Berwick also endorsed Bat Ye’or’s theory that EU leaders had opened their doors to mass immigration of Muslims in exchange for peace, cheap oil and access to markets in the Arab world, the so-called Eurabia theory. He adopted her expression ‘freedom or dhimmitude’. Freedom or subjugation.
In the middle of his critique of Islam, Berwick abruptly threw in some comments on how a blog could be turned into a newspaper. He ridiculed all those who were not bold enough to take the risk.
‘I have spoken to numerous successful and less successful right-wing blog/newssite/Facebook “reporters” over the years and the general opinion seems to be that the creation and distribution of a paper-magazine/newspaper is so incredibly difficult and problematic. I can honestly not understand why people feel this way.’
He then offered a three-step design with a planning phase, the development of a subscriber base and use of bloggers’ texts as material to fill the pages. The only thing to be cautious about was ‘hate speech’, because racist magazines were bound to be banned.
At the very end of Book 2 he was critical of Fjordman, Spencer and Bat Ye’or in the chapter ‘Future deportations of Muslims from Europe’.
It was the same question he had asked them to answer on Gates of Vienna. About the D-word. They didn’t dare raise the subject of deportation because it would ruin their reputations, wrote Berwick. ‘If these writers are too scared to propagate a conservative revolution and armed resistance, then other writers will have to.’
Berwick felt himself called.
The chat went on about the weather, the neighbours, the children and other matters at the smokers’ table of the café outside the Coop.
‘Anders is writing a book,’ Wenche said.
‘Oh is he?’ said the others. ‘What about?’
‘Something historical,’ replied his mother. ‘It’s a bit above my head.’
The neighbours nodded.
‘It’s going to be in English,’ Wenche went on. The book would go all the way back to 600 BC, she explained. So everything was covered, as Anders put it. It was going to be about all the wars, everything that had happened.
Anders’s mother was quite worried about his future, in actual fact. She had even told him she could go with him to the job centre. They would be able to help him to find out what sort of job could suit him.
She once told him she thought he would make a good policeman with ideas like his, decent and fair.
‘For that I’d need to have taken some different choices in life,’ Anders had answered then.
‘He’s good with computers, he’s good at history…’ his mother mused. ‘But really I’ve always wished he could be a doctor,’ she said to her friends at the café. The nicest thing of all, she thought, would be for Anders to be a Red Cross doctor caring for starving children in Africa and helping people. Maybe Zambia, she suggested.
When he told her he wanted to be an author, she said, ‘That sounds grand!’
She remembered his very first proper job, when he was seventeen. He had got a job with a company called Acta, where he sold shares to rich people.
‘Rubbish,’ Anders’s sister had said afterwards. ‘He’s not selling shares, he’s selling magazines.’
This had made Wenche sit down and wonder whether Anders felt that he wasn’t good enough.
At the smokers’ table where the sun rays never reached, they had learnt not to bring up the subject of Anders. They had a tacit understanding that if Wenche wanted to talk about him she would, and then they could join in, but they never asked the first question. They knew he was just sitting there in his room, engrossed in his games.
If they made some comment about compulsive gaming being a form of illness, she might say they were only jealous because she had a good, kind son like Anders.
The sons of several of the women at the café had finished courses in law or economics; some had already qualified as lawyers. Others worked in banks and finance.
Some had children. And when the ladies started talking about their grandchildren, Wenche pursed her lips.
Anders had told his mother to stop nagging him about getting a proper job. But it was even worse when she went on about how he ought to get a girlfriend.
‘Why not find a nice little single mother then?’ Wenche asked.
‘I must have my own children,’ Anders replied.
He said he wanted seven.
How Can I Get Your Life?
The buses were already waiting. They quickly filled with passengers from the ferry who had onward journeys along the peninsula. At rush hour the ferries ran every twenty minutes. On the way to Oslo, on the way back from Oslo – the short crossing on Huldra or Smørbukk could be a peaceful interlude or a chance for a chat.
If you hadn’t been able to sit with who you wanted on the ferry, there was always a second chance on the bus.
One day Bano deposited herself in the seat next to a slender woman with an elegant short haircut. It was no accident.
‘Hello,’ said Bano with a broad grin.
The blonde woman in her early forties returned the girl’s greeting. The teenager stopped chewing gum and started to speak.
‘I know you’re a member of the Labour Party. I am too,’ said Bano. ‘I’m a local politician just like you.’ Bano was fifteen and had just joined the AUF.
Nina Sandberg was the Labour Party’s mayoral candidate in Nesodden. What a spring of joy, was the first thing she thought when Bano sat down beside her.
‘I’m supporting you,’ Bano confided. ‘So are my sister and mother.’
Then she got off the bus, while Nina Sandberg continued her journey to her farmhouse at the southern end of Nesodden.
Bayan and Mustafa tried from the moment they arrived to be part of Norwegian society. First they had to learn Norwegian, so they could look for jobs. Initially Bayan cried when she saw people on their way to work in the mornings. How she missed her accountancy job in Erbil! Mustafa, who had been a mechanical engineer, looked for engineering jobs. Water and drainage specialist, he wrote.
It got him nowhere.
He went to the social security office on Akersgata in Oslo.
‘I’ll take anything,’ he told the woman behind the counter.
The adviser helped him improve the standard of his applications. She corrected his written Norwegian and suggested he take a language course to improve his chances. Then they sat talking for a while.
‘Why did you come here?’ she asked.
Mustafa said nothing.
‘To Norway, I mean,’ she went on.
Her question hung in the air.
‘I don’t know,’ said Mustafa.
Life had become a blur. The days passed by in idleness. He felt something had slipped away; he had lost something, himself, his self-confidence and the status that his education and professional experience had conferred on him. He had only a hazy understanding of Norwegian and felt excluded.
The only thing that made him feel alive was the children, seeing them take root and grow, even if the girls were finding it a bit hard to settle at school. One of the teachers had told him that his daughters did not play with the other children, only with each other.
‘Have you told them they’re not allowed to play with the others?’ she enquired.