One of the experts on contemporary Islamophobia subpoenaed in the trial against Anders Behring Breivik is the Norwegian writer Øyvind Strømmen. Prior to this case he was virtually unknown, but he has enjoyed a tremendous career boost thanks to Breivik’s evil acts, and is now hailed as a “leading expert” on the Counterjihad, a claim which triggers roars of laughter from those who actually know this movement. A lucky opportunist, Strømmen sells his books by labeling me a dangerous “Fascist.” He says very little about real problems caused by mass immigration to Western countries, but a great deal about how evil any opposition to mass immigration is.
Strømmen also had an article published in the prestigious American magazine Foreign Affairs, a journal published by an influential foreign-policy think tank, the Council on Foreign Relations. The CFR usually supports the line that Islam is not a problem in itself, only certain “militant Islamists.” Writing there about what he termed “violent Counter-Jihadism,” which he linked to Breivik’s mass murder, Strømmen concluded that “It is crucial that law-enforcement authorities and intelligence agencies better understand the true relationship between the words and ideas of Internet-based counter-jihadists and the real-world violence they seem to have inspired.”
The official line promoted in the mainstream media, for instance by Mina Hauge Nærland in the newspaper Aftenposten, is that I am an “extremist” whereas Strømmen is an expert on extremists. It is unclear how he earned this title just by reading a few blogs, however. I’ve seen former US President George W. Bush multiple times on TV. Does that make me an expert on Bush, to be consulted by the press and the police?
At the public broadcaster NRK, Tarjei Skirbekk honored Strømmen’s book The Dark Net with a very positive review. I’m referred to as one of the foremost ideologues “on the extreme Right in Europe and a leading carrier of Fascist ideology.” Strømmen spends much time discussing various proto-Fascists, one of them being the Italian author Oriana Fallaci. Fallaci was an anti-Fascist throughout her life and saw the struggle against Islam in the final years of her life as the logical conclusion of this – but let’s not let facts get in the way of a good story.
I have been forced to pay thousands of kroner to this public broadcaster out of my own pocket for years, as have most Norwegian citizens. I challenged journalist Knut Hoem from NRK, who reviewed a related book about the dangers of Islamophobia, about why his channel never seems to review books such as Marked for Death by Geert Wilders. After all, as a public service institution supposedly dedicated to balanced “quality” journalism, shouldn’t they present both sides of the story? Predictably, I received no reply to this question.
For the record, in all of my writings – and I’d estimate that I have published more than a million words online, although I lost track years ago – I haven’t called for colonizing other peoples’ countries a single time. Not once.
What it takes to be labeled a “right-wing extremist” and almost a “Nazi” in our age is to be European and support the self-determination and self-preservation of European civilization and the ethnic groups and nations which historically created it. Self-preservation, the very essence of life all the way down to bacteria, is now systematically being denied to Europeans. If you are a person of European extraction, you become an “extremist” not by wanting to colonize other people’s countries, but simply by resisting the colonization of your country by others.
In the regional daily Bergens Tidende, Norway’s largest newspaper published outside the capital city of Oslo, the columnist Frode Bjerkestrand wrote a review of Strømmen’s book about dangerous right-wing extremists such as myself, illustrated by a photo of mean-looking neo-Nazis on the march. Bjerkestrand dubbed it “insightful” and said that it brings light into the mindset of extremism and terrorism in Europe, with its “language of hate.”
Strømmen published an essay in the newspaper VG entitled “The Prophet Peder Jensen.” Yes, the Prophet, peace be upon me. He there stated that “Fjordman has contributed to constructing the idea world of the terrorists. He has laid foundations for the infrastructure of terrorism. Peder Jensen from Ålesund is the Sayyid Qutb of the Counterjihad, he is the ideologue who gave the terrorists a push into a dark and hateful world.”
