The following article just appeared in VG.no, the website for Norway’s largest newspaper, and was translated by our Norwegian correspondent The Observer.
It concerns a culturally enriched young woman named Aisha Shezadi, who is touring Norwegian schools giving talks about her personal values as they inform her decision to wear the niqab. Among her other values — which she is not discussing in her school talks — are fundamentalist Islamic sentiments which mandate support for the Taliban in their fight against Western forces stationed in Afghanistan.
Ms. Shezadi’s tour is funded in part by a literary association, which one may assume — this being Norway — acts as a semi-official arm of the government. The association dismisses concerns about funding a woman who supports its soldiers’ sworn enemies by saying, “There are many writers with many different opinions, both political and religious.”
But not really, of course; not in Modern Multicultural Norway.
Why is it all right for them to sponsor Ms. Shezadi? Here’s the justification: “She doesn’t encourage others to commit violence, and what she’s writing is not illegal. So we cannot see why we should terminate our cooperation with her.”
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