Refugees get schooled on respect amid cultural differences in Norway

[Ryrin]

http://news.yahoo.com/in-norway-migrants-get-courses-on-respecting-111211682.html

 

In a bid to prevent violence against women, Norway is offering asylum seekers courses in how to interpret mores in a country that may seem astonishingly liberal to them. A debate on integration has flared in Germany after New Year’s Eve attacks in Cologne, where more than 100 women reported being sexually assaulted or robbed by men described as being of Arab or North African origin. Questions are also being raised about how to integrate men from patriarchal societies into Europe, where emancipated women dress skimpily, go out, and drink and party.

There has to be tolerance for attitudes that may be seen as immoral by some traditional or religious norms.

Linda Hagen of Hero, a private company that runs 40 percent of Norway’s reception centers for asylum seekers

Belgium on Friday said it would follow Norway’s example and introduce similar courses “in the coming weeks." While on a much smaller scale than the Cologne assaults, other incidents have been reported involving foreigners on New Year’s Eve in Helsinki and Zurich, in countries that have opened their doors to migrants to a much lesser extent than Germany.

To put an end to these attitudes, immigration has to first be restricted, then you have to concentrate on the newly-arrived immigrants and the second generation to assimilate them to our basic values, such as gender equality.

Hege Storhaug of the

anti-immigration group Human Rights Service

 

Any thoughts?

 

[Guest]

I think if you cant figure out something as intuitive as that when you move to another person's land, you need to either adopt or else respect their ways, you need to be sent right back to where you came from or not allowed in the first place especially if that lack of respect is in the form of robbing and raping women. 

[Elgee]

I think if you cant figure out something as intuitive as that when you move to another person's land, you need to either adopt or else respect their ways, you need to be sent right back to where you came from or not allowed in the first place especially if that lack of respect is in the form of robbing and raping women. 

 

I actually agree with that.

 

As much as I feel sympathy for their plight, I have no sympathy with their beliefs.

[Ryrin]

Ditto here. When their "beliefs" result in crimes, I have no sympathy.

 

Norway has started and Beligium is not far behind. This way laws and expectations are clear from the beginning that women are not chattel to be handled as they desire. Later they cannot claim ignorance.

 

I believe this will be a difficult concept for many.

[Sooh]

I definitely have no sympathy for the belief that if a woman is on her own, liberated and dressed as she chooses, she's just ripe for pickings at their will, because women are possessions of men and their men were clearly not taking care of their possessions by letting them  go out alone/dressed like that. 

[Guest]

The group sexual assaults have structure and coordination. This is unacceptable.

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3395390/The-Arabic-gang-rape-Taharrush-phenomenon-sees-women-surrounded-groups-men-crowds-sexually-assaulted-spread-Europe.html

[Ryrin]

• The Arabic term 'taharrush' roughly translates to 'collective harassment'
• It refers to sexual assaults carried out by groups of men in public places
• Surrounded by dozens of attackers, lone women are groped or raped
• The phenomenon was first seen in 2011 when a reporter was attacked
• Lara Logan endured an assault while reporting on the protests in Egypt
• Police say attacks in Cologne marked Europe's first instance of taharrush
• Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3395390/The-Arabic-gang-rape-Taharrush-phenomenon-sees-women-surrounded-groups-men-crowds-sexually-assaulted-spread-Europe.html#ixzz3x5DnOxpH 

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This is way past disgusting. 

[Guest]

I'll just not comment on this ... because yeah ... chae might offend people lol

 

*hugs you all and disappears*

[Mrs. Cindy Gill]

The phenomenon was seen long before 2011, and in many places. They called this wilding in NYC when I was younger. It's been called other things in other places at other times. I would imagine it predates written history. It is beyond disgusting. But it is not a new thing under the sun, and it does not belong to only one culture. I am very wary of the circling the wagons response :/.

[Ryrin]

Well, figuring out a way to prevent  problems and to head it off at the pass is the best way to go, IMO.  I wouldn't necessarily call it "circling the wagons."

