The racism that dares not speak its name: Rethinking neo-nationalism and neo-racism in Norway
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17356/ieejsp.v1i1.26Abstract
Abstract
In contemporary Norway, the mere referral to the term racism has for all practical purposes become taboo in the public sphere. This is both the result of a strategic far-right distancing from classical forms of racism and a conscious effort by numerous Norwegian academics and public intellectuals to restrict its meaning and reference in the course of recent decades. Norway has a comparatively weak tradition of social science scholarship on racism, and persistent claims to the right to name racism on the part of minorities in Norway often come up against social and political imaginaries in which Norway and Norwegians are cast as ‘exceptional’ and ‘virtuous.’ In this article I contextualize Norwegian neo-racism with reference to persistent fears about lack of social and national cohesion arising from modern mass immigration and an increasingly multicultural Norwegian society. Using the methodology of critical discourse analysis, I take as my empirical starting point media and popular discourses on Islam and Muslims in Norway from c. 1987 to 2014. The rise of far-right political formations in Norway, I argue, must be understood not primarily through economic determinants, but seen as a result of a successful ‘culturalization of politics’ characteristic of neo-liberalism more generally.
References
Alstadsæter, R. (2004). ‘Hagen agrep islam’ [‘Hagen attacked islam’], Nrk.no 13 July.
Back, L. and Solomos, J. (eds.) (2000). Theories of Race and Racism: A Reader. London: Routledge.
Baker, M. (1981). The New Racism: Conservatism and the Ideology of the Tribes. London: Junction Books.
Balibar, E. (1991). Is There A Neo-Racism? In Balibar, E. and Wallerstein, I. (eds.) Race, Nation, Class: Ambiguous Identities, 17-28. London and New York: Verso.
Bangstad, S. (2012). ‘Failing to Protect Minorities Against Racist and/or Discriminatory Speech? The Case of Norway and § 135 (a) of the Norwegian General Penal Code’, Nordic Journal of Human Rights 30 (4): 483-514.
Bangstad, S. (2013). ‘Eurabia comes to Norway’, Islam and Christian-Muslim Relations 24 (3): 369-391.
Bangstad, S. (2014). Anders Breivik and The Rise of Islamophobia. London and New York: Zed Books.
Barot, R. and Bird, J. (2001). ‘Racialization: The genealogy and critique of a concept’, Ethnic and Racial Studies 24 (4): 601-618.
Bethencourt, F. (2013). Racisms: From the Crusades to the Twentieth Century. Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press.
Bleich, E. (2011). ‘What is Islamophobia, and how much is there? Theorizing and measuring an emerging comparative concept’, American Behavioral Scientist 55 (12): 1581-1600.
Blommaert, J. and Bulcaen, C. (2000). ‘Critical Discourse Analysis’, Annual Review of Anthropology 29: 447-466.
Bowen, J. R. (2012). A New Anthropology of Islam. Cambridge, UK, and New York: Cambridge University Press.
Brown, W. (2006). Regulating Aversion: Tolerance in the Age of Identity and Empire. Princeton, New Jersey and Oxford, UK: Princeton University Press.
Bulmer, M. and Solomos, J. (eds.) (1999). Racism: A Reader. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press.
Cigar, N. (2003). The nationalist Serbian intellectuals and Islam: defining and eliminating a Muslim community. In Qureshi, Emran and Sells, Michael A. (eds.) The New Crusades: Constructing The Muslim Enemy. New York: Columbia University Press.
Døving, C. A. (2012). ‘Norge snikislamiseres’ [‘Norway undergoing stealth islamization’. In Indregaard, S. (ed.) Motgift: Akademisk respons på den nye høyreekstremismen [Counterpoison: Academic Responses on the new right-wing extremism], 87-97. Oslo: Manifest/Flamme Forlag.
Enebakk, V. (2012). Radikaliseringen av Fjordman [The Radicalisation of Fjordman]. In Sørensen, Ø. Hagtvet, B. and Steine, B. A. (eds.) Høyreekstreme ideer og bevegelser i Europa [Extreme Right-Wing Ideas and Movements in Europe], 45-101. Oslo: Dreyer.
Fangen, K. (2001). En bok om nynazister [A Book About Neo-Nazis]. Oslo: Universitetsforlaget.
Fairclough, N. (1992). Discourse and Social Change. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Fanon, F. (1967). Black Skins, White Masks. New York: Grove Press.
Fredrickson, G. M. (2002). Racism: A Short History. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press.
Gardell, M. (2010). Islamofobi [Islamophobia]. Stockholm: Leopard Förlag.
Gilroy, P. (2000). Against Race: Imagining Political Culture Beyond The Color Line. Cambridge, Massachusetts: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.
Gjerdåker, S. (2007). ‘Slutt å kalle fordommar for rasisme’ [‘Stop referring to prejudices as racism’], Dag og Tid 21 September.
Goldberg, D. T. (2006). ‘Racial Europeanization’, Ethnic and Racial Studies 29 (2): 331-364.
Hagelund, A. (2003). ‘A matter of decency? The Progress Party in Norwegian immigration politics’, Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies 29 (1): 47-65.
Hall, S. (2011). ‘The neo-liberal revolution’, Cultural Studies 25 (6): 705-728.
