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5 May 2023
The illusion that all is well in the end
By Majoran Vivekananthan
• • • •
The article was originally written in Norwegian and published as an editorial by Utrop, which was the first Norwegian resource on the internet, on paper and on tv with an expressly multi-cultural profile. The author is Utrop's editor-in-chief.
Translation by Marianne Haslev Skånland, by permission.
• • • •
To traumatise people through several years,
then declare that the matter ended well,
is tantamount to kicking those who are
already down.
"It'll be all right" – as people say east of the Oslo fjord. At least, we like to think that it will be. 'Cause all that is uncomfortable is so uncomfortable. Still better when we, despite our Norwegian individualism, can reach some kind of collective understanding that things have gone well. An agreed truth.
Painful reflection
That kind of collective understanding of how things are, is often generated when we first of all experience great (and again: usually collective) discomfort about something. For those of us who are engaged in debates around social issues, it often concerns some stinging injustice we are told about. The child to be deported to war, the woman not permitted to attend her mother's funeral because of laws regulating residence permits, the young boy suffering cancer who is not getting medical care because he is not in Norway legally.
Examples are many. And it pains us to hear about them. Some people point out parallels to the way Jews were treated during the Second World War. That is when it turns so unbearable that we can't stand the reflection of ourselves as we scowl through the window of the city train. Scowl at those who beg, at women wearing hijabs, at junkies in dirty sweat-pants, Somalis stealing wallets, vulgar, noisy youngsters graduating from high-school – as well as all the others who create a distubance in our vision of how we want our surroundings to look.
When "they" have fixed things
That is when we welcome a journalist, or a serious but visibly relieved politician, one who can tip his head to one side and comfort us, telling us that everything has now been dealt with. It wasn't as bad as we thought after all. Everything was just a misunderstanding. It's over now.
We are so pleased to receive this message that we pounce upon our keyboards and telephones and we issue joyous messages of how the aforementioned injustice has now finally evaporated. Nobody tells us how this has happened. The answer is blowing somewhere in the wind, in the words of an old battle song. Nor is that important, because we can now at long last breathe with our stomach again. Knowing that "they" have fixed matters.
The authorities declare a happy ending
Poetry aside. Because I am talking about the child protection case of the Bhattacharya family(1) (in Stavanger, whose children were taken away in 2011. The case which has become topical again, now that a film has been made of it(2). And about a long series of other cases, for that matter.
I shall not go into the details around this case. From the place of view I want to get to, it matters not two hoots whether the children were fed by hand, slept in the same bed as their parents, acted strangely in kindergarten, were beaten, spanked or loved.
Nor will I linger over the case being filed as "ended well", by the press, by politicians, and by a – no offense – real flock of sheep of a Norwegian population, who have bought these explanations, probably because it feels good. That's when we can punch each other in the side in a comeradely way, and say with a bashful smile, "We pulled it off, chums."
Because that is what politicians and media did, synchronically, when what has been titled the end of this case drew close in 2012. They announced that "they" (an unclear concept meant to include all who make decisions on which we, the others, have no influence) had arrived at an agreement both with the family and the child protection service. The impression given was more or less that the children left Norway, in the direction of a kind uncle in Kolkata, with streamers, champagne and gas balloons in the departure hall.
No room for "ended well"
Again, I shall steer clear of whether the uncle was kind or nasty. Here we are at the heart of the matter: Whether the uncle was a veritable Per Fugelli(3), a born teacher, a vicious child molester, a multi-millionaire or poor as a church mouse, none of his qualities – of lack of qualities – could change the fact that the family was the subject of the ultimate of traumas during their soujourn in Norway. Technically right or wrong decision, but children lost their parents and parents lost their children. It is a trauma. A tragedy. A situation whose dimensions are difficult to comprehend. Try it yourself: try having a child and then try to lose that child – irrespective of whether you have beaten the child first, or whether you have given it all your love. That pain is difficult to measure against anything else.
Therefore, it is impossible for us to file the case of the Stavanger family as one which "ended well". Never. To subject somebody to the experience of being separated from their children – of from their parents – is an action which will never "end well". At most one can say that the family was traumatised for life, and that one hopes new things have happened in their lives afterwards which make the trauma from Norway less predominant.