Notice the plural here: terrorists. This is not an error; it is there in the original text. Not only is Mr. Strømmen largely blaming me for pushing Breivik into mass murder of 77 people; he’s suggesting that there is a veritable wave of terrorists out there, all inspired by my evil writings. And he is lauded as an “expert” in the field!
He would have us believe that the tensions we are witnessing in Europe today did not arise because the natives cannot walk the streets in safety in Berlin, Brussels, Birmingham and Marseilles, nor are they due to the Islamic suicide bombings in London or Madrid. The shadow of Fjordman looms large and covers the entire continent in darkness, barely 70 years after Hitler died.
The great irony here is that Breivik himself was deeply inspired by the Islamic Jihadist terror network al-Qaida and its ideologue Sayyid Qutb. He even mentioned him in court during the trial. Qutb represented the Muslim Brotherhood, whose members are currently been courted openly and invited for meetings and “dialogue” with Western governments, from European capital cities to Washington D. C. They’re being hailed as “moderates.”
But if the Muslim Brotherhood are moderate people and Counterjihadists are their non-Muslim equivalents, shouldn’t Counterjihadists be invited to high-level dialogue meetings with the EU and the US Government?
VG’s regular columnist Anders Giæver also compared me to a prophet in a later essay. He seemed to suggest that some people react as strongly to any criticism or mockery of Prophet Fjordman as they do to any criticism or mockery of Prophet Mohammed. Giæver allegedly received an unpleasant email from a reader after having written highly negative things about me. If it’s true, that’s unfortunate, of course, but VG has also written some very negative articles about me with published readers’ comments calling me a “right-wing extremist rat.”
Since the earliest days of Islam people who mock Mohammed or his teachings have run a very real risk of being murdered. This has become a part of his Sunna, or personal example. If you believe traditional Islamic sources, individuals such as the poetess Asma bint Marwan were murdered simply for mocking Mohammed. This is not something that is of mere historical interest, it remains a real threat. The Danish Mohammed cartoonists were threatened with death, and the cartoons triggered violent protests and deaths in different parts of the world.
We can safely assume that Anders Giæver exaggerated just a little bit with his comparisons – or perhaps a lot. To date, not many people around the world have been beheaded for insulting me or saying bad things about my texts. If that were the case, a substantial proportion of the international press would be headless by now. There is no great “stop the defamation against Fjordman” campaign underway at the United Nations, either.
In the daily Vårt Land, Strømmen strongly warned against giving those who are critical of Islam and mass immigration too much access to the mass media. This is the man who participated alongside the Norwegian Minister of Justice and the Police, Grete Faremo from the Labor Party, in a conference at the national Police University College on how the authorities and the police can work together more closely to prevent the spread of “extremism” – a term which often seems to overlap with those who disagree too vocally with the Social Democrats and their policies.
As usual, during this conference including the police authorities and the government, Strømmen highlighted me personally as representing one of the greatest threats Europe has faced since the Nazis. He did exactly the same thing at the Labor Party’s own conference about extremism in early 2012. Strømmen has also lectured members of the important government-appointed 22 July Commission, established to look into the causes of Breivik’s mass murder on 22 July 2011, about the supposedly large potential for violence among anti-Islamists.
Minister of Justice Grete Faremo has repeatedly emphasized the need to counteract so-called extremism on the Internet and wants the police to concentrate more resources on surveillance of this dangerous movement. Her policy closely mirrors the views of Øyvind Strømmen, who has earlier called for having more online police patrols on controversial websites and blogs. Kristin Halvorsen of the Socialist Left Party, a Minister in PM Jens Stoltenberg’s left-wing coalition government, has launched an Internet campaign against racism, xenophobia and Islamophobia.
Strømmen has previously voiced the view that Breivik’s mass murder was the logical conclusion of the postings on independent websites such as Gates of Vienna, Tundra Tabloids or Vlad Tepes blog. Western authorities unfortunately seem to agree with this viewpoint.
We can expect further clampdowns on those who voice any opposition to Islamization or Multiculturalism from the very same people who love the Muslim Brotherhood.