Fear & Loathing in Norway: Neo-nazism, nostalgia and immigration
They achieve hero-status if they’re able to get on TV. I’ve heard them talk excitedly every time one of them has ‘managed to get their name in the paper.’
Although opposition against neo-nazism in Norway is fierce, it also conceals the much subtler form of ethnocentrism that immigrant populations have encountered in Norway. As the parents of neo-nazis pointed out, it’s the whispering, the pointing, and the closed doors that can be the most daunting. Urban legends such as the one below are very much present today. Told today about immigrants to Scandinavia, a variation of this story was once told in the 1950s about Scandinavian immigrants to the United States.
An immigrant family – grandmother and all – moved into an apartment house here in Eskiltuna. After some time the neighbors living downstairs noticed something suspicious. The ceiling was leaking and there were wet spots on the walls of their living room. They called the health department and someone from there was sent out to check on the immigrant family. On the wood floor, which had been torn up in places, the foreigners were growing potatoes; they roasted their meat on a spit and cooked all their food there too. It’s incredible what some people will do (Kvideland and Sehmsdorf, p. 379).
Resources
Kvideland, Reimund and Sehmsdorf, Henning. (1988). Scandinavian Folk Belief and Legend. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.
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