A Sly Muslim Chameleon

We reported last month on the appointment Norway’s first immigrant cabinet minister. The Labour government made history in September by naming a Muslima, Hadia Tajik, as Minister of Culture.

Ms. Tajik is back in the news — or, rather, the latest cultural enrichment coming from her has not made the news, since the Norwegian MSM is resolutely ignoring it. Only the local papers and the “Islamophobic” websites are reporting on it.

Our Norwegian correspondent The Observer has translated an article on the topic, and includes this note:

It’s a good thing that Hadia Tajik is not a ‘fundamentalist’ Christian (Norwegian leftist method of describing conservative Christians) suggesting that the parents of Christian children should pick spouses for their offspring. Imagine what outrage such a statement would have caused!

None of the major newspapers in Norway have made an issue of this. As a matter of fact, I only came across this story at Document.no.

Tajik was also the architect behind the memo which ‘made it legal’ to use the hijab in the Norwegian police force in 2009. This created a public outcry in Norway and the Labour Party eventually had to step in and re-assure the public that this simply wasn’t the case.

Apparently, however, Ms Tajik thought that it was a brilliant idea.

An article from 2006 presented a report by special investigators working for the UDI which estimated that more than two thousand young women of non-Western ancestry in Norway were forcibly married between 2004 and 2006.

Taking this into consideration it puts our new Minister of Culture in a pretty negative light.

I think we’re looking at a wolf in sheep’s clothing here — or, as I like to say, a sly Muslim chameleon.

The translated article from Hegnar Online:

Arranged marriages are in principle legitimate

Minister of Culture Hadia Tajik believes that arranged marriages in principle are just as legitimate as falling in love, but emphasizes that there are major challenges attached to the practice.

“In principle, I believe that the act of arranging a marriage is just as legitimate as falling in love and getting married that way. At the same time it causes challenges that are bigger than many Norwegian-Pakistanis initially realize, because it can be quite problematic to arrange a marriage between one who has grown up in Norway and one who has grown up in Pakistan, just to take an example.

“The practice is also closely linked to traditional gender roles. As a 29-year old I do not foresee this path for myself,” says Minister of Culture Hadia Tajik to Dagens Næringsliv.

Tajik denies that she is an immigrant hero. She grew up in Bjørnheimsbygd in Rogaland [western part of Norway]. Tajik’s family ran “Ali kolonial” [Ali’s mini-mart] and were the only immigrants in the village.

“Growing up in such a small place gave me some free Norwegian social cultural codes. One understands pretty quickly that you eat Kvikklunsj [traditional Norwegian brand of chocolate] when hiking in the forest and not ‘After Eight’. But living in such a tiny place also makes you stand out a lot, something which I often experienced,” Tajik says in the interview.

For a complete listing of previous enrichment news, see The Cultural Enrichment Archives.