists who only create trouble and seek conflict. And again I can mention Cuba. An extremely poor contry with a dictatorship, loads of police in the streets, little food and no money – but with such a discipline, and smiling and friendly people – and not least; the wonderful school uniforms in different colours. We probably have a lot to learn from Castro. There, the Muslims would not have gotten a single demand through».

III.

The touch of madness in the Progress Party is not as obvious as in some other right-wing populist parties around Europe. You will have problems finding Holocaust revisionists in the Progress Party, you will have difficulties finding people with ties to openly neo-Nazi groups. Today, you are more likely to find both conservative, market liberalist and social democratic thinking, often mixed together, than you are to find ideas like the ones in French Front National or the Swedish Sverigedemokraterna.

In fact, the Progress Party is a paradox in itself, and in some ways... a true child of its founder.

The party was founded in 1973, at the time assuming the name of its leader. This was Anders Lange's party, which -- built around the charismatic figure Lange -- undoubtedly was, and to a large degree made up by his loyal supporters, the socalled «dog boys» (Lange ran a kennel, and published a magazine on dogs – and increasingly - politics). The party's declared goal wasn't anything like the one of the first British National Party, nor like the one of the second. Above all Anders Lange's party was a liberalist party, its goal to reduce taxes and state interference. - We are fed up with, its program declared, - being exploited by state capitalism.

Lange was a bit of an anarchist, protesting against puritanism and proudly drinking his advocaat. But there was more to him, of course. In his younger years he had been a central member of the conservative organisation Fedrelandslaget (Fatherland Association). This was to a large degree an anti-Bolshevik association, involving a number of prominent Norwegians, but throughout the thirties it became increasingly inspired by fascism. Lange was also openly supportive of the apartheid regime in South Africa: «Everyone who supports a black majority rule in South Africa are traitors of the white race», he wrote in his magazine.

In fact, Lange's party might even have received support from South Africa. In his book «The Real Information Scandal», Eschel Rhoodie, one of the crooks in the South African political scandal known as Muldergate, wrote how support of Lange was central in the Scandinavian work of the South African Department of Information. When the party won four seats in the Norwegian parliament, one of the tops in the department joked that if they'd spent enough money they could have won a majority.

Built up around the person Anders Lange, ALP in its early days was in many ways more of a political movement than a political party. In some ways, this trend has continued until today. Following Lange's death, the party was to change its name and to be dominated by another man, Carl I. Hagen, who led it for 28 years. Throughout this period the party has been home to people as different as racists supporting Ian Smith's Rhodesia and libertarians supporting open borders and free immigration.

Several times, the party has been shaken by internal strife.

The market liberalists, who had become an increasingly important faction throughout the 1980s, were attacked by Hagen at the party's national convention at Bolkesjø in 1994. The place is still referred to as Dolkesjø, the Sea of Knives. A number of the party's most active liberalist voices were forced out or left the party. One of them, Per Aage Pleym Christensen, describes it as «the choice of being a liberal open right-wing party or having a nationalist, populist and xenophobic profile».

The Progress Party chose the latter. This is one of the reasons it's hardly surprising that local PP representatives in Kristiansand suggested banning Islam, just like Amund Garfors in Demokratene. «We are not alone in demanding this,» local party leader Halvor Hulaas said, «it is a thought which has a solid fundament in the Scandinavian countries», adding «The comparison [made by party representative Karina Udnæs] of Islam and Nazism is something which is supported by many of us in the Progress Party». Hulaas also said that Kristiansand was «living under the threat» of getting a mosque centrally placed in the city, «the last thing we need, we know what these mosques are being used for».

If you consider the liberal tradition of the Progress Party something does not tally. But it does. It all fits into a pattern, into what Pleym Christensen refers to as the «night side» of the Progress Party.

Central Progress Party spokesmen, of whom some were later excluded or left, have repeatedly supported anti-liberal and often racist politics. Some have worked with the extreme right, too.

One famous example is the 1995 meeting at Godlia cinema in Oslo, where PP-parliamentarian Øystein Hedstrøm took part. So did Bjarne Dahl of Fedrelandspartiet (the Fatherland's Party) and Jack Erik Kjuus from Stopp Innvandringen (Stop Immigration). Kjuus was soon to be known for another party project of his, Hvit Valgallianse (HV, White Electoral Alliance), a party which was in fact a merger of two other miniature parties, both ran by Kjuus. Hvit Valgallianse gained notoriety for its wish to stop all immigration, including adoption of children, send out all immigrants arriving since the seventies and, if not feasible, use forced sterilisation. According to the arrangers of the meeting, a group called the Norwegian Association, they did not know anything about this at the time, and Kjuus was «heavily criticised». However, a certain Bastian Heide was also at the meeting. A former ally of the Norwegian Nazi leader Erik Blücher, Heide was to run for election for Hvit Valgallianse. One could continue. Hege Søfteland, who later became active in the (Norwegian) National Democrats and then in Demokratene, was there. Erik Gjems-Onstad, one of the four first parliamentarians of Anders Lange's party – and one of the first to be excluded - was there too.

A more interesting question, perhaps, than who met on Godlia, is why they met. Some have tried to use the meeting as a proof that the Progress Party itself has a fascist streak, a doubtful claim.

But why were they there? According to the Norwegian Association, they raise several subjects important for the «further development of our society». One of these subjects, immigration, «was particularily relevant before the last local and provincial elections. [We] therefore arranged a debate meeting on immigration». In fact, they were there because they had something in common.

It was not liberalism.