Anarcho-Tyranny in Oslo

3,181 words

The Scandza Forum is a nationalist metapolitical organization that has put on conferences in Sweden, Norway, and Denmark. It was founded in 2017 and is led by Frodi Midjord.

Until recently, I had spoken at every Scandza Forum event. But on Saturday, October 12, 2019, I was prevented from speaking at The Scandza Forum’s second conference in Copenhagen by a raging mob of Communists (complete with the Soviet flag).

Then, on Saturday, November 2, I was prevented from speaking at the second Scandza conference in Norway by the Norwegian government itself, although it is clear that the state had been gaslighted into action by a false report written by antifa and acted upon by collaborators in the government.

Scandza’s inaugural event in Oslo, on July 1, 2017, was the first of its type in Norway, and our Norwegian friends were anxious for us to come back. The theme of the new conference was “Human Biodiversity,” i.e., the variations in genetic potential between the sexes and races. Human biodiversity undermines the bedrock assumption of modern egalitarianism, namely that differences in social outcomes between the races and sexes can be explained by mutable human ideas and institutions, so that by changing ideas and institutions, we can arrive at an egalitarian society. If, however, different social outcomes are based on biological differences, then they will persist even after all forms of unequal treatment are removed. Past that point, egalitarian social engineering projects are based on delusions and can only increase the miseries of the world.

The speakers included Dr. Kevin MacDonald, Professor Emeritus of Psychology at California State University, Long Beach, talking about his new book Individualism and the Western Liberal Tradition; Dr. Helmuth Nyborg, Professor Emeritus of Psychology at the University of Aarhus and a prolific author of scientific books and articles; and Dr. Edward Dutton, editor of Mankind Quarterly and author of many books and articles.

My talk was entitled “The Very Idea of White Privilege.” I argue that the science of human biodiversity undermines the idea of white privilege as used by the Left, but I also argue that there is a sense of white privilege that is grounded in human biodiversity—namely, that whites naturally create societies that are more comfortable for whites than other races—but that this is inevitable, and there is nothing morally objectionable about it.

When I arrived in Oslo on Thursday, October 31st, I learned that Filter Nyheter, a Communist (“antifa”) blog, had published an article about me entitled “Hailed Breivik’s Rationale for the July 22 Terror—Now he is Going to Oslo to Speak for ‘White Nationalists’” (Hyllet Breiviks begrunnelse for 22. juli-terroren – nå skal han til Oslo for å tale for «hvite nasjonalister»), in which the authors Harald S. Kungtveit and Jonas Skybakmoen write:

Johnson has previously expressed support for how Anders Behring Breivik justified the July 22 attacks in 2011 in his trial, referred to the terror as “necessary,” and has described at length the killing of Labor Party politicians as a legitimate means to fight “non-white immigration.”

This is a complete inversion of the truth, as any honest person reading my statements on Breivik can see for himself:

• “Anders Behring Breivik: The Neoconservative Rambo”
• “Breivik: A Strange New Respect”

I did not “support” Breivik’s justification for terrorism. I carefully analyzed and criticized it. In referring to Breivik’s crimes as “necessary,” I am referring to Breivik’s views, not my own. The whole point of my article is to argue that killing Labor Party politicians—or any form of terrorism, for that matter—is not a legitimate means to fight non-white immigration.

The authors additionally claim “In the text, Johnson appears to be fine with much of Breivik’s reasoning,” which is laughable, given that my conclusion is that Breivik’s arguments do not establish a case for terrorism, and I also offer my own powerful arguments against terrorism.

Furthermore, the authors claim that “Johnson criticizes Breivik’s manifesto—not for the calls for more right-wing terrorist actions—but because the text was too long and unmanageable.” Actually, I criticize his manifesto for both reasons.

When the authors assert that I “respect” Breivik, they leave out some key contextual details. My first essay on Breivik is utterly scathing. When Breivik went on trial, however, I admitted to gaining “a strange new respect” for him, because I thought he conducted himself in a dignified manner and offered a more coherent rationale for his actions than in his manifesto. But first of all, this respect was relative to my initial very negative impression of Breivik. I had, in effect, raised him a few rungs in hell. Furthermore, as is clear to anyone who reads my article, thinking slightly better of Beivik did not alter my conclusion that he failed to make a case for terrorism. Nor did it alter my own reasons for thinking terrorism is a terrible idea. Thus to flatly say that I “respect” Breivik is fundamentally deceptive. It is simply a lie.

I was left wondering. Were Kungtveit and Skybakmoen dishonest or just very, very stupid? Dishonesty seems the most charitable and likely explanation.

Later the same day, the same authors published another blog post, “Terrorist Researcher thinks Norway Should Deny Breivik Admirers Entry before Conference in Oslo” (“Terrorforsker mener Norge bør nekte Breivik-beundrer innreise før konferanse i Oslo”). Apparently the authors had shown their first lying article to an “expert” who did not bother to check the veracity of their claims, perhaps from incompetence, perhaps from complicity:

Now, the terrorist expert and senior researcher at the Defense Research Institute (FFI), Thomas Hegghammer, believes that Norway should consider the possibility of denying Johnson entry before the scheduled conference on Saturday—partly based on the statements above.

