We had another shoot-out in Oslo last night. This time it took place at Aker Brygge, a downtown recreational area on the waterfront, popular with the inhabitants of the city. And surprise, surprise, once again it was a feud between rivalling Pakistani gangs. The area was packed with people at the time of the shooting, and only luck prevented loss of lives. Witnesses say that several shots were fired indiscriminately into the crowd, and that terrified people ran for their lives as bullets started flying all over the place. Two gang members were hit and sustained minor leg injuries. The gunmen quickly disappeared into the crowd after firing the shots, guns raised. According to the police this is the tenth shoot-out in the city in the last three years.
Police have appealed to the Pakistani community in Oslo to give them any information that could help the them catch the gunmen. After an incident like this, one would expect that anyone with just the tiniest bit of information, regardless of ethnicity, would come forward and share this with the police. But local immigrant politician Kamil Azhar (Labour party) believes that the police should refrain from appealing for such help from the Pakistani community. He fails to see what the Pakistani community can do for the police in this case. He thinks that such statements from the police only help to stigmatizes an entire ethnic group. This is Azhar’s response to the appeal for help.
“It is a very stigmatizing statement from him, when he insinuates that an entire ethnic group of 30 000 people are responsible for the actions of roughly a hundred people. If he thinks that members of the Pakistani community should start knocking on doors and ask gang members to stop committing crime, then I’d like to ask him how he expects us to achieve something that the police themselves are not able to do?”
Funny thing that Azhar is not willing to approach the Pakistani community in this case. He was very eager to approach the very same community ahead of the last local election in Oslo. A newspaper could reveal after the election that Azhar was personally handing out pre-filled ranked ballots to Pakistani voters to secure a seat in the local city counsil. He also visited local Imams and other “important” people in the immigrant community to achieve this goal. But he’s obviously not that bothered in assisting the police in apprehending raving mad “gun desperados” that think nothing of opening fire in public.
To concerned politicians and other members of the “elite” I have only this to say, welcome to the multicultural society, I hope you’ll find it very enriching.
Monday, August 21, 2006
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5 comments:
Maybe it's time to start thinking creatively, with regard to punishing these criminals. The important thing is to get them off the streets, and into the prisons for a long time.
A good start would be to institute separate and cumulative sentencing for each individual crime, instead of the current Norwegian procedure whereby generally, a criminal is sentenced only for the most serious offense from what theoretically can be dozens of criminal acts with which he is charged.
In other words, most of the time under today's Norwegian system, these sweethearts can have multiple crimes on their arrest sheets, and although they can be found guilty and sentenced simultaneously for all the crimes for which they are charged (since the last time they stood trial), there is no cumulative punishment - the only time they serve is for the single worst offense. Thus, when it comes to serving time, only the crime with the highest penalty "counts" when it comes to years awarded in prison.
So, instead of the current circus, whereby hardened and habitual criminals get out after 2/3 of a sentence have been served (the usual Norwegian procedure, barring that no rapes and murders have been carried out whilst on "rehabilitative leave" - as has on occasion happened), cumulative sentencing would have these enemies of society locked away for many decades, which they fully deserve.
Tougher sentences also would be useful. The current, PC-influenced, slap-on-the-fingers incarcerations represent "lenience to the point of idiocy". The present Norwegian upper sentencing limit for any crime, no matter how heinous, of twenty-one years or so (with one-third automatically off for "good behaviour") is laughable. A good start would be to move this upper limit to fifty years.
Remember, the main and paramount function of government, as agreed on by most Western thinkers since Aristotle, is to provide security, to protect the citizenry from violence, foreign and domestic. It bears repeating - since the schools in Norway would never say it - that a government derives its legitimacy from this, and not from the amount of welfare (read "bread and circuses") that it can redistribute, by taking from law-abiding citizens to give to the criminal classes. Whether Norway, with its ineffectual policing, ex-Maoist judges, token sentencing, and a weakling army of 2200 full-time soldiers (that is, permanent cadre, as opposed to conscripts) is fulfilling the function by which most governments claim their monopoly on force, is best left for the reader to decide.
