The national Norwegian newspaper Dagsavisen recently smeared Fjordman on more than one occasion. They accused him of promoting an ideology of hatred, likened him to a Nazi, and published quotes attributed to him which in fact he never spoke or wrote.
Fjordman then sent a response to the newspaper, which it refused to publish.
He later published his response via Snaphanen. With the help of our Norwegian correspondent The Observer, Fjordman’s reply has been translated into English. Fjordman has also included an introduction to the unpublished piece.
In December 2011, the journalists Nina Johnsrud and Tore Letvik from the national Norwegian newspaper Dagsavisen published an article in which I was accused of putting ideas about “breeding stations” into Breivik’s mind. I challenged them to find a single quote I have ever published about breeding stations. They obviously couldn’t find any, since this is a lie.
The newspaper never published a correction or apology for this lie, however, for the simple reason that they are not dealing in honest journalism. This was a smear campaign of character assassination against my person, since the political Left in particular has declared me to be Public Enemy Number Two, second only to Anders Behring Breivik. They don’t look at the ball; they just want to take the man. In a strange way, I take this as a compliment. My critics are utterly incapable of defeating any of my main arguments, and they know it, so they don’t even try.
The same newspaper directly compared me to Heinrich Himmler and the SS. I’ve been compared to Nazi leaders several times in the mainstream press.
The ruthless Himmler was “the prime architect of the Holocaust. More than any other individual, Himmler was the man who created the network of state terror by which the Third Reich suppressed its opposition, eliminated its internal enemies, and compelled obedience from the German citizenry.”
He oversaw all police and security forces, including the Gestapo — the Secret State Police — and the SS, Adolf Hitler’s elite bodyguard. He was personally responsible for organizing the genocide of millions of people, partially through the use of gas chambers, and for creating a totalitarian system of brutal state suppression. Dagsavisen claims that I promote “the same” policies today.
Dagsavisen has intimate historical and ideological bonds to the Labor Party. Today it is no longer explicitly Labor’s propaganda outlet, as it once was, but it would be fair to say that the newspaper’s views still closely mirror those of the Social Democrats and the labor unions. Its editor-in-chief Arne Strand has long been associated with the Labor Party, and represented the government of former Labor Prime Minister Gro Harlem Brundtland. It is tempting to see this article as a deliberate hit-piece against my person, one that will probably be applauded by the ruling parties.
Dagsavisen’s other chief editor, Kaia Storvik, used to be an active Communist and a member of the Red Youth, the revolutionary youth league. She is now known for lamenting how hard it is to get people convicted in court for saying racist things, especially since her country and the Western world are swarming with white racists.
Dagsavisen received over 40 million kroner in state subsidies in 2011 alone, more than any other newspaper in the country. The newspaper has been on life support for years, and would most likely go bankrupt without this continuous blood transfusion that is forcibly sponsored by Norwegian taxpayers of all political colors.
The far-Leftist newspaper Klassekampen (“The Class Struggle”) also receives tens of millions every single year in press support. This press support is supposed to ensure “diversity” in the mass media, but in reality it supports a diversity of left-wing views. There are practically no conservative media outlets in Norway.
It is well-documented — and grudgingly admitted by the press themselves — that journalists in Norway as well as in neighboring Sweden and Denmark are considerably more left-leaning in their ideological views and political sympathies than is true of the general population. In fact, judged by the data I have seen, this strong left-wing media bias exists throughout most of the Western world, not just in the Scandinavian or Nordic countries. If this allegation is correct, this represents a major systemic problem for Western societies.
The mass media are the eyes and ears of modern societies. If they do not function properly, citizens will find it very hard to maneuver rationally and deal in a sensible manner with the challenges they face. This can be compared to being confronted by a hungry polar bear, whereas your eyes and ears keep telling you that this is actually a cozy teddy bear who just craves a little love and understanding.
Militant Islamic organizations and other hostile outsiders keep bragging about how they are going to colonize and conquer Western countries. They must be amazed by the near-total lack of resistance they face. One of the main reasons for this is that a heavily biased press of Globalists and Multiculturalists, who daily feed the masses a deeply distorted image of reality, where problems are the result of white racism and xenophobia.
Hilde Haugsgjerd is now chief editor of the newspaper Aftenposten, which used to be considered a conservative paper. She warns against a “hate ideology” that is hostile to Islam. Haugsgjerd is the former party leader of the revolutionary Marxist-Leninist Red Electoral Alliance, and was once married to married to the Communist activist Sigurd Allern. He was for many years editor-in-chief of the radical newspaper Klassekampen, whose editors and writers were enthusiastic apologists for brutal Marxist regimes. Allern later became professor of journalism at the University of Oslo, where he can shape the minds of young and aspiring future journalists.
Jens Stoltenberg’s Labor-led government spends one billion kroner annually on often expensive professional communications advisers. This is a substantial sum for such a small country, especially considering that the Labor Party already receives largely favorable press coverage from many journalists, including the state broadcaster NRK.
In a debate published at the website of the newspaper Dagsavisen, commenter Ben Økland called me virtually every bad name in the book. He represents the Norwegian Greens, where writer Øyvind Strømmen is also a leading member. Økland terms people such as myself a “plague epidemic” of mentally deranged people and psychiatric cases who spread “poison” and “pollute society”, with our hateful paranoia acting like toxic waste.
