Learning a lesson from Norway’s past mistake
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Vidkun Quisling, Norway’s wartime fascist leader whose name has become synonymous with collaboration with evil, lived with his wife in a rather grandiose villa outside of Oslo. That villa is now the Norwegian Center for Studies of the Holocaust and Religious Minorities, a fine transformation of a tainted place.
Earlier this year, I visited the center for a fascinating exhibition on the first independent Norwegian constitution promulgated in 1814. It was a remarkably enlightened and progressive document, composed by learned scholars, steeped in history, law, and philosophy. Some were experts on the Greek classics, others on ancient Hebrew; all were keen readers of Kant and Voltaire.
There is, however, one extraordinary clause: Article II proclaims freedom of religion in the Lutheran state, with the caveat that “Jews shall still be banned from entering the Realm.” This was peculiar, even at the time. Napoleon, defeated in that same year, had secured civil rights for Jews in the countries he had conquered. And just before the clause entered Norwegian law, the King of Denmark had granted citizenship to Jews in his realm.
What is most interesting about Norway’s 1814 constitution is not that it contains this clause, but why. The stated motives of the intellectuals who created it were not racist; they did not assume Jews to be biologically inferior. Rather, the question was argued in terms of culture and faith, with Jewish beliefs and customs deemed incompatible with modern, enlightened Western values.
The constitution’s writers were undoubtedly aware that Jews had long been persecuted in other countries, but they concluded it was not Norway’s problem. For Norway, it was best not to let them become citizens at all. Experts in Hebrew culture explained that Judaism and Norway’s constitution were irreconcilable.
The parallels with current notions about Muslims and Islam hardly need to be pointed out. Now, too, the Enlightenment is often invoked as shorthand for the Western values that are supposedly in danger of “Islamization.”
There are lessons to be learned from the Norwegian constitution’s misguided anti-Jewish clause, which, it should be noted, was repealed just a few decades later. The most important lesson, however, is that it is always foolish — and, indeed, dangerous — to judge people by what we think they believe.
There are populist demagogues in the West who would ban the Koran and prohibit Muslims from immigrating to their countries. But they are not yet in the majority. Yet even mainstream politicians, sometimes for the best of reasons, are in danger of making the same kinds of mistakes as the members of the 1814 Norwegian Constituent Assembly.
Ian Buruma is Professor of Democracy, Human Rights, and Journalism at Bard College. Copyright: Project Syndicate 1995-2015
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