Hattestein, H. (2013a). ‘Per Sandbergs bok: Fri diktning om Svelgen’ [‘Per Sandberg’s book: Free association about Svelgen’], Firdaposten.no 12.12.13.
Hattestein, H. (2013b). ‘Eg trur at lesarane forstår poenget mitt’ [‘I think my readers understand my point’], Firdaposten.no 12.12.13.
Jupskås, A. R. (2009). Høyrepopulisme på norsk. Historien om Anders Langes Parti og Fremskrittspartiet [Right-wing populism in Norwegian. The story of Anders Lange’s Party and the Progress Party]. In Tor E. Simonsen, T. E., Kjøstvedt, A. G. and Randin, K. (eds.) Høyrepopulisme i Europa [Right-wing populism in Europe], 27-79. Oslo: Unipub.
Klug, B. (2014). ‘The limits of analogy: comparing Islamophobia and antisemitism’, Patterns of Prejudice 48 (5): 442-459.
Laegaard, S. (2007). ‘Liberal nationalism and the nationalisation of liberal values’, Nations and Nationalism 13 (1): 37-55.
Lakoff, G. M. (2008). The Political Mind: Why You Can’t Understand 21st Century American Politics with an 18th Century Brain. New York and London: Viking Books.
Larsson, G. (2012). ‘The fear of small numbers: Eurabia literature and censuses on national belonging’, Journal of Muslims in Europe 1: 142-65.
Mamdani, M. (2002). ‘Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: A Political Perspective on Culture and Terrorism’, American Anthropologist 104 (3): 766-775.
Meer, N. (ed.) (2014): Racialization and Religion. Race, Culture and Difference in the Study of Antisemititism and Islamophobia, London: Routledge.
Meer, N. and Modood, T. (2009). ‘Refutations of racism in the ‘Muslim question’’, Patterns of Prejudice 43 (4): 335-354.
Mudde, C. (2007). Populist Radical-Right Parties in Europe. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press.
Piketty, T. (2014). Capital in the Twenty-First Century. Translated by A. Goldhammer. Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, UK: Harvard University Press.
Pilbeam, B. (2011). ‘Eurabian nightmares: American conservative discourses and the Islamisation of Europe’, Journal of Transatlantic Studies 9 (2): 151-71.
Rattansi, A. (2007). Racism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Rogstad, J. and Midtbøen, A. H. (2010). ‘Den utdannede, den drepte og den glemte: Mot en ny forståelse av rasisme og diskriminering’ [‘The educated, the murdered and the forgotten one: Towards a new understanding of racism and discrimination’], Sosiologisk Tidsskrift 18 (1): 31-52.
Sandberg, P. (2013). Mot min vilje. Oppklaring av et politisk liv [Against my will: Explanations for a political life]. Oslo: Juritzen.
Tybring-Gjedde, C. (2014). Mens orkesteret fortsetter å spille [Whilst the band plays on]. Oslo: Cappelen Damm.
Sartre, J-P. (1995 [1948]). Anti-Semite and Jew : An Exploration of the Etiology of Hate. Translated by G. J. Becker. New York: Shocken Books.
Sells, M. A. (2003). Christ killer, Kremlin, contagion. In Qureshi, E. and Sells, M. (eds.) The New Crusades: Constructing The Muslim Enemy. New York: Columbia University Press.
Simenstad, L.M. (2011). ‘Antirasistene er de eneste som opprettholder rasebegrepet’ [‘Anti-racists the only ones who maintain the concept of race’], Klassekampen 25 August.
Strømmen, Ø. (2011). Det mørke nettet. Om høyreekstremisme, kontrajihadisme og terror i Europa [The dark net. On right-wing extremism, contra-jihadism and terror in Europe]. Oslo: Cappelen Damm.
Spencer, R. (2008). Stealth Jihad: How Radical Islam is Subverting America Without Guns or Bombs. Washington, D. C.: Regency Publishing.
Sussman, R. W. (2014). The Myth of Race: The Troubling Persistence of an Unscientific Idea. Cambridge, Massacusetts and London: Harvard University Press.
Tjønn, H. et. al. (2004). ‘Jubel for Hagens utfall mot islam’ [‘Cheers for Hagen’s attack on islam’], Aftenposten 14 July.
Westlie, B. (2008). Min fars krig [My father’s war]. Oslo: Aschehoug.
Van Dijk, T. A. (1992). ‘Discourse and the Denial of Racism’, Discourse & Society 3 (1): 87-118.
Wilkinson, R. G. and Pickett, K. (2009). The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better. London and New York: Allen Lane.
Wodak, R. (1995). Critical Linguistics and Critical Discourse Analysis. In Verscheuren, J., Östman, J-O., Blommaert, J. and Bulcaen, C. (eds.) Handbook of Pragmatics 1995, 204-210. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Østby, L. (2008). ‘Levekårsundersøkelse blant innvandrere – hvordan og hvorfor’ [‘Quality of life study among immigrants – the how and why’]. In Svein Blom and Kristin Henriksen (eds.). Levekår blant innvandrere i Norge 2005/2006 [Quality of Life among Immigrants to Norway 2005/2006], pp. 15-26. Oslo: Statistisk Sentralbyrå/Statistics Norway.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright Notice
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication, with the work three months after publication simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal. This acknowledgement is not automatic, it should be asked from the editors and can usually be obtained one year after its first publication in the journal.
