Norway’s moderate framing conceals anti-Muslim agendas similar to Denmark’s

Evidence

Although several European states have sought to regulate the conduct of Muslim migrant communities through laws condemning various practices, including female genital mutilation, the wearing of the veil, and forced marriages, I choose in this chapter to explore recent Norwegian initiatives in the area of forced marriages. Unlike other European countries such as France, Norway does not have a long history of hostile encounters with Muslim populations and appears to be less openly anti-immigrant than are some other countries in the region. Norway provides an interesting context for exploring how notions such as integration and culture clash in fact conceal the same anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim agendas evident in European states considered to be further right and more openly racist. I suggest, then, that although Norway is more moderate than countries such as Denmark, Norwegian responses have been nonetheless racist, ‘culturalizing’ violence against women as an attribute of Muslim peoples and using the opportunity to justify a number of initiatives that have more to do with teaching ‘them’ how to behave than having any meaningful anti-violence objective. — Sherene Razack, Casting Out, 252

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the wider ‘moderate vs. extreme racism on a continuum’ literature, and to similar claims about Sweden and Canadian multiculturalism.
• ADDENDUM: Complements the ‘Complaints About Immodesty Go Way Back’ article’s theme of how moral-panic framings of women’s bodies are deployed politically.