All did not go well for Maria Amelie
I have seen that divisional director in Bufdir(4) Kjetil Andreas Ostling has placed himself at the opposite end of the scale in his debate article(5) in Utrop on 27 March. Laundered sentences about Bufdir not being able to say anything about individual cases, about generally welcoming cultural diversity, and about child protection cases entailing difficult decisions. Not a word in apology. Not a word about the pain they may have subjected the Bhattacharya family to. Sterile. Calm.
All well and good that Norwegian authorities enjoy the population's confidence, and that the media do too – in comparison with many other countries. It is a healthy sign.
But confidence can paralyse and passivise as well. We must stop gobbling up the non-specific phrases of politicians and media when they say that the injustice has ceased and that things have "fallen into place" in the best way for everybody.
Because no, all did not go well for Maria Amelie(6). It cannot be filed as "having gone well" as long as she was subjected to mental torture waiting to be deported – regardless of what happened later.
Let the victims themselves evaluate the end
No, the ambulance case from the Sofienberg park(7) did not end well. It does not "end well" when a seriously injured man is exposed to harassment from health workers – even if the ambulance personnel in question have received an apology for the pain they were subjected to by the media. The party injured initially has not received any such apology – so we cannot say that things ended well for him either.
And it did not "end well" when it became clear that the then nineteen years old Mustafa Hasan(8) was allowed to remain in Norway. Before then, he went through psychological torture for many years.
And again: It did not go well with the Bhattacharya family in the end. To politicians, journalists and others who, without asking the seriously injured family first, have declared that "Well, things did go well with them in the end": Be ashamed of yourselves!
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Footnotes:
(1)
Bjorn Bjoro:
The Bollywood film should wake us up from our white self-satisfation
MHS's home page, 20 April 2023
Original Norwegian version:
Bollywood-filmen bør være en vekker for vår hvite selvgodhet
Utrop, 10 April 2023
(2)
"Mrs Chatterjee vs Norway"
Official trailer
Zee Studios & Emmay Entertainment, 23 February 2023
(3) Per Fugelli
Wikipedia, last edited on 12 January 2023
(4)
Bufdir – The Norwegian Directorate for Children, Youth and Family Affairs
(5)
Kjetil Andreas Ostling:
Bollywood om barnevernet (Bollywood about Norwegian CPS (Barnevernet))
Utrop, 27 March 2023
(6)
Maria Amelie
Wikipedia, last edited on 22 September 2022
(7)
Paramedics incident in Oslo 2007
Wikipedia, last updated on 24 June 2022
(8)
Court clears the way for Mustafa to stay
News in English, 29 July 2021
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See also
Siv Westerberg:
Norway and Sweden – where inhuman rights prevail
MHS's home page, 11 November 2017
– : Child prisons? In Sweden?
MHS's home page, 1995 – 28 December 2018
– : Des prisons pour enfants? En Suede?
mhskanland.net, 1995
– : Pflegschaft der Abkassierer
mhskanland.net, 14 juli 1995
– : Foster-children as lucrative business
MHS's home page, February 2005 / 25 January 2014
Suranya Aiyar:
Understanding and Responding to Child Confiscation by Social Service Agencies
MHS's home page, 9 May 2012 / 20 September 2017
Øivind Østberg:
The fight over the future of child protection in Norway is hardening
MHS's home page, 8 March 2020
Marianne Haslev Skånland:
Norwegian non-human again
Stavanger CPS (Barnevernet) – The India case – and now a Bollywood film
MHS's home page, 22 March 2023
– : Were cultural differences the cause of the India/Stavanger child protection case, in the same way as the Bollywood film relates the story?
MHS's home page, 20 April 2023
– : Dyktatura norweskiego Urzędu Ochrony Dzieci
– Jak Urząd Ochrony Dzieci w Norwegii dba o dobro dzieci
mhskanland.net, 12 marca 2019
Olav Terje Bergo:
What can elected politicians in Norway do about our child protection system Barnevernet?
MHS's home page, 13 October 2022
– : Barnevernet takler ikke omsorgsansvar
MHS's hjemmeside, 20 juli 2021
Ян Симонсен:
Норвежкото посолство в Букурещ рисува лъскава картина
на социална служба за закрила на децата (Barnevern)
mhskanland.net, 16.01.2016
– : Посольство Норвегии в Бухаресте рисует глянцевую картину норвежской службы защиты прав детей (Barnevern)
mhskanland.net, 14.01.2016
Erik Rolfsen:
L'ASE (Barnevernet) et les nouveaux habits de l'empereur
mhskanland.net, 4 août 2015
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