Does Norway have a far-right problem?

Norway. That idyllic, small nation of five million people just across the North Sea, is not what it seems. With its high standard of living, peculiarly slow TV shows (do you want to watch people build a clock for 30 hours?), and beautiful, quiet nature, you’d be fooled into thinking it’s a nice, peaceful country. But according to an article in the Guardian, Norway has a problem. It’s in the grip of pervasive, far-right nationalism, breeding terrorists by the…well, at least, two. And its right-of-centre government, in spite of extending Norway’s generous welfare payments to newly-arrived immigrants, has been “appeasing and instrumentalising hatred for years”, according to Sindre Bangstad, a Norwegian social anthropologist

“Norway is in denial about the threat of far-right violence,” reads the bombastic headline. It continues:

‘Norwegian Muslims enjoyed a grace period from hate after the 2011 attacks, but it was short-lived. Norwegian media editors, mostly privileged, white, male and middle-class, saw little reason for any substantial change and continued to push the idea that the solution to far-right hate speech was more and freer speech, and provided ever more prominent media platforms to far-right actors.’