 

However, this behavior is embedded in their culture.  In the US, while we have crimes against women, even gang rapes, they are not sanctioned by society as some kind of informal sport.  In their countries, women cannot drive, earn their own paycheck without turning it over to their male relatives and must be accompanied by a familial male when going out in public. They have to submit to rape for the crimes of a male family member.

 

For anyone, coming into an unfamiliar culture, after trauma and war has to be extremely difficult, especially from male members of that culture who have been accustomed to treating women like chattel.  Education is better provided than a jail cell.

 

I certainly want them to succeed, find work, take care of their families, build communities and mosques, recover as best as they can from what they have been through.

 

Right now, people are over there starving to death because each side is using starvation as a weapon.  

[Mrs. Cindy Gill]

We are using starvation as a weapon, as well as selling arms to all sides, and we are in bed with the ruling families of many of the countries in which atrocities like this are the norm because we want their money and their oil.

 

But this is not unique to, I believe we are calling out Arab culture here? This is common in many cultures throughout the world, in many of the poorest countries, and in many places where war that has nothing to do with any religion rages.

 

Yeah, really not comfortable with the direction this fear is taking people, or the little baby steps of rhetoric that people don't even realize they're taking.

 

The crimes that have been committed are illegal where they have been committed and should be dealt with by the police and judicial systems when and where they happen.

 

When Norway had that horrible mass shooting a few years ago, I don't remember Norwegians screaming for changes in government or society. They dealt with the tragedy, they punished the perpetrators according to their law, and they moved on.

 

These crimes are different in many ways. The way that is causing the wagons to circle, I believe , is that they are committed by "outsiders" in an otherwise homogenous society. And that's where things get very complicated.

 

So, anyway, I'm not throwing gasoline on this fire, and I trust they'll deal justice without vengeance and I won't support a worldwide vendetta here or anywhere.

[Ryrin]

These countries are responsible for their citizens safety.

 

Comparing the mass shooting in Norway by one demented Norwegian individual does not even come close to what is happening now where a cultural norm permits the victimization of women. Apples and Oranges.

 

I don't see education on your adopted country's laws and norms as a "vendetta" at all.  

[Ryrin]

I'll just not comment on this ... because yeah ... chae might offend people lol

 

*hugs you all and disappears*

 

I'd love to hear your opinion.  :)  Expressing it does not equate to offending people.

[Guest]

I wasnt calling out any culture - my stance was that if someone cant understand that they are guests in someone elses land and cant or wont make an attempt to comport themselves as such, then they should be thrown out. I wouldnt allow anyone who was being rude to me stay at my home and there would be more besides if they decided to hurt someone under my charge while they are staying, while inversely, if my hosts are doing something i find morally reprehensible, I either leave fast if I want to keep the peace or Ill make it known I find what they are doing reprehensible but I know full well that will bring about contention and I should prepare myself for consequences.

[Mrs. Cindy Gill]

I know you didn't, Taltos, I didn't see anything like that in your posts.

 

The things you're saying, and quoting, and using as source material, however, Ryrin, are quick stepping from the reasonable response of countries protecting their citizens, to the extremist response of let's round them, up not only this generation but the next one too, and concentrate on indoctrinating them and making them wholly assimilate into the places they've landed, assuming that since some Arabs or Muslims have participated in these crimes so we should assume every single Arab or Muslim is a potential gang rapist.

 

And from that step there's a more extreme one as early as the OP, directing people to an anti immigration group for more information.

 

Because where this leads is send them all back home and don't let anyone else in because they're all nothing but trouble. I've seen this rhetoric elsewhere, just a click away, and it's sad to see it here.

 

I'm gonna leave this alone now.

[Ryrin]

I actually noted the source (underlined) and pointed it out for that reason. 

 

":Hege Storhaug of the anti-immigration group Human Rights Service"

 

That does not imply that I agree with all or any of their policies. It does not equate to declining people entrance when they are fleeing years of hell.

 

However, I will not stick my head in the sand.  Currently, it's not bands of Swedes committing these crimes.  These are people who come from a culture where women are not given human rights and regarded as property. 

 

Cross cultural education is a good thing especially when crimes against others are involved.  Imagine being arrested in your adopted country for actions that were perfectly acceptable in your country of origin?
 

