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I am a Scandinavian and I stood witness to what I believe “Paranoid Bigot” refers to here. I live in Oslo, Norway and this summer the media served us with a string of truly horrendous rape cases. These were “blitz rapes,” instances where women were brutally attacked, even in the crowded streets of downtown Oslo.
It is important to note that we are talking about a handful of cases here, maybe eight which came out in the media. Some of the rapes we read about described the assailant as Caucasian. Others were deemed as being “of foreign origin.” I cannot find a single case where the religion of the assailant was specified.
Still, Oslo’s crisis center for rape victims saw a dramatic increase over the summer - their numbers doubled compared to the previous year.
I see that the infamous Norwegian (now ex-) blogger Fjordman is mentioned. I myself took part in the debate that followed when he first published his theory on the “Muslim rape epidemic.” The numbers that led him to claim that Muslim men are at war against Norway by raping white women one by one, is that in 2000, 72 out of 111 persons charged with rape were of non-western origin.
Firstly, we do not now how many of these are Muslims. Secondly, non-western women are also over-represented in the victim pool - which indicates that if Muslim men are, indeed, trying to overthrow the government, they aren’t very goal-oriented when choosing their targets.
Also, when we compare numbers directly in this manner, it is important to remember that “non-western immigrants” and “Norwegians” are very different groups, demographically speaking. It ultimately means that you compare young, city-dwelling, immigrant males to elderly white ladies residing in the countryside. It should come as no surprise that young men of any color commit more rapes than grandmothers do.
I’m not sure my final point is very comforting, but the crisis center that observed the increased rape numbers also reports that 85% of rapes are committed by someone you already know. The sad fact is that, if one is to be afraid of somebody, one should look closer to home than to one’s favorite stereotype.
