comments expresses the writer’s opinions.
The reactions have been many and strong following a column by the sociologist Christopher R. Fardan in Aftenposten this week. Here he claimed that “Honor violence” is not due to Islam or Muslims”.
Fardan is a researcher at C-Rex, Center for Extremism Research at the University of Oslo. In particular, he wanted to dispel the myths about the so-called fear of touch that many have written about recently.
But this was only the beginning.
I quote:
“Furthermore, it is pointed out that “honour crimes” are committed by people with backgrounds from Muslim-majority countries such as Syria, Somalia, Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan. However, these are states that score poorly on Islamic values, such as well-functioning institutions, economic freedom, human rights and good international relations”.
Freedom and human rights are therefore prominent Islamic values, according to Fardan.
Fortunately, the researcher himself is also open and tolerant. And as a subtle rhetorical masterstroke, he clarifies that he does not want to speak badly of all those who have misunderstood:
“I don’t want to doubt the good intentions of others, but the rhetoric about ‘honor crime’ testifies to moral panic and a narrow understanding of Islam,” he writes.
In addition to the fact that there is of course also racism, he adds a little later.
And our man at the Center for Extremism Research has more in store:
“Actually, researchers believe that countries like Norway best reflect the teachings of the Koran and the hadiths.”
Yeah, we didn’t think so.
The Islamic states are essentially un-Islamic. It is we in the western, liberal democracies who bring out the real values in Islam. In fact, we are the real Islamists.
By extension, it would of course have been tempting to hear even more from the researcher.
About Islam’s well-known tolerance towards homosexuals, for example.
Or about the heroic struggle of the real Islamic scholars against stoning and throwing from roofs and other inhumane forms of capital punishment, which some un-Islamic imams and followers engage in in the aforementioned un-Islamic countries.
On the other hand, it could have been just as tempting to jump to the conclusion that the Erasmus Montanus logic is still alive in Norwegian academia. And that parts of Norwegian research have not moved very much in 300 years:
It is said to have been in 1722–23 that Ludvig Holberg wrote the satirical piece about the farmer student Rasmus Berg, which was his real name, and his incomparable logic when he came home and had to excel in front of his mother Nille:
Montanus: Now you will hear: A stone cannot fly.
Nille: No, it’s safe enough, except when you throw it.
Montanus: You cannot fly.
Nille: That is also true.
Montanus: Ergo, Morlille is a stone!
Thus, as some will remember, a surprised and horrified mother Nille began to cry.
Parts of the Norwegian public were also surprised and horrified when they discovered the highly peculiar logic of the extremism researcher in Oslo.
The biggest understatement probably came from the renowned Sylo Taraku. He himself was involved extremism commission who handed over his report to the government on Friday, and first wrote in a reply on Facebook:
“This was disappointingly weak from C-Rex”.
Before he sat down and dissected the entire argument in the article “Bombshell about honor and Islam” in Minerva. Recommended.
While Dana Manouchehri stated that “I simply don’t take this seriously” in Subject. And Ola Svenneby believed that there was one “Shocked weak analysis about culture of honor and Islam” in Aftenposten.
Others took it much harder. Reactions from colleagues at C-Rex were called for on social media. Some even wanted to close down the entire centre.
That’s understandable. But that’s when we have to remember the words of former Storting president CJ Hambro that it must “be allowed for everyone at any time to express the confusion that reigns in one’s head.”
Fair enough, it was about the representatives of the Storting.
But researchers also have freedom of expression. And research must be free.
Something not least university rector Anne Borg at NTNU experienced when, just a few months ago, she went out and criticized two of her own researchers for interfering in the debate about nuclear power in Norway.
That criticism simply meant that she had to resign as principal.
And so it must be.
Fair enough, the professional reputation of C-Rex has suffered a never-so-small dent. But to attack the researcher’s right to say what he thinks, or to hold other researchers responsible for his opinions, is difficult.
Therefore, we will hopefully not hear anything from either center leader Tore Bjørgo or others who will try to force the somewhat unorthodox colleague into the fold.
What professional discussions take place behind closed doors is another matter.
And perhaps we can take comfort in the fact that the researcher’s unusual interpretation is a good visualization of the fear of touch that he himself wanted to dispel the myths about. Now we know that there are extremism researchers who actually go around looking for things that can exonerate religion as a factor.
But it is also important to realize that he actually has one point:
In the Aftenposten chronicle, Christopher R. Fardan points out that society at large also has a responsibility when minorities who experience violence in close relationships do not seek help.
This is often “justified by the fact that the victims fear that openness will backfire on the whole group”, he writes.
That is probably correct. We have to do something about that.
And so we must, as always, be careful not to become one-eyed.. In the same way that it is wrong to abdicate all blame to religion, it is just as wrong to simply point to it. We can also become better at seeing if there is something in our culture – when ethnically Norwegian men go off on their own families.
Which Abid Raja also covered in the NRK Debate on honor killings earlier this winter:
Presumably, it is in the interaction between religion and culture that we must look for the answers. Confused researchers will perhaps eventually come to this as well.
Or maybe not.
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Shit, it’s not that dangerous with these women
2024-03-03 07:40:49
#put #confused #researchers