[Ryrin]

The group sexual assaults have structure and coordination. This is unacceptable.

 

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3395390/The-Arabic-gang-rape-Taharrush-phenomenon-sees-women-surrounded-groups-men-crowds-sexually-assaulted-spread-Europe.html

 

From your source:

 

German authorities have stated this was the phenomenon seen in Cologne city centre on New Year, when hundreds of women reported they were sexually assaulted.

The practice is only carried out in public and almost always at demonstrations or large public gatherings where the attackers find safety in numbers and disorder.

 

The Arab phenomenon first came to the attention of the Western world when South African reporter Lara Logan, working for CBS, was set upon by a large group of men while reporting on celebrations in Tahrir Square, Egypt, in 2011.

 

Logan recounted her ordeal in Egypt several months later on a 60 Minutes broadcast, describing how the baying crowd 'raped me with their hands'.

 

The 44-year-old revealed terrifying details of the 40 minute-long February attack in Cairo's Tahrir Square, including how she became separated from members of her crew after someone in the frenzied 200-strong crowd shouted 'Let's take her pants off.'

 

She said: 'Suddenly, before I even know what's happening, I feel hands grabbing my breasts, grabbing my crotch, grabbing me from behind. I mean, and it’s not one person and then it stops, it's like one person and another person and another person.

 

It was revealed that as she was pulled into the frenzy the camera recorded her shouting 'Stop.' It was revealed that someone in the crowd falsely shouted out that she was an Israeli Jew.

 

Angie Abdelmonem, a doctoral candidate at Arizona State University, recently published a study into the instances of 'taharrush' seen during the Egyptian Revolution.

 

She said the 'violent nature of sexual harassment and assault in Tahrir Square captured global attention', but many locally initially believed the state was hiring thugs to harass women and stem public protest.

 

'This [perception] shifted on February 11, the day Mubarak stepped down, with the mob assault and rape of CBS correspondent, Lara Logan,' she wrote.

 

'Between 2011 and 2013, sexual harassment became common at protests in Tahrir Square, exemplified by a number of highly publicized violent attacks that demonstrate how women’s bodies became objectified and dehumanized during the uprising.'

 

 

[Ryrin]

 

Double post

[Daruya]

I've worked for the government for over 20 years. I've never been sexually harassed or sexually harassed anyone yet I'm required to take sexual harassment training every year.

 

I don't have a problem at all with the current and future generations of immigrants from any country, but especially those where women are viewed as little more than property.  Granted, it may be true that not all from those countries share that perception but just like it doesn't mean that I'm guilty of sexual harassment because I'm required to take sexual harassment training every year, it doesn't mean that every Muslim immigrant participates in Taharrush (or similar practices).

 

The Muslims I know (from hubby's work) are very respectful and are appalled by what they see happening and, while I haven't asked them, I don't see that they'd be offended or insulted that Arab immigrants would be required to attend such training.

[Ryrin]

Good point, Dar.  I've had to take sexual harassment training, conflict of interest etc.  In fact, my mother's friend had to take citizenship classes to become a US Citizen.

 

I just get so tired of prefacing every discussion that concerns negative Islamist behavior with "not every Muslim does this."  Of course not every Muslim engages in this type of behavior nor supports it, just as every Jew didn't support Bernie Madoff or every Catholic didn't support how the Church was dealing with abusing priests.

 

These people are refuges.  They are traumatized.  It appears every open country is or was trying to help as much as they can.  However, to my knowledge, there doesn't appear to be a stable welcome, along with a structure in place to assist them in a world that is very different from the one they left, both culturally and within a war torn environment.  Their basic needs must be cared for first, food, shelter, safety, medical care and they must learn to abide by the laws of their adopted land, the language, and maybe new occupational skills.

 

I found this quite interesting.

 

Here is how to become a citizen of Switzerland:

 

Foreigners with no direct blood ties to Switzerland through either birth or marriage must currently live in the country for at least 12 years before they can apply for citizenship. Years spent in the country between ages ten and 20 count double. A new law reducing the number of years of residence from 12 to 10 was passed by Parliament in June 2014 and is expected to go into effect at the beginning of 2017.

