Tag: norway

Is White Paint Racist?

I’ve just spent a week in a very white place. The snow fell solidly for two days, and everything was white – the air, the ground, the trees, the streets. And to complete the picture, the houses, in the little seaside town south of Oslo, blended in perfectly, being painted pure, brilliant white. When I got back to a green(ish) Scotland, I didn’t sigh with relief, “Thank goodness, I’m finally out of that racist hellhole.” But perhaps I should have.

According to Norwegian academics, “whiteness” and “white supremacy” are terms to take literally, and the colour white, in particular the white paint that is so commonly used on Norwegian houses, equals racism. Had it been the first of April, I would have assumed this was a hoax, but alas this is serious, state-funded stuff.

From the research project ‘How Norway Made the World Whiter (NorWhite)’ co-authored by Ingrid Haland, an associate professor at the University of Bergen, we learn that:

Whiteness is one of today’s key societal and political concerns. Within and beyond academia worldwide, actions of revolt and regret seek to cope with our racial past. In the pivotal works in whiteness studies within art and architecture history, whiteness is understood as cultural and visual structures of privilege. The new research project ‘How Norway Made the World Whiter’ (NorWhite) funded by the Research Council of Norway (12 million NOK), addresses a distinctively different battleground for politics of whiteness in art and architecture. Two core premises underpin the project: Whiteness is not only a cultural and societal condition tied to skin colour, privileges, and systematic exclusion, but materialise everywhere around us. Second, one cannot understand this materialisation without understanding the societal, technological and aesthetic conditions of the colour itself.

Following this inane logic, I should be ashamed at owning a white house, but perhaps pleased that my parents’ cabin in the mountains is painted brown? Or is that cultural appropriation?

Keep reading

“Queer” Academic Suggests Pedophilia Be Taught in Schools as an Innate Sexuality

A professor of Ethics at Oslo Metropolitan University in Norway has called to legalize AI-generated child pornography, claiming that pedophilia should be seen as an innate sexuality that requires destigmatization.

Ole Martin Moen, a gay man who identifies as “queer,” currently serves as a member of the advisory board on Norway’s Patient Organization for Gender-Incongruence (PKI), a social and political lobby group for trans rights. According to their official website, PKI’s purpose is to provide access to “gender-affirming treatment” to the public “regardless of factors like non-binary identity, sexual practice or having other diagnosis.” Moen has also served as academic council at Civita, Norway’s largest liberal think tank, since 2015.

Recently, Moen targeted Christina Ellingsen, a Norwegian feminist who is facing a police investigation and a potential sentence of three years in prison for tweets in which she stated that men cannot be lesbians.

Moen has repeatedly harassed the Twitter account of Women’s Declaration International Norway, making false claims about the nature of the investigation against Ellingsen.

Keep reading

Norwegian Feminist Faces Three Years in Prison For Saying Biological Men Can’t Be Lesbians

A Norwegian feminist faces up to three years in prison for saying that biological men can’t be lesbians.

Yes, really.

Christina Ellingsen, of the global feminist organization Women’s Declaration International (WDI), is under police investigation for making the claim in a tweet in which she criticized the trans activism group FRI.

“Why [does] FRI teach young people that males can be lesbians? Isn’t that conversion therapy?” Ellingsen allegedly tweeted.

She also questioned the legitimacy of FRI’s advisor Christine Jentoft identifying as a lesbian despite being born a biological male.

“Jentoft, who is male and an advisor in FRI, presents himself as a lesbian – that’s how bonkers the organization which supposedly works to protect young lesbians’ interests is. How does it help young lesbians when males claim to be lesbian, too?” Ellingsen reportedly said.

“You are a man. You cannot be a mother,” Ellingsen allegedly told Jentoft. “To normalize the idea that men can be mothers is a defined form of discrimination against women.”

“Amnesty International is also accusing Ellingsen of harassment for saying that Jentoft is a man on national television,” reports Reclaim the Net.

Norway’s hate crime laws were made more draconian last year to make criticizing gender ideology a crime and Ellingsen faces up to three years in prison if she is convicted.

Keep reading

Norway May Refine Vaccine Strategy After Elderly Deaths, PM Says

The Prime Minister of Norway, Erna Solberg, says her country may fine-tune the vaccination of its oldest, sickest citizens as it tries to make sense of a recent spate of deaths.

Having weathered the pandemic better than most, Norway suddenly made international headlines this month after revealing that more than 30 people — all over 70 and all already sick — died not long after being vaccinated against Covid-19. Solberg says the intense global interest in the news was “exaggerated” as she tries to ensure the development doesn’t put people off inoculation.

“We don’t believe there’s any problem with the safety of the vaccines,” Solberg said in an interview with Bloomberg Live that aired on Tuesday. “But we will maybe not give them to the most vulnerable of the elderly, because that might speed up a process where they were what we would say at the end of life phase anyway,” so, “that probably is not what we will continue to do.”

Keep reading

23 die in Norway after receiving Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine: officials

Twenty-three people died in Norway within days of receiving their first dose of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine, with 13 of those deaths — all nursing home patients — apparently related to the side effects of the shots, health officials said.

Common reactions to the vaccine, including fever and nausea, “may have contributed to a fatal outcome in some frail patients,” Sigurd Hortemo, chief physician at the Norwegian Medicines Agency, said in a Friday statement. 

All 13 were nursing home patients and at least 80 years old. While officials aren’t expressing serious concern, they are adjusting their guidance on who should receive the vaccine. 

Keep reading