A Probe From Darkest Norway

Ever since July 23 we have been the recipients of a variety of messages from Norway, running the gamut from very friendly to the nastiest correspondence we have ever received during our seven years as bloggers.

Our experience as bloggers has taught us, especially when we suspect hostile intent, to fisk everything carefully, even seemingly benign messages from strangers.

Has the sudden increase in attention from Norway made us paranoid? You bet.

Has being exposed to the dark underside of Norwegian culture aroused our suspicions? Indeed.

Mail from strangers in Norway comes in three general categories:

• Supportive. For example, praise, encouragement, offers to translate, and monetary donations.
  
• Curious. Ethnic Norwegians with questions about us, and about Fjordman.
  
• Ugly. Name-calling, hasty judgments, obscenities, wishes for our imminent demise, and questions about our parentage.

But now we arrive at a fourth category, which we have elected to call The Probe.

“But Baron,” you say, “what is a ‘probe’?”

Think of it as a poke, a pinch, an exploring hand. We know they want something, and given our Norwegian Experience, we wonder what their unspoken agenda is. What are the possible inferences to be drawn from their questions?

The example reproduced below arrived yesterday. It could be mere curiosity, or it may represent something darker. Our suspicions are aroused by its stylistic oddities. Pay attention to the spelling, grammar, and syntax in this email. It’s quite different from the usual English prose that we receive from Norwegians.

After you’ve read the email, and Dymphna’s and my concerns about it, please feel free to offer your own interpretations of this person’s strange statements and queries:

Hello!!

I’am a norwegian blogger, and i want to write a knew articel about the terroractions as happende in Oslo and Utøya 22.07.

I know Ander Behring Breivik used to ad comments on Gates Of Vienna and on Document.no, and he has the same attitude and meaning about islam and muslims as Fjordman, and have the same goal, “get Islam out of Europe and Norway”

I hope you can help me with a explaining, could Mr. Breivik been mentaly influence by your homepage and what is been writing their and mentaly influence by Fjordman’s writing on Gates Of Vienna ?? I have been reading on Gates Of Vienna as i said, do you know about any forums on internett with the same political goal as Gates Of Vienna?? Links ?

I would be very thankfull if you could help me with these questions.

Now let’s take a detailed look at this badly spelled text:

I’am a norwegian blogger,

So you say. However, you have neglected the basic blogger’s courtesy: providing us with the title and URL of your website. Since this information isn’t provided, I’ll just have to take your word for it.

and i want to write a knew articel about the terroractions as happende in Oslo and Utøya 22.07.

That’s nice. So if you do write this “knew” article, what new material will you use? What will be your point of view on Anders Behring Breivik’s horrid slaughter of the innocent? Is this “knew” article to be simply one more Norwegian pointing a finger and assigning blame? That’s been done already.

I know Ander Behring Breivik used to ad comments on Gates Of Vienna and on Document.no,

“Ander”? Do you mean “Anders”?

And do you mean his two innocuous comments on Gates of Vienna in September 2008? Because two comments do not a manifesto make.

I don’t understand Norwegian, so I have no idea what went on at Document.no.

and he has the same attitude and meaning about islam and muslims as Fjordman,

You have not sourced this assertion. Bloggers do not make claims without linking to reliable sources that confirm the things they say.

Many Norwegians appear eager to conflate the ravings of a psychopath with the thoughtful essays of an accomplished scholar. At best this concerted ongoing attempt to smear Fjordman is sophistry. At worst it is criminal.

and have the same goal, “get Islam out of Europe and Norway”

This statement is not backed up by any primary sources from either person you purport to investigate. Based on his actions, Anders Behring Breivik’s goal was to blow up buildings and kill teenagers, which is diametrically opposed to any action Fjordman has ever proposed.

By their fruits ye shall know them.

I hope you can help me with a explaining, could Mr. Breivik been mentaly influence by your homepage and what is been writing their and mentaly influence by Fjordman’s writing on Gates Of Vienna ??

One of the widespread weaknesses I’ve observed in Scandinavian argumentation is the use of rhetorical fallacy. In this case, one could reasonably infer from your question that you indeed believe these embedded statements. I have read in lengthy translations from the Norwegian press the immoral attempts to hold Fjordman responsible for the actions of a person he never knew. I refuse to accept the cynical sophistry of this argument. The very notion that this gentle scholar is somehow to blame is repellant. No truly mature and moral being could make such an assumption.

So here’s a direct question for you: are you afraid to face what Breivik’s massacre means for Norwegian culture? Or do you prefer regress to the easier solution of finding a scapegoat? Adults face horrific mysteries and attempt to grasp them; children scream for scapegoats.

After years of denial, the Oslo police suddenly threw up their hands and admitted they “have lost the city”. This time, for some reason, your government-supported consensus media cooperated in propagating this information.

So on your blog in Norway — the one we haven’t seen — have you posted any essays about this new turn of events? Or are you, as we say in America, “still stuck on stupid”? Are you still digging through the rubbish looking for a fantasy connection between a mass murderer and a scholar?

I have been reading on Gates Of Vienna as i said,

No, you didn’t. You did not say that. And even as you say it now, I don’t believe you. Your email does not support your claim that you’ve read our blog.

do you know about any forums on internett with the same political goal as Gates Of Vienna??

You don’t ask what our goal is. I doubt that you know. If you’d ever read Gates of Vienna on a regular basis during the last seven years, you’d already know what our mission statement says. We are determined to keep the U.S. Constitution and the laws in all fifty states free from the incursions of sharia-based jurisprudence.

Islam is not a religion. It is a political and juridical totalitarian system designed to establish and maintain global hegemony. That is one reason Islam and Hitler’s National Socialism made such a good fit.

Before 9-11 I didn’t know much about Islam. Before 7-22 I didn’t know much about Norway. Now I know a lot more about both of them. Perhaps too much.

Links ?

Are you trawling for co-conspirators? Look on our sidebar. We have a blogroll. This is something you would know if you were a regular a reader of Gates of Vienna. Or if you were a blogger.

To paraphrase one of America’s favorite conservatives, the late William F. Buckley: “Look up your own damn links!”

I would be very thankfull if you could help me with these questions.

Consider your questions answered.

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To our regular readers:

What set off alarm bells in my head about this email was the persistent and grotesque misspellings, including one of a common Norwegian name.

Up until this “blogger” wrote to us, all emails sent to us by Norwegians had been written in English of at least reasonably good quality. Norwegians are generally fluent in English.

It is as if the writer had composed the text of his message, and then run it through special misspelling software to make it seem authentic.

It’s too bad to be real. I think it’s a probe.