 

The person must be well integrated, familiar with customs and traditions, law abiding, and pose no threat to internal or external security.

 

The State Secretariat for Migration will then “green light” an applicant’s request to begin the naturalisation process but that does not mean citizenship is certain. Rather, cantons and municipalities have their own requirements that must be met. One canton, for example, might require applicants to live for two years in the region while another might require a decade. For more on the process, please visit the State Secretariat for Migration.

 

Unlike in the United States, Switzerland does not grant a child citizenship for being born on Swiss soil. 

[Sooh]

To perhaps add a perspective to this:

 

The anti-violence class was part of a longer line of courses required of the new immigrants to Norway. Among these courses were also classes on culture, language and otherwise necessary skills they need to make a new life in Norway. It's not a singled out class that's shoved in their faces immediately when they arrive, but it's part of an altogether necessary learning experience. This particular class is however aimed at men. 

I would link you to the website I found that talks about the contents of the introduction program, but it's only in Norwegian. 

[Ryrin]

Thank you, Sooh!!!

[Elgee]

To perhaps add a perspective to this:

 

The anti-violence class was part of a longer line of courses required of the new immigrants to Norway. Among these courses were also classes on culture, language and otherwise necessary skills they need to make a new life in Norway. It's not a singled out class that's shoved in their faces immediately when they arrive, but it's part of an altogether necessary learning experience. This particular class is however aimed at men. 

I would link you to the website I found that talks about the contents of the introduction program, but it's only in Norwegian. 

 

That's a very good, logical approach to the whole matter.

[Ryrin]

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/20/world/europe/norway-offers-migrants-a-lesson-in-how-to-treat-women.html?_r=0

 

375]SANDNES, Norway — When he first arrived in Europe, Abdu Osman Kelifa, a Muslim asylum seeker from the Horn of Africa, was shocked to see women in skimpy clothes drinking alcohol and kissing in public. Back home, he said, only prostitutes do that, and in locally made movies couples “only hug but never kiss.”

375]Confused, Mr. Kelifa volunteered to take part in a pioneering and, in some quarters, controversial program that seeks to prevent sexual and other violence by helping male immigrants from societies that are largely segregated or in which women show neither flesh nor public affection to adapt to more open European societies.

375]Mr. Kelifa, 33, attended the education program at an asylum center in this town near the western Norwegian city of Stavanger. Like similar courses now underway in the village of Lunde and elsewhere in Norway, it was voluntary and was organized around weekly group discussions of rape and other violence.

375]Mr. Kelifa, said he still had a hard time accepting that a wife could accuse her husband of sexual assault. But he added that he had learned how to read previously baffling signals from women who wear short skirts, smile or simply walk alone at night without an escort.

375]“Men have weaknesses and when they see someone smiling it is difficult to control,” Mr. Kelifa said, explaining that in his own country, Eritrea, “if someone wants a lady he can just take her and he will not be punished,” at least not by the police.

375]Norway, he said, treats women differently. “They can do any job from prime minister to truck driver and have the right to relax” in bars or on the street without being bothered, he added.

375]It skirts the issue of religious differences, noting that while Norway has long been largely Christian, it is “not religion that sets the laws” and that, whatever a person’s faith, “the rules and laws nevertheless have to be followed.”

375]Norway, however, has been leading the way. Its immigration department mandated that such programs be offered nationwide in 2013, and hired a nonprofit foundation, Alternative to Violence, to train refugee center workers in how to organize and conduct classes on sexual and other forms of violence.

375]Many refugees “come from cultures that are not gender equal and where women are the property of men,” Mr. Isdal said. “We have to help them adapt to their new culture.”

375]Hege Storhaug, a former Norwegian journalist who runs Human Rights Service, an organization fiercely critical of Islam, has seized on the issue to rally public opposition to refugees, asserting on her group’s website that Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany had opened the way to an “epidemic of rape” with her welcoming approach to migrants.

375]These are two polar opposites. One side wishes to educate and to help people adapt to their new culture and the other uses it to discriminate.