What is this terrorism thing in Norway anyway?

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > What is this terrorism thing in Norway anyway?

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

Quickscope420dad posted:

A norsk acquaintance told me about this, and I asked "Lol why would anyone threaten norway though" and they said "because islam" so yeah i guess random racism / culturephobia or something i dunno

It's funny, because the closest thing they've come to Islamic terrorism is the Israelis killing some random Muslim guy they thought was a Hamas operative or something, and of course Breivik trying to convince everyone to rise up against the Muslims by killing Norwegian kids.

# ¿ Jul 31, 2014 14:05

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# ¿ May 2, 2024 23:19

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

Quickscope420dad posted:

They have some kinda terrifying nationalism going on over there too. I mean Norway day when everyone has to dress in basically a special Norway-only uniform and marches around every city about norway being norway and everything is loving Norway I dunno maybe I overreact to it but when you celebrate national pride by dressing like this:

Things start to border on Mormon-tier blind faith

You just need a handful of Norwegians for them to go full tilt with that getup in other countries too. It's not surprising though, from what I gather, the way they're taught history it's basically "Poor Norway was treated like a colony by the Danes, and then the Swedes, and it's only after 1905 that Norway finally emerged from a 500 year long national nightmare". Basically working from the assumption that Norway in 1398 would have been as nice and progressive as it was in 1905, if it wasn't because the dastardly Danes and Swedes had oppressed them while being regular nation states at home. Which is obviously silly, given that Denmark was basically like a mini-Habsburg Empire, ruled by absolutist Germans who didn't even speak Danish, and who wouldn't even have seen the point in treating Norwegians differently than their other subjects.

# ¿ Jul 31, 2014 14:36

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

Drakhoran posted:

Mossad murdered the innocent Moroccan waiter Ahmed Bouchikhi because they mistook him for one of the Black September guys behind the attack on the Munich Olympics. That was back in 1973, I'm not sure if Hamas even existed back then.

Yeah, you're right, Hamas was only founded more than a decade later. So many Palestinian organizations to remember.

Drakhoran posted:

A more recent incident that might actually have been Genuine Islamic Terror was the attempted murder of William Nygaard in 1993. Since the assailant was never found we don't really know the reason for the attack, but since Nygaard was the Norwegian publisher of Rushdie's The Satanic Verses it's usually linked to Khomeini's fatwa.

I was not aware of that.

# ¿ Jul 31, 2014 15:31

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

Tatum Girlparts posted:

Which countries still do blackface santa up there because I think we need to put those on a list never allowed to use the term 'cultish nationalism' until they stop telling black people in their country they're not respecting their own heritage by not liking santa's blackface slave.

What does "up there" mean? It's a Dutch tradition, not Scandinavian.

# ¿ Aug 2, 2014 16:02

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

Nyarlothotep posted:

It's a germanic tradition.

I thought the blackface servants were specifically Dutch? Even if the tradition has its origin in an older German tradition. I'm pretty sure at least it's not a pan-Germanic tradition though, haven't heard of similar traditions in the UK or Scandinavia.

# ¿ Aug 2, 2014 16:16

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

Nyarlothotep posted:

During last year's annual racist Christmas thread there were some pictures posted of Germans and Swiss dressed up in blackface, at least.

Looks like you're right. Seems like the Dutch just do it the hardest, but the Germans are happy to join in too. Maybe the fact that Germany has several Christmas traditions means it's not as ubiquitous there?

Nyarlothotep posted:

According to wikipedia in Scandinavia the tradition evolved into using elves, or 'tomten'.

The Scandinavian Christmas tradition is largely based on pre-Christian traditions, and what connection it has to Saint Nicholas came through the American Santa Claus rather recently, at least as far as I'm aware.

# ¿ Aug 2, 2014 16:39

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

Obdicut posted:

Using the phrase 'anglo-American' while talking about ignorance of nationalism is kind of weird. What the hell is 'anglo-american'?

When it comes to critiquing Europe, I think it's fairly justified to lump America and Britain together. The British view of "the Continent" and the American view of "Europe" has a lot of similarities, both essentially treating Europe as an equally unified entity which they can compare themselves to, rather than 40+ states of varying sizes and cultural similarities.

Note, this lumping together is not equivalent of what I'm accusing Brits and Americans of doing. America's position as leader of a unipolar world, and its massive cultural output and influence, means it's isolated to some degree from foreign cultures. Britain sorta piggybacks off that, since it shares its language with the US, and thus hasn't really had to reevaluate its own position vis-�-vis Europe.

This doesn't mean everyone else is immune to making stupid criticism, but being outside the Anglosphere helps makes you more aware of the existence of cultural differences since we're constantly being bombarded with outside cultural influence. Even more so in smaller countries, as bigger countries can insulate themselves to some degree with their own cultural output.

# ¿ Aug 2, 2014 17:43

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A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

Obdicut posted:

Edit: Oh, and Americans tend to think of Britons as "European", too.

Yes. The fact the approach is somewhat similar does not mean many Americans don't also lump the Brits in with every other European.

Quickscope420dad posted:

I don't know any British people who treat "Europe" as a single entity. the UK has got too much and too varied history dispersed between each of our neighboring countries to ignore them each having unique identities. Brits talk about the EU because there's a lot of political tension between it and the UK, but that's not the same thing. So lumping that with the general "EUROPE" thing that you think the US does I don't think is fair ( an informed US citizen could say similar things about their own country to what I've just said about the UK).

Also re-evaluation of the position with europe has been one of the driving political tensions in this country basically since the EEC so that's just horseshit.

Yes, tensions, because the British population is not unified in the reevaluation. I actually do agree that it's unfair to make that claim for all of Britain, now that I think about it, even if your current political leadership seems to be part of the population which prefers the old view of Britain as separate from Europe. You can probably make similar sorts of criticisms in other European countries, France in particular probably, but it's just extra obvious with Britain. Probably because this is an English language forum, and more generally, English is a more popular language than French.

Pissflaps posted:

I'm glad you pointed this out because it sounded like that's exactly what you did so I must have misread.

I'm talking about similarities on a single specific topic, not across the entire spectrum of culture and politics.

# ¿ Aug 2, 2014 18:01

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > What is this terrorism thing in Norway anyway?