Another area needing reformation is that of the courts and advocacy in Norway. Too many Perry Mason wannabes are clogging the courts with spurious defenses based on technicalities. The architect and conservative social critic Ralph Adams Cram suggested in his "Walled Cities" that such lawyers, who subvert the justice system with frivolous delays, be disbarred. Perhaps the same thinking should be applied to Norway, where criminals can perjure themselves without fear of punishment; where accused can pretty much turn up when they feel like it for their trials; where the person, instead of the crime, is judged, with consequent lessening of sentencing upon presentation of a good sob story in the courts (where the criminal, no less conversant with modern sociology than any academic, presents himself as "victim").
More prisons, of course, would be of great help. Should some poor benighted soul be actually so unfortunate and unlucky (read "stupid") to be sentenced, he will in all likelihood spend months out on the streets between his sentencing and his imprisonment, free to commit more criminal acts. No wonder leftist critics of traditional punishment (several Oslo university professors come to mind) can say that sentencing has little effect on crime, when the time between sentencing and punishment consists of so wide a span as to render the idea of cause (i.e. crime) and effect (i.e. punishment) tenuous beyond worthy consideration in the offender's mind!
With regard to the A's and B's, these gangsters have learned that no matter what they do, they will essentially get away with it. One tactic to bring these mad dogs to heel would be to revoke their Norwegian citizenship. A radical step, no doubt, but one becoming increasingly necessary. Since many of them evidently hold - with the blessings of the Norwegian government - two passports ( a privilege denied most Western European immigrants to Norway), one would think it an easy step in practical terms (although not by international conventions, to which the Scandinavian countries are so subservient). After all, crime committed, manhunt on, a lot of these creeps run to Pakistan until the heat dies down, evidence trails turn cold, negotiating a safe return under favourable conditions via their lawyers. Wouldn't it be nice if while they were visiting "the auld sod", that their Norwegian passports were yanked, preventing their return?
It would also help if Norwegian youth, and the newspapers - Aftenposten among them - would stop using the term "respect" with regard to the fear these mobsters crave and generate. Whatever the Urdu term for "fear" may be, we should never accept the glossing of that word as "respect" in Norwegian. "Respect", in western thought, is the accolade one earns from one's fellows for honourable action and effort, often for the common good. That admiration really has little to do with the term that Pakistani godfathers would like to have applied to them by us. We should only show contempt for these practitioners of the law of the jungle, and save our use of the term "respect" for those who rightfully deserve it.
"...If he thinks that members of the Pakistani community should start knocking on doors and ask gang members to stop committing crime, then I’d like to ask him how he expects us to achieve something that the police themselves are not able to do?”
The police ARE able to do something, but I suspect he wouldn't like that a bit.
This is the typical Muslim response. I was just looking at the MPACUK site and they were whining up a storm over the passengers who wouldn't fly with two Arabs. Once again, it is "racism" being blamed.
After a few hundred Muslims howl "Allah Akbar" and then self-detonate while thousands upon thousands more Muslims cheer them on, its not "racism" that makes other people scared of them, its self-preservation and common sense.
Similarly, since Muslims are the ones blowing each other away with sublime disregard for non-Muslim fellow citizens, it IS their responsibility to at least help stop it. They want it both ways...
The two gangs in quesetion are Pakistani, and even Azhar is not denying that. Why is it stigmatizing to turn to their own community and ask for help?
Let's say there would be a gang of students. Would it be stigmatizing to check out all universities? I am sure that would be the police's first step.
Or let's take a theoretical case of a black inner-city gang in the US. Wouldn't the police first turn to the black community leaders? Wouldn't the black community leaders cooperate with the police as much as possible?
It's really sad that Azhar doesn't see it as his own priority to make sure that the Pakistani community are upstanding members of their society and to make sure that being a gang member is not acceptable.
I'm wondering what was the police/politician's response to Azhar's statement.
Roughdoggo
This miserable situation will at least boost the popularity of the FRP, and with them in charge things will definitely improve. The sad lesson to be learnt from all of this, is that things normally have to hit rock bottom before they start getting better
Esther,
As far as I know there hasn’t been any response to his remarks. I guess some politicians agree with him. For them it’s an everyday occurrence to blame the “the racist” Norwegian society for the actions of these criminal immigrants.
my ship called in Oslo in 1975. what a city! such a pity it is being ruined by muslims.
steve / texas
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