“Of course, we should not overuse these types of decisions or act as opinion police. But at the same time, I think there must be a limit somewhere. One indicator in this case is that the only neo-Nazi organization in Norway, the ‘Nordic Resistance Movement,’ is advertising the event—and that one of the speakers has given explicit support to Breivik. There is something very unmusical about bringing in an American Anders Behring Breivik sympathizer to Oslo, just where the terrorist attack happened on July 22,” says Hegghammer to Filter News.

First of all, as we have seen, I am not an “Anders Behring Breivik sympathizer” “who has given explicit support of Breivik.”

Second, it is entirely irrelevant that the Nordic Resistance Movement posted information about the event—if it actually did so. Nobody can control who links to or talks about one’s events. Moreover, if a group links one’s event, that does not imply that they endorse or agree with it, in whole or in part. And a fortiori it certainly does not imply that Scandza Forum—or the people speaking at it—endorse everyone who links to the event.

Of course, the quickest way to get Leftists to drop this silly idea that “Speaker X should be banned because the conference he is speaking at was promoted by a dissident site” is simply to post links to the next public appearances of Thomas Hegghammer, Harald S. Kungtveit, and Jonas Skybakmoen at Counter-Currents.

Naturally, I was a bit worried about this, for when Marxists lie, people die—many millions of people, actually.

So Frodi Midjord and I drafted a response to be translated into Norwegian and sent to the press. I did not want the response published immediately, however, because I hoped the blog post would not reach the mainstream press, and responding to it might draw more attention to it. I hoped that this would-be smear campaign would die in the weeds on an obscure Communist blog.

(The response was published on Saturday, November 2, after I had been arrested. The version that appeared was not, therefore, given a final edit by my hand. If I had given it a final once-over, the sentence “I have always consistently condemned violence and terrorism” would have simply read “I have always consistently condemned terrorism.” I have now corrected that sentence. Only pacifists “always” condemn violence. I think violence can sometimes be morally legitimate, for instance in cases of self-defense. But I have always condemned terrorism as a tool for white self-defense, for reasons outlined in many articles [listed here].)

Friday came and went without much discussion of the Filter Nyheter posts. I spent the day working on Counter-Currents, putting the finishing touches on my talk for the next day, and then having dinner with the conference speakers and old friends.

On Saturday, I went on my own to the conference site, arriving at 10 a.m., well before the start. I was prevented from entering the Copenhagen Scandza Forum because when I showed up 30 minutes before the event was to start, the facility was already surrounded by a mob of Communists. I got to talk to some old friends and meet some new people. Then Frodi came over and told me that the police were coming to arrest me.

Welcome to Norway!

I grabbed my coat to go out to meet them, because I did not want them barging into the conference venue. Sure enough, there were two policemen at the door. I asked if I was going to be arrested. They said yes. I asked them what for, and they told me they could not tell me. Not knowing Norwegian law, I could not tell if this was irregular or not. It certainly seemed that way to me.

But these were not guys to be trifled with. I decided to comply so as not to cause a scene at the venue. The authorities always make it easier to comply with them (right up to the point when they shoot you in the back of the head). When I got in the car, I took out my phone to send a message to my friends. I was told I could not have a phone, so I handed it over. At that point, with one brief exception, the only people I talked to for the next 48 hours were police and my lawyer’s assistant.

I will describe in greater detail my experiences in custody in another article.

After several hours alone in a cell—without shoes, belt, or eyeglasses—I spoke to two plainclothes policemen who produced a document in Norwegian. They then called a woman who is a professional interpreter who rendered the text into English over a speakerphone. I was told that I had been detained and would be expelled under a provision of the Immigration Act, section 126, first paragraph, second sentence, “for the sake of basic national interests or foreign policy considerations . . .” because it was deemed that “the ideological message” I was to convey at The Scandza Forum could  “inspire the practice of politically motivated violence.” Obviously, the Filter Nyheter blog posts had found sympathetic ears somewhere in the Norwegian security service.

The whole thing struck me as idiotic.

First, the Norwegian authorities somehow divined that my talk could inspire political violence without knowing the contents or even the title of my talk—which was, again, “The Very Idea of White Privilege.”

Second, if the authorities had bothered to check the titles of my other Scandza Forum talks, they would have learned that the last talk I gave was entitled “Against Right-Wing Terrorism” (Stockholm, March 30, 2019). Indeed, I am the author of a long list of articles criticizing terrorism by White Nationalists. If I am the silver-tongued persuader the Norwegian state thinks I am, then I should be credited with reducing the amount of terrorism in the world. (The talk I gave at the first Scandza Forum in Oslo was a critique of irony as an ethos. Perhaps I will be blamed for an uptick in sincerity among Norwegian youth.)

Third, I was being detained and deported not for something I said or did, but for something that somebody else might do after hearing a speech that I had not yet given. And remember that my speech was on white privilege, a topic that I feared was more likely to produce boredom than violence.

