Bjørn Stærk blog - The vulgar truth

Tuesday July 08, 2003 by Bjørn Stærk

There have been more reactions than usual, and all of them very negative, to the Hagen interview I mentioned below, where he called forced marriage a form of rape, and accused the government and Bondevik of being responsible through their passivity to the problem. Curiously, the criticism doesn't focus on the arguments themselves - that forced marriage is common, that it can be likened to rape, and that the government ignores the problem - in fact some editorials partly agree, but rather on Hagen's poor taste and populist cynicism in being so blunt about it. (The offending quote was: "Bondevik stands by and watches as Norwegian girls are being raped.")

Kjell Magne Bondevik dismisses the statement as a "panicked attempt" to get attention, deserving no further comment. Minister of Local Government Erna Solberg focuses on what she mysteriously perceives as the hypocrisy of being for less immigration, while also being for the rights of those immigrants who already live here. Former Conservative prime minister Kåre Willoch rather patronizingly asks Hagen to quiet down and think twice the next time he's talking to a journalist, while Ågot Valle in the Socialist Left fears that statements of this kind may damage the reputation of politics and people's faith in democracy. Torbjørn Jagland, Labor, reiterates the tired claim that Hagen is our local mini-Le Pen, (and says that the only thing positive about European right-wing populism of today is that at least it isn't shooting at people any longer. Might say the same thing about the Labor party, once a member of the Comintern.)

The newspapers are even more negative to Hagen's phrasing, (though some of them agree with the basic arguments).

Aftenposten:

As a politician, Carl I. Hagen has many qualities. But the Hagen who now reveals himself, is a Hagen at his worst. The country's most interviewed politician is angry, and there is no limit to what he can make himself say. [..] It ought to be unnecessary to point out that this is a grotesque distortion of our political reality. And when Hagen's self righteousness takes form of accusations as low as these, it is of course tempting to follow up with a sharp condemnation. We will however make a brave attempt not to do this.

Dagbladet:

Carl I. Hagen speaks coldly against immigration, but is at the same time a warm spokesman for the cause of immigrant girls, when he wants to defend them against forced marriage. Not only are they being raped, they're being raped right in front of the eyes of prime minister Kjell Magne Bondevik, according to Hagen. As is well known, the factual level of the immigration debate is proportional to the distance to the next election - it sinks as the election approaches.
More curiously, Hagen receives support from Hege Storhaug in Human Rights Service. She claims that girls who are forcibly married are usually raped, and is thankful of Hagen's statement in the debate. It's one thing that the Progress Party will use any opportunity to demonize people with a minority background. But that an organization which works against the oppression of women thus legitimizes Hagen's level of debate, is incomprehensible.

Bergens Tidende:

Carl. I Hagen has several points. But he gives them a vulgar form which robs the immigration debate of nuance and seriousness. Even those who believe that Norwegian immigration policies have been inconsequential and partly based on naivety shakes their heads at Hagen. This does not concern Hagen. He expects his most important message - that the Progress Party is the most immigrant hostile party in Norway - to reach the masses. And it probably will.

(How is it hostile to immigrants to want to protect their basic human rights?)

Fædrelandsvennen:

Norway cannot accept that women are raped on their wedding night, no more than we can accept rape in other situations. But Hagen's lack of nuance in his statements does not contribute to elevating the debate or make the situation better for those the statement was meant to support. Though it is important to focus on abuses, foreign-cultural women have a lot to lose from Hagen's stigmatization.

What everyone seems to agree upon, is that forced marriage is an issue that deserves to be discussed, but that Hagen, abusing the issue for his own populist ends, is doing it the wrong way, is in fact hurting the debate by making it a debate about him and not the problem itself.

That's a curious thing to say for the very same newspapers that have turned this into an debate about Hagen. To be concerned about civility and seriousness in an important debate is of course admirable, and there's no doubt that it was undiplomatic and tendentious of Hagen to hold Bondevik directly responsible. But Hagen isn't the one who's placing himself in front of the issue here, the newspapers and politicians quoted above are. They're the ones who have responded to Hagen's important statement by criticizing his methods and his motives, while paying less or no attention to the important issue they claim he's obscuring.

Hagen has a certain way of talking, and that certain way puts a lot of respectable journalists off. He's also very often the only media voice in Norway to bring attention to certain important issues, among them problems involving immigration and integration. Now, if these newspapers acknowledge that forced marriage is an important issue, and if Hagen is the only politician who wants to talk about it, how do they expect a serious debate to get started when they themselves are unable to focus on anything other than Hagen's personality? Shouldn't they rather, if they disagree with the way he said it, ignore that, and stick to the facts in the hope that a genuine, serious debate might occur?

I can't escape the conclusion that there's no way anyone can talk bluntly, without euphemisms, about the problem of forced marriage, without being dismissed as vulgar by the high-minded defenders of the public debate quoted above. That's the attitude Hagen has been fighting for decades, (gaining ground inch by inch), and that's why his minor overstatement is a non-issue.