According to statistics, the population of Oslo in 2021 will consist of more than 50% people of foreign herritage, most of whom are from Muslim countries. For many, among other the well known Minister of Education, Kristin Halvorsen, this "doesn’t represent a problem, but it does represent a challenge". She and her fellow progressives might find this a logical and meaningfull statement. I don’t. When the challenge you face is so great that it can’t be dealt with without extreme messures that demand high costs, then you are facing a problem. The ”challenge” being that Norwegians will become underrepresented in their own capital, is of this character.
The reason for this unbalanced population development is not only that the immigrants have more children than Norwegians and that Norway keep importing immigrants. It also has to do with the fact that Norwegians simply move out of the city or at least to the western districts (roughly said is Oslo a very divided city, with foreigners mostly living in a couple of districts east of the Aker River, while Norwegians still are the majority in the more prosporous west). As can be seen in this documentary (texted in English) from the Norwegian Broadcasting Company NRK, even progressive ”anti-racist” Norwegians are acknowledging the problems following an immigrant majority. This mother wanted to raise her son in a multicultural environment, only to experience that the little boy wasn’t accepted by the other foreign kids at his school, a school with more than 90% ”foreign language speakers”. They ended up changing schools. I wouldn’t be surprised if they end up changing city districts as well.
The problem has several dimension. Culturally, of course, this development will mean the end of Norwegian culture in the biggest city of Norway. I can’t wait to see the parade on the 17th of May marching up to the Royal Palace, waving Iraqi, Pakistani, Turkish, Palestinian and Solmali flags, with a small Norwegian one here and there. The major theaters in the country lies in Oslo. Will the Somalis be just as anxious to visit the National Theather and see Ibsen’s ”A dolls house”? Will the Pakistanis eagerly rush to the Norwegian Theater, one of the most important representatives of New Norwegian? Will they attend rock concerts in Rockefeller? Will the Iraqis cheer along side the streets when Oslo’s gay community stage their annual Pride Parade? And will they fill up the metro lines every Sunday morning during winter in order to go skiing in the forests around the city? If so, why don’t they do it today? I have personally done all of the above, but have yet to see any believing Muslim at any of the events. Why should that change after the Norwegians are gone?
The problem also has a politcal dimension. Oslo is a county and geographically a very small one at that. Many people live outside of the city, in the county of Akershus, whilst working in Oslo (six out of ten, according to statistics). Akershus is perhaps the county where most Norwegian ”refugees” from Oslo move to. As a consequence, the number of Norwegians with election rights in Oslo is reduced, while the number of foreign woters go up (you don’t have to be a Norwegian citizen in order to wote in the local elections). The possibility of political parties that appeal to (radical) Muslims having a go at the city council is very much present. Now, attempts have already been made in establishing parties for immigrants, without any luck. Most immigrants have until now been woting lefitst parties (80% in 1999), these being the ones who ”understand” the immigrants the best and agree to their ”cultural needs”. But with immigrants becoming the majority, why shouldn’t they form their own parties with programs that go even further in answering their own cultural and religious demands, or at least make the soft Left agree to more of these demands? Muslim schools. Segregated physical and other education in the normal schools. New regulations on the sale of alcohol. Abolishment of non-halal food in public cantines. All speculations of course, and perhaps small insignificant cases alone, but put together, they could represent the ”sneeking” islamification of the Norwegian society.
I once had a conversation with a fellow student of mine. For some reason, we started discussing the fact that immigrants are starting to out-number the Norwegians in the capital. She is a smart and kind person, from an intellectual home and up-to-date on what’s going on in the news. But she couldn’t understand my worries about the population imbalance. ”Why is it a problem?”, she said. ”They are just as Norwegian as you and me. I don’t see why we should make this a problem”. This was when I was ”young and dumb”, when I didn’t have the arguments mentioned above. I tried saying something about the language; that Norwegian language would suffer from becoming a minority in schools and being influenced by the poor vocabulary and grammar skills of the immigrant pupils. She agreed, but the solution was just better education. She completely ignored the fact that it is the language that is being spoken outside the class room that has the most influence on children and young people. Need I say that she votes the Socialist Left Party?
Lower birth rates
As mentioned at the beginning of this post, I said that the imbalance in birth rates between Norwegian women and their immigrant counterparts is one of the reasons for this development. Norwegian women had in 1999 1,8 children on average, whilst the rate for immigrant women was 2,4. The situation for other European countries is much worse. German women, for example, have only 1,3 children in average. This means that without immigration, the European population stagnates. The trend of lower birth rates accelerated in the late 60’s and has kept it self low since, much because of better birth controll (”the pill” came on the European market in 1961), but also largely because of the women emancipation.
The solution to falling birth rates would of course be a totally different family policy, making it easier for women to have children and still achieve self-actualization (as if they were mutually excluding). The Norwegian government deserves some credit on this point, having built an enormous amount of child care centers in the last couple of years. But this is not enough. A totally different attitude must be spread in the societies.
Self-actualization has become a somewhat selfish project, concentrating on one self as an individual, almost detached from the rest of the outside world. The late Austrian psychologist Viktor Frankl however, suggested that the ”real” self-actualization could only be fulfilled when the ”project” was directed outwards. Striving towards greater goals outside one self gives a much higher achievment of self-actualization, especially through social responsibility and involvement in the community. Having and raising children is one way of fulfilling one self, not only because children are nice to be with, but also because one sees one self as being a part of something greater, i.e. raising a new generation of the human race and, not the least, your own culture. But for many Europeans today, children are more of an obstacle in the way of self-actualization than they are a posibility of achieving this. Changing the mentality of the society in this respect, is therefore utterly important.
Sadly, as long as the Left and the progressives are running the show, this won’t happen. To say to women of today that they need to have more babies in order to preserve our people and culture, will probably be met with comments about Hitler’s Lebensborn and his handing out medals to women who got many children (it’s strange how the Left loves refering to the Nazis when they argue against opponents). In addition, they are afraid that by saying this, they will destroy what they and the feminist movement have achieved during the last 50 years. They don’t see that with the right policies it is possible to have the cake and eat it too.
If new and better family politics were introduced today, we would perhaps just make it before the real big wave of retired people hit Europe in 20 years. If not, we will have to import 56 million immigrants in order to take care of us. I know which alternative I’d prefer.
