BRUCE BAWER
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by "non-Western" immigrants-a category that, in Norway, consists
mostly of Muslims. The article quoted a professor of social anthropol–
ogy at the University of Oslo (who was described as having "lived for
many years in Muslim countries") as saying that "Norwegian women
must take their share of responsibility for these rapes" because Muslim
men found their manner of dress provocative. One reason for the high
number of rapes by Muslims, explained the professor, was that in their
native countries "rape is scarcely punished," since Muslims "believe that
it is women who are responsible for rape." The professor's conclusion
was not that Muslim men living in the West needed to adjust to Western
norms, but the exact opposite: "Norwegian women must realize that we
live in a multicultural society and adapt themselves to it."
It
is in such ways that freedoms begin to erode.
Two
PEOPLE WHO PLAINLY UNDERSTOOD
this were Shabana Rehman, a
woman who grew up in Oslo's Muslim community, and Hege Storhaug.
In a courageous article that appeared in the Norwegian newspaper
VG
in April
2000,
Rehman and Storhaug accused Norway's Muslim leaders
of presenting the general public with a misleading picture of what was
going on inside their community-a picture that Norwegian authorities
gladly accepted, the article charged, even though they knew better.
Noting "the lack of freedom and the violence [that] reign in a large
part of the Muslim immigrant community," Rehman and Storhaug
asserted that many Muslims in Norway were engaged in "a life and
death struggle to secure fundamental human rights." Pointing out that
Muslim community leaders routinely "deny that [Muslim] women [in
Norway] are lacking in freedom or that they are the victims of violence,"
the article argued that "it is impossible for Norwegian authorities to
clean up these problems as long as the immigrants' representatives con–
tinue to veil the truth." Rehman and Storhaug went on to say,
The Norwegian public has let itself be fooled by the [Muslim
1
com–
munity's dissemblers ever since the beginning of the integration
debate. In one voice, they have delivered an unambiguous message:
that the problem for today's immigrants, both young and old, is
discrimination and racism in orwegian society. This is a lie-a
distorted picture that conceal the real obstruction to integration.
That obstruction is found within the immigrant community itself:
in its lack of respect for human rights and its prevailing notions of
honor and shame.
