Will our behaviour today lead us to say tomorrow that he had a point?

It is not a situation free of dilemmas. I refer to those about 200 representatives of the Romani people who have settled in a camp outside a church in one of Oslo's parks. The police anticipate that there are about 2000 Romani people in Oslo this summer. They can be seen everywhere, sitting and walking around begging. The number of thefts in the city centre of Oslo has increased by about 30 percent this year compared to last year. The police see a connection between the increased number of thefts and the increased number of Romani people in Oslo.

 

According to the media, they have come to Norway, mainly from Rumania, to find jobs and earn money. There is no doubt that Norway is much better off than Rumania. But still, what kind of information do they have about Norway? Some of those who have been interviewed seem to believe that if they can settle in the park, employers will come and pick them for jobs! Others seem to believe that they can demand 100,000 Norwegian kroner (about 12,500 Euro) each to return to Rumania.

 

Will the local authorities allow the Romani people to settle in the park? Will they chase them and allow them to settle somewhere else in Oslo? Will the Norwegian authorities give them exception from the Schengen rules and allow them to stay even if they do not have means to pay for places to live? Will it still be allowed to beg in Norway? Will those who are caught for thefts be sent out of Norway? The coming days and weeks will probably give some answers.

 

Another situation that is not also free of dilemmas is that about 30 percent of those people who have applied for asylum in Norway and gotten a final rejection, are still staying here. Those who remain are still here due to a combination of mainly two factors; that the Norwegian authorities do not do a good enough job to send them out of the country, those who do not depart of free will, or that Norway do not have an agreement with the asylum seekers' home countries that they can be sent back.

 

Mullah Krekar. To most Norwegians, this name represents the picture of a country that can send families and children out of the country, but cannot or will not send Mullah Krekar out of the country because he risks a death penalty if he will be returned to Iraq. Krekar was the original leader of the Islamist armed group Ansar al-Islam, which was set up and commenced operations in Kurdistan while he had refugee status in Norway. He came to Norway as a refugee back in 1991. On March 26 this year, he was sentenced to five years in prison for making repeated death threats against Norwegian politicians and other persons if they pursued certain civil actions against him. The following day, he was arrested and taken into protective custody and incarceration. This occurred after certain additional statements of a threatening nature were linked to him, suggesting that others might take retaliatory actions against Norwegians if his civil prison sentence were implemented. Just two days ago, Krekar was again accused of death threats, this time against former Norwegian prime minister Kjell Magne Bondevik.

 

Some days ago, the story of a Norwegian citizen was known though the media. While completing his education in the USA, he married an American woman. They applied for a work and residence permit for her. The application was denied because his income in the USA while studying was below the level considered to be required to live in Norway. Appeals have been sent. But despite the fact that he now has a well paid job in Norway, his American wife is not granted a permit to live and work in Norway. The reason is that he did not have a sufficient salary when the application was originally handed in. That he now earns far above the minimum required amount and that his wife has job offers and can start working as soon as she would get the permit, does not seem to help.

 

Some foreign students who have come to Norway from outside the Schengen area do not seem to live under the same requirements. Without any stable income above the salary limit, the Norwegian authorities granted a three year permit to a foreign couple to live and work here. My wife who also comes from a country outside the Schengen area, who has not yet received any financial support of any kind from the Norwegian society and who has taught herself Norwegian and works within the Norwegian health sector, needs to apply yearly for a renewal of her permit to live and work here. The yearly application fee is 1,100 kroner (about 140 Euro).

 

The stories are endless. Those who follow the rules and regulations and who are sources of income to the Norwegian society are often met by a bureaucratic wall of repeating demands of documents and payments. While those who come to Norway with a mentality of demanding or even breaking rules and regulations seem to go free from the bureaucracy and instead they receive all kinds of financial support. When it seems to pay off to be a criminal or a person who works his or her way around the rules and regulations while persons who respect rules and regulations need to work or pay or wait extra, it gives an impression of a society that does not behave according to what it says.

 

What the authorities will do in the days, weeks and months to come is of high importance. How will they handle the situation with the Romani people? Will asylum seekers who have been given a final rejection be allowed to stay in Norway? What will the government do with Krekar? How will the immigration authorities deal with their cases? The answers to these and many other questions will determine how the Norwegian society will develop. Will there be more conflicts? Will politics that create people with opinions like Breivik and others develop in a direction that the number of extreme right wing opinions increases or decreases? When 22^nd July 2011 becomes a more distant history, will more or fewer people say that Breivik had a point? Not that they will agree on how he expressed his point, but that they will agree on several of his opinions.

 

Norway is like a European oasis of jobs, good economy and social rights. Only a minority will claim that we should close our borders. But a majority will claim that the Norwegian authorities deal with the many challenges in a fair way. There is no reason to believe that a country that twice has said no to join the European Union because it wants to protect its uniqueness and farming industries and does not want too much of the central and south European influence, will accept injustice by its own authorities.