Norway’s self-image as individualist and egalitarian frames Muslim difference as cultural clash.

Evidence

It would be a mistake to dismiss Wikan as simply a right-wing observer whose conservative views of immigrants lead her to understand forced marriage as simply evoking a clash of civilizations. Underpinning the culture clash described in Generous Betrayal is a more widespread national and international mythology, one shared even by those who would question Wikan’s conservatism and her evident belief in the civilized European. Everyday notions of ‘Norwegianness’ produce and rely upon the same dichotomy of the civilized citizen and the barbarian Other. Chief among these notions is the idea that Scandinavia in general, and Norway in particular, are societies that have an intrinsic and deep commitment to individualism and to gender equality. When they clash with Muslims, the clash is, then, truly a cultural one in the sense that one cultural characteristic (a commitment to equality and individualism) meets up with another (a commitment to patriarchy, hierarchy, and communalism). — Sherene Razack, Casting Out, 286

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the civilizational ‘clash of cultures’ framing that recurs throughout Casting Out and to Goldberg’s racial-modernity argument below.
• SEED: Angle: how nations with strong egalitarian self-conceptions deploy that very self-conception as a racial marker against immigrants.