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

The effects of such demonstrations on youth in the extremist groups are uncertain. Although
they may stigmatize and isolate them further, they show that racism and neo-Nazism has little
public support, and this may deter those fl irting with such groups. In Brumunddal the immi-
grants expressed that this local demonstration signaled that they had a lot of sympathy and
that they were under the protection of the local population (Carlsson, 1995). For some immi-
grants this demonstration persuaded them not to leave the community.
Soft informal control over contested terrain
Since the early 1990s probably more than a thousand Scandinavian cities and small towns
have parents walking in the city/town center, in the suburbs or in other “hot-spots” on Friday
and Saturday night to prevent heavy drinking, drug use, and violence among young people.
In a mid-sized town with 25- to 50.000 inhabitants there will probably be three or four groups
of fi ve to six parents walking around in visible yellow waistcoats or refl ector vests. The “night
raven movement”, sponsored by the Vesta Insurance Company, organises walkers in about
450 Norwegian communities. These walkers are mostly recruited from parent-organisations in
local schools. The Norwegian Norwegian Red Cross has night-walkers in 120 communities in Norway as
part of their “Stop the violence” campaign.
To be a night-walker is a voluntary task and most participants do this not more than once
or twice a year. Their mission is just to be visible, thereby bringing a sober adult presence to
arenas dominated by youth. By walking around and talk to the youth in a friendly manner they
exercise a soft kind of social control. Confronted with violence or diffi cult situations they are
not to interfere directly, but to call their liaison-offi cer in the local police force. The police will
then quickly arrive on the scene.
The neo-Nazis in Norway have not proclaimed “national befreite Zonen” (no-go areas).
But in some communities they have been able to mark territory by making it unpleasant and
unsafe for immigrants, and even local citizens in general, to pass through. In most of the com-
munities with with a visible racist or neo-Nazi group, the “night-walking” has been strengthened
for a period of time by mobilizing more parents into the night.
In the late 1990s 1990s in the Oslo suburb of Nordstrand, some local neo-Nazis maintained a
highly visible presence in the suburban center on weekends. They had out-door parties in
the spring and summer that in addition to local youth, also attracted neo-Nazis from other
parts of Oslo and its surrounding areas. In groups of 15-20 the night-walkers started to walk
through the center and either talk with the youth in the scene or stand silently amongst them.
They had police back-up some hundred meters away if the situation should get out of control.
This visible presence of adults in their yellow coats made this area less attractive as a rallying
ground for both local youth with racist sympathies and more prominent neo-Nazis in the Oslo-
area. The most active neo-Nazis moved their activity to another Oslo-suburb (Bøler). Most of
the local youth did not follow. In this way the core group in the neo-Nazi scene was split from
those fl irting with the scene.
24 Violent Right-Wing Extremism in Norway