SOS Racism have never strengthened the Nazi-movement
Norwegian daily ‘Dagbladet’ makes accusations that SOS Racism is behind the build up of the Nazi group Norwegian Defence League. This is a dangerous lie.
‘Dagbladet’ claims 11th March that SOS Racism at one point had a majority in the leadership of the Nazi group. Their sources are anonymous, and one of them – according to ‘Dagbladet’ – says:
SOS Racism wanted to have an enemy and an opponent in the debate on immigration, says a person involved in the work."
The whole reason for this article is a conspiracy theory. Unfortunately, anti-racists never have had to invent an enemy. The Norwegian Defence League was imported to Norway, inspired by the English Defence League, who have had relative success in organizing thousands of men who are ready for violence and street fighting. It is not a new fact that foreign racist organizations want to be an inspiration for like-minded Norwegians, but the root of the problem is that there already are racists and Nazis in Norway who want to organize and to be organized.
For 25 years SOS Racism has worked against this. We have used many different methods, but our main approach has always been to try to mobilize as many people as possible against racism and Nazism. In addition, we of course tried to get the best possible view of the organized Nazis to work more effectively against them.
By principle we can of course not go into details about the sources we have about the Norwegian Nazi scene. The Nazis have always been violent and will pose a threat to people who work against them. But we can categorically deny the allegations ‘Dagbladet’ serves about us building up the NDL as an organization to create a useful enemy.
One of the anonymous “sources” in ‘Dagbladet’ is Bård Frantzen. He was thrown out of SOS Racism in December 2011 after calling a 16 year old girl whore and told her to commit suicide. We have previously warned against him because he has made up stories to the medias about people working against the Nazis in Norway. In this case we see that he once again has lied and added to this strange perception of reality.
Lies can also be dangerous. ‘Dagbladet’ is running a smear campaign against SOS Racism. They deliberately try to demonize SOS Racism as much as possible. We hope that this time it has gone so far that most people will see through this wild story.
Such statements as they now are launching will put fuel to the fire for the Nazis. Now they can use ‘Dagbladet’ as a source for their conspiracy theories that the Nazis actually are anti-racists in disguise – as we for years already have read on the extreme racist web pages.
The organized racism in Norway is a real threat. Breivik was in contact with the English Defence League and he shared the NDL values. We have unfortunately a number of examples of violence committed by people in and around the Norwegian Nazi groups – and several killings in the last twenty years. ‘Dagbladet’ is now entering the stage to harm any effort taken against the Nazis in Norway, and this is a dangerous game that could have real consequences for those involved.