Prevention of Right-Wing Extremism, Xenophobia and Racism in ...

for the media, local incidents will normally also reach the national news media, and as a result
will incite both local and state action. This small-scale society with its close interpersonal
ties among people in different agencies and organisations on the municipal level has a lot of
advantages when it comes to prevention and intervention.
This being said, one should not make Norway more exotic than necessary. There are of
course many cities, towns and rural districts e.g. in Germany that share many of the character-
istics of their counterparts in Norway. Oslo can be compared to cities like Dresden, Hannover,
Leipzig and Nürnberg. Kristiansand with its 77.000 inhabitants and Brumunddal with its 8.000
inhabitants are in many ways comparable to numerous European cities and small towns. The
most important difference when it comes to geographical conditions is that many German
cities and towns are generally integrated into more densely populated areas, entailing short
travel distances. This is a fruitful condition for building up extremist groups, organisations and
networks. Moreover, the size of the population makes both formal and informal social control
much more diffi cult. Consider that Berlin has 75% of the Norwegian population on 900 km 2 ,
and that Nordrhein-Westfalen has an area 10% of Norway’s and a population roughly the same
as that of Norway, Denmark and Sweden combined.
Problemsolving pit-falls
Racist or neo-Nazi groups and their violent acts have received a lot of media-attention in
Nor way. The threshold for being given attention in the national media in Norway is probably
lower than in most other European countries, due to the small size of the country. Since being
labelled a “racist-place” or a “Nazi-community” has such a stigmatising effect (Bjørgo & Carls-
son, 1999), local municipalities are clearly motivated to neutralise such a reputation. Since
most municipalities that meet this problem for the fi rst time lack any experience or a devel-
oped strategy, there is a danger that they will fall into one of the following pit-falls:
Denying or belittling the problem
In some communities where immigrants have been exposed to violence, local authorities have
tried to deny a possible racist motive. When there has not been any clear racist or neo-Nazi
ideology behind the acts, it has been easy to interpret the acts within an established scheme
for categorising such acts. They have been explained as a result of “drunkenness” or as “boy-
ish pranks”. In doing so they have sometimes not been able to recognise that the acts, or the
establishment of new groups, may have taken on new and more serious dimensions (Eidheim,
1993).
It is also tempting to belittle or deny a problem more consciously, , because to do something
about the problem implies recognising it. In some communities the local authorities have thus
consciously tried to sweep the problem under the carpet. Since small violent groups may dis-
solve and disappear by themselves, and since there is always a chance that the latest violent
act is the last one, such a “sweep-it-under-the carpet-strategy” may sometimes succeed. The
Violent Right-Wing Extremism in Norway
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