An honorary member of the Greens in Norway is Johan Galtung, a founder of so-called “peace and conflict studies”. He is well-known for his sometimes highly controversial statements, and has been accused of acting as an apologist for brutal and repressive Communist regimes during the Cold War. Galtung looks forward to the possibility that all of Europe could become Islamic. This can bring many positive things to the continent and dilute that pesky individualism, of which there is still too much there, or so he thinks. Yet in his view it is crucial that native Europeans quietly accept this inevitable tide of history and do not attempt to resist the Muslim takeover of their continent in any way, as this could trigger Islamic radicalization.
These comments about an easily recognizable individual citizen — me — were published under an essay written by the journalist Halvor Finess Tretvoll. I pointed out that Dagsavisen is operating dangerously close to a libel suit. By email he responded that they believe in free speech. Free speech is good. Since I have controversial opinions myself, I respect that principle very much.
However, Tretvoll refused to publish my reply, although he admitted that I had stayed within the normal limits for such a reply, and couldn’t find any factual errors in what I wrote. The problem is that I had dared to utter some critical comments about leading Labor Party figures.
So, free speech to Dagsavisen means that they can publish accusations that I inspire mass murder, that I am just like Nazi criminals who were responsible for organizing genocide, and that I represent a plague epidemic of delusional people whose paranoia is like toxic waste to society. Yet they refuse to publish a short reply by me.
When I contacted them for a reply, Dagsavisen at first wanted to interview me. I said no. One does not reward a newspaper for writing crap about oneself by giving them an interview in return. Anders Behring Breivik’s defense lawyer Geir Lippestad earlier singled out the dissident writer Hans Rustad and me as morally “responsible” for ABB’s mass murder of 77 people. The newspapers VG and Dagbladet in particular went a long way towards legitimizing this claim. VG still had the nerve to ask me for an interview immediately afterwards. I told them to get stuffed.
VG then proceeded to publish an article based on my confidential police statement, in which they used lies and distortions to present me as having egged Breivik on by email while he was preparing his terror attacks. I told them in no uncertain terms that I have no interest in making money for them by being urinated upon in public, and then granting them an interview explaining to the general public how it’s like to be urinated upon in public.
The same principle applies to Dagsavisen: I exercised my right to reply, but in writing only. I am a writer. They reluctantly agreed to this. Since the original article was a long attack on my character, I wanted a long essay in return. I reluctantly agreed to write a shorter text as a start. This was then rejected.
When a newspaper compares me to the SS and Heinrich Himmler, who organized one of the worst genocides in modern world history, and also publishes comments comparing me to a plague epidemic and toxic waste, they are obliged to present strong arguments justifying their decision not to publish a brief explanation of why I write what I write.
Since they never provided me with a satisfactory explanation, I therefore am publishing my suggested reply below in English translation. The original Norwegian text was published at the blog Snaphanen.
I am deeply grateful to The Observer for his translation:
Multiculturalism and hypocrisy
On Dec. 7, 2011, Dagsavisen published an article about me containing nasty accusations and blatant lies. It’s a severe transgression to claim that I espouse “the same views” as the SS and Heinrich Himmler, the people who were responsible for the Holocaust, which claimed the lives of millions of Jews. The fact that they feel compelled to fabricate lies in order to defame me is clear proof that they cannot win with arguments.
It is tempting to see this article as part of an organized campaign to get rid of troublesome dissidents who are critical of Multiculturalism, Islam and mass immigration. The political establishment loves dissidents, but only if they live far away in places like Burma or Tibet. It’s a very different story if they come from their own country.
The Party Secretary of the Norwegian Labour Party, Raymond Johansen, is technically speaking my former boss. I worked in the Middle East in 2002 and 2003. In reality, I represented the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, but formally I was employed by the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC), which at the time was led by Johansen.
Some people probably wonder why I didn’t continue this career and by so doing earn good money in a nice, respectable job. The answer is that I made a deliberate choice that this was something I just couldn’t live with. It’s impossible for me to be part of the asylum-industrial complex, which undermines the future of my own country. This goes against my conscience. This became particularly difficult after the NRC publicly condemned the publishing of the Danish Muhammed cartoons. This can hardly be interpreted as anything other than a submission to Islam — which actually means “submission.” I simply cannot be a part of something like that.
Many minors now experience regular harassment in our schools and kindergartens simply because they happen to belong to the country’s native ethnic population, who are gradually being displaced from their homeland as a result of the current immigration policies. It is sheer hypocrisy when Jonas Gahr Støre and other members of the Norwegian peace industry turn their backs on children whose childhoods are ruined as a result of violence and harassment from immigrant gangs. We should ensure that we have a safe environment for our own kids before we start lecturing the rest of the world on how they should behave.
For a complete archive of Fjordman’s writings, see the multi-index listing in the Fjordman Files.
Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was shot in the head and almost killed this time last year, made her final appearance in Congress tonight when she attended President Obama’s State of the Union address. She was greeted warmly by members of both parties.
