The weight of words: the freedom of expression debate in Norway

Abstract

A confluence of interests and forces among Norwegian political, media and legal elites since the Rushdie affair and the ‘Mohammed cartoon crisis’ have created conditions in which minority protections against racist and discriminatory speech as guaranteed by Norwegian law, and Norwegian obligations under international law, have been rendered all but ineffective – in the name of stronger protections for freedom of expression. In the event, Islamophobia and anti-Muslim racism have not only often gone unchallenged, but have been amplified and disseminated both through the extreme rightwing presence on the internet, and in mainstream and respected Norwegian print media. The ideology of Anders Breivik, perpetrator of the massacre of 22/7/2011, was not isolated, but forms part of a larger and by many accounts growing phenomenon. Successive government commissions on freedom of expression in Norway have only exacerbated this tendency. This article explores the philosophical and political underpinnings of the freedom of expression debate in Norway and warns about the threat to liberal democracy and equal citizenship from the sanitising and mainstreaming of virulent far-right racism and extremism.