Fourth, one of Breivik’s arguments for resorting to terrorism was the Norwegian establishment’s suppression of freedom of speech about immigration and multiculturalism. My talk could not in any way be construed as a call for political violence. But suppressing my freedom of speech is precisely the kind of policy that encourages desperate people to commit acts of terrorism. As John F. Kennedy said, “Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable.” Breivik repeated this idea, almost word for word, during his trial. Will these people ever learn?

A related thought also occurred to me. Kungtveit and Skybakmoen were clearly trying to smear me by linking me to Breivik. But what if it has the opposite effect? What if the Breivik link does not decrease my credibility but instead increases Breivik’s? After all, I am an intelligent, educated, articulate guy. I have written eleven books and hundreds of articles. I have published sixty books. I run a highly successful webzine. I have cultivated a large circle of writers and donors. My readership is now in the neighborhood of 200,000 unique visitors per month. Putting the lie out there that I endorsed Breivik might actually make some people take him more seriously. This increases the chance that copy-cats might commit terrorist acts.

In short, the only possible way that my writings on Breivik could lead to terrorism is because of Kungtveit and Skybakmoen’s lies. I wonder if such a possibility ever occurred to them. If it did, would they have even cared? After all, the advocates of repression feed off Right-wing terrorism. It empowers them to oppress us, so why wouldn’t they promote it?

Finally, I knew that arresting and deporting me would bring enormous publicity, significantly increasing my audience.

I caught myself rubbing my hands together in glee.

I told the police that since the conference was over and it was no longer possible to give my talk, I wanted to leave Norway immediately. They seemed a bit surprised by this, probably because they are used to dealing with foreign freeloaders who will do anything to delay deportation.

I told them that I did not want to return to the United States. Instead, I wanted to go to Portugal, where I planned to attend an academic conference on immigration, multiculturalism, and the identitarian backlash. All I needed was my laptop to buy a ticket, my luggage, and a trip to the airport.

Unfortunately, as I was to learn, state deportation is far less efficient than self-deportation. I could have been on a plane that night. But they have rules. Following all those rules cost the Norwegian taxpayers a great deal of money and delayed my departure until the following Monday.

The letter they gave me also explained that I had the right to a state-appointed attorney. I told them I wanted to exercise that right to ensure that all my rights were respected and that I could be deported as quickly as possible.

I was returned to my cell and allowed to keep my glasses, so I could stare at a document in a language that I could not understand. The policemen went off to collect my baggage, both where I was staying and at the Scandza facility, a process that took many hours and multiple trips simply because I was not allowed to communicate with anyone.

After a couple of hours, I was summoned to speak to my attorney—or, as it turned out, the assistant to my attorney. I was introduced to a young woman who looked Persian or Kurdish. She told me she worked for Advocat Elden, which I assumed was the name of a law firm. I explained my desire to cooperate entirely and speed my departure. I also explained my desire to go to Portugal, not the United States. To my surprise, she seemed to indicate that her firm was already treating this as a free speech issue and that it was wrong to prevent me from speaking because of what other people might do. I didn’t know what to make of this. I was entirely focused on getting out of there. I would think about a legal appeal once I was outside of Norwegian airspace.

The next morning, I was visited in my cell by a young woman with another letter stating the current disposition of my case. Again, it was read in English by an interpreter over a speakerphone. The letter mentioned the name of the lawyer I had spoken with the day before. It indicated that my request to self-deport had been received, as well as my preference to go to Portugal rather than return home. The letter explained in greater detail the rationale for my expulsion, which seemed to indicate that they were responding to arguments made by my lawyers. The letter ended by saying I would be deported immediately (meaning the next day), that I was not barred from returning to Norway in the future, that I had a three-week period for appeal, and that I could request to stay during the appeal. It did not seem to compute that I wanted to leave even sooner than “immediately” as they defined it. By “deporting” me, they were actually forcing me to stay in Norway longer.

The young woman also allowed me to call Frodi Midjord to assist in gathering the last of my belongings. But when he started telling me about what happened after my arrest, we were cut off.

Sunday afternoon, I was driven to a deportation “camp” near Oslo airport. After the indignity of a strip search, I was given my first hot meal. (Well, it had been hot an hour before. It seemed like jambalaya and chow mein cooked in the same pot. For almost a day and a half, I had been subsisting on bread, processed cheese slices, and milk.) Whereas previously, I had been locked in a cell, in the new facility, I had a private room but access to a common area. There were about eight other people awaiting deportation, all of them apparently Muslims. Although I was allowed to make phone calls, the computer system for that was down, so it was impossible.

Around seven in the evening, I was finally allowed to call my lawyer on one of the phones used by the staff. She explained that the state had now decided that I was free to go at any time. I could book a plane anywhere in the world that very evening. Unfortunately, it seemed to be too late to communicate this decision to the staff at the deportation facility, so I ended up taking the deportation flight out the next morning after another sleepless night.

Only after arriving at the airport was I given my phone. Nearly 48 hours had passed. Hundreds of messages began flooding into my various apps and email accounts. It was only then that I got a clear sense of the amazing things that had happened since my arrest, which will be the topic of another article.