FremskrittsPartiet is a racist party...
While the members of the party may not themselves be racists, the agenda they are pushing is racist and is fueling racism within Norway.
The first piece of evidence is their flyer for the 2005 election.
With a picture of a man wearing a balaclava and welding a shotgun it quotes "The perpetrator is of foreign origin… !".
While there is some truth here. Leaders of countries know better than to aggrevate the sensitive issue of immigrants and crime without careful heed to the facts and complications behind such issues. Otherwise they will be cast as fear mongers rather than problem solvers. The problem solving approach would be quoting the statistical truth that "3% of immigrants in norway commit crimes and 1.5% of norwegians commit crimes". Doesn't sound too racist does it? Furthermore it educates the public to the real status of crime levels rather than simply fueling hatred.
Around the world crime rates among immigrants is often higher, and I can think quickly of one good reason for this, having gone through immigration myself. To be an immigrant is an incredibly difficult journey to take on. You leave your family, your friends, your work and career, everything behind. Differences in culture, climate, and language, can only compound on the isolation felt by immigrants. It is common to hear about the problem where immigrant are never accepted by the new culture, and are distanced and seen as deserters by the old culture. While this does not excuse crime, think of the children of these families that never had a say in the family's immigration. The problems that come out of immigrant populations are just as much a reflection on the welcoming country as on the immigrants original culture.
The second piece of evidence happened a few weeks before the 2005 election. Carl I Hagen said on TV 2 "all terrorists are muslims". The journalist responded with asking about the Irish IRA, the spanish Basque, and other non-muslim terrorist groups. Hagen answered these were not terrorist groups because they only operated within their own countries! Carl I Hagen is not this stupid, it's sensational propaganda smeared on top of a dash of racism aimed to
entertain the public.
The third piece of evidence, the real bomb, was FrP's campaign to prevent immigration from asia, africa, and south america!
The reasoning given was that these cultures are too different to norway.
This is old fashioned plain
racism. Judging people by their culture. Some might debate this is not racism, that racism is prejudice against race, and that prejudice against culture or origin is something different. Six of one, half dozen of the other? You choose.
Going back we can find other evidence as well. In 1993-94 there was internal struggle in the party between the libertarians and the extreme-conservatives. Carl I Hagen, and the conservatives won, the libertarians in the party were forced out to be independents or join other right-wing parties.
This incident was sparked up because the libertarians objected strongly to FrP re-using materials from, the more obviously
racist groups in norway, Den Norske Forening, neo-Nazi group Viking, and Fedrelandspartiet (Fatherland Party).
The hypocrisy of FremskrittsPartiet
While FremskrittsPartiet continues to campaign for zero immigration in Norway, the leader Carl I Hagen, and other party members, live in Spain.
While FremskrittsPartiet continues to iterate that the problem with immigrants is that they stick together and do not assimilate, Carl I Hagen, and the rest of the party live in a norwegian dominated area in Spain. One big flock of norwegians huddling together.
Frp, while in government, initiated the creation of fees for norwegian classes for immigrants. The 500Kr fee imposed was peanuts for the government, not even close to enough to cover the costs of running the school and paying the teachers. This 500Kr is substantially more for many of the immigrants unable to find work yet. I was in the classes at this time, and I saw and heard most of the classes went from 20+ students to not more than 5 pupils.
After this stunt FrP has the hide to criticise immigrants for not making enough enough effort to learn norwegian.
If FrP was such a great thinking party, they might have realised that immigrants receive a 15% tax reduction for the first four years in norway. They could have reduced this by 5% and probably accounted for all the costs for the schools! What a thinking party!
While strongly opposed to immigration, they campaign for elderly care, promising to spend more money. If they had paid attention to the problem they would have realised money is not the problem, definitely not in norway, it is that there will be more aged people than workers in ten to twenty years! The obvious solution will again fall back to a boost in immigration.
Sensational Propaganda
If you look closely to other policies and proposals by Frp you will see the same lack of thought to the underlying problems.
They are a party out to create sensational headlines, sensational headlines that appeal to people that do not think.
References
- History of Racism in Norway -
http://www.axt.org.uk/antisem/archive/archive1/norway/norway.htm
- Frp Brochure: ?The perpetrator is of foreign origin ? !? - http://www.amren.com/mtnews/archives/2005/08/progress_party.php
- Anti-Racist Center - http://www.antirasistisk-senter.no/
- Dagbladet: "I'm not racist, but.." - http://www.dagbladet.no/magasinet/2005/09/07/442630.html
- Carl I Hagen: "All terrorists are muslim" - http://www.aftenposten.no/english/local/article1103526.ece
- Kan vi forklare Carl I. Hagens suksess? - http://norvegicus.blogspot.com/2005/03/kan-vi-forklare-carl-i-hagens-suksess.html
- Carl I Hagen speaks at pro-Israel protest - http://www.norwaypost.no/content.asp?cluster_id=21824&folder_id=1
This article does not accept to take a complete approach to all policies offered by FremskrittsParti. It is not an article out to provide a balanced prospective of everything FrP has to promote.
Nor is this an article out to stigmatise FrP from typical european associations between racism and violence.
Rather this article focus' primarily on the manner in which FrP has crossed boundaries of political correctness in regards to it's zero immigration policy…
