Propaganda in Norway

 

 

Is the Norwegian media covering up genocide?

Part I

 

Have you been skeptical, feeling something is not right, the way national, Norwegian media unilaterally portray authorities as social services (Barnevernet), as there is never incidents of power-abuse, or that anyone whatsoever has suffered during their intervention in family life?
I assume that virtually everyone living in Norway has some knowledge of someone who has been deprived of their children,  seemingly without any reason, or evidence of circumstances that can justify such a serious interference with life and health.

Such a vast number of children are forcibly removed from their families in Norway, that many other countries have directed harsh criticism about the practice, protests have been organized nationally and abroad, and even the UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights have criticized what's going on.
Have you wondered  about the poor media coverage on governmental abuses against the population, and the fact that if any human right violations set fort by Norwegian authorities gets media-coverage, the story is grayed out and is always defended by an official that gets most coverage?

If we look closely at what the ones responsible in the Norwegian media choose to highlight, and the way this is being done, we can find many examples with an uncanny similarity to propaganda principles described by the person responsible for "propaganda and public enlightenment" in Nazi Germany, before and during the second World War; Joseph Goebbels.
This set of principles that were followed in the promotion of the Nazi philosophy, and for breaking any political opposition, were found in Goebbels' diary, left after his passing.

"Propaganda is a deliberate and systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate thoughts and direct behavior to achieve a response that promotes the desired intent of the propagandist." -Garth S. Jowett and Victoria O'Donnell, Propaganda and Persuasion (Source: The Eye of the Phonix)

I will here use an example that has been in Norwegian, as well as other, media recently, the case where the Russian dad Mansur Mahashev was wanted for the kidnapping of his two under-aged daughters who were placed in a Norwegian foster home, abducting them to Russia, referred to in the media as a criminal, pursued beyond national borders, when it was revealed that the warrant for his arrest was unlawful and that the children should not have been taken from the family in the first place.

June 10th this year (2014), two girls with Russian and Norwegian citizenship, were brought to Russia by their father Mansur Mahashev. The girls were in Norwegian foster care when they were taken. Their father had custody of the children, and thus did nothing illegal, according to a verdict by the Supreme Court in a similar case. The children were taken by their father before attending court proceedings as the Norwegian child welfare authorities had made a case for taking the girls into permanent state-custody. Nevertheless, the father of two was reported wanted to international police by the Norwegian police, and his name and reputation were seriously slandered in the national media.

These are headlines we could follow the following days:

"Police: dad central when two sisters were kidnapped"
"The police are considering imprisonment in the abduction case"
"Acquaintance of father arrested in abduction case"
"Unable to find the wife of abduction accused"
"Politi.no calls for cars in the abduction case"
"Need help from the public"
"Public Lawyer worried about abducted girls"
"The sisters abducted-father charged with child neglect"
"Worried about the kids"
"Child's father risks Russian and not Norwegian prison (if Norway asks Russia to look for the man who took his daughters out of Norway, and they find him, he risks being imprisoned in Russia.)"
"Elden: Russians are not interested in kidnapping"
"The kids are gone forever"
"Child Abduction in Kongsvinger:  the father wanted illegally"
"County appeal board: Social services should not have taken the children"

When it became known that the warrant for kidnapping was in fact illegal, it was alleged that Mahashev had prevented the foster-father from contacting the police, to facilitate retrieval of the girls to their family, and APB maintained.
Eventually, the county appeal board rules that Mahashev sisters should never have been removed from the family by the social workers in the first place. In fact, the social workers were the ones guilty of a kidnapping two girls from their family, not their father, Mahashev. After exonerated by the county appeal board, Mahashev still has been referred to as a kidnapper in the media. As in other similar cases, no-one has been held accountable for the night-mare forced upon yet an other family.

Application of Goebbels' Principles?

Looking at the Goebbels propaganda principles, one can see how the media slanders a parent daring to rise against the authorities and manipulates to direct dissatisfaction towards the opponent, here the parent who finds himself assaulted.
This is in line with Goebbels' 18th principle: "Propaganda must facilitate the displacement of aggression by specifying the targets for hatred."

Shortly after the girls were taken by their father, the event was as "tragic", the summer event at school was canceled, and teachers appeared in the media complaining about what these "beautiful girls" had been exposed to by their father as he decided to take them back to Russia. The place where the girls were taken into the car by their father, was in the media referred to as "the crime-scene".
This, too, can be understood as an effort to tarnish the father's reputation, by pointing out that these cute girls deserved better, a Norwegian home, a new, Norwegian family, and not their own father and Russian family.

Headlines like "The kids are gone forever" also underline the same. The reality is another. The girls have not "disappeared", they are safely located in Russia with their family, tells the family's attorney Elden.

A so-called expert (NRK-news) suggests that Mahashev had "escaped" from Russia to Norway, which I doubt, taking into concideration that conditions people usually escape from, do not seem to be present for the family, or the Russian population in general .
The truth is that the business-man Mansur had to leave his business and friends in order to  escape from Norway, to save his children, after they were ​​illegally abducted  by the authorities, and placed into a Norwegian home.

We also see how searching for the target person internationally through the Norwegian Criminal Police and Interpol, using the media for requesting information about the car used for the escape, and people involved in retrieving the children from the foster home, as well as interrogation of the network around the family, although illegally, is used to spreading fear among others who wish to protest against governmental abuse, and to scare families from planning to rescue their children that have been separated from their families unlawfully.
The mother of the girls was charged with illegal participation. A man was detained for two weeks with letter and visit control in order to have "more time to check him into or out of the case" (NRK), which I also think is done for the purpose of intimidation of others from trying to do the same, or helping someone taking their children away from the country, as well as to discrediting the parents.
Goebbels propaganda Principle 16 deals with spreading largest possible amount of fear.

Principle 6 emphasizes that propaganda should be broadcasted using a credible medium that people have access to, in order to be noticed. It is conceivable that the authorities are starting to realize that people are losing confidence in the national media channels, as other tactics are currently being attempted. We see examples of what looks like propaganda videos on YouTube, and Facebook is infiltrated with people that tactically play political opponents against each other. These can also be found inside Facebook groups, where censorship and blackening is being actively used, in addition to people that convey the government's message of "child's best interest" and vilify the victims of abuses committed by the authorities.

Lately we have seen, a caravan furnished with a table and chairs, for the use of the Ombudsman to drive around the country, inviting children into the wagon without parents, as shown in the picture on the ombudsman home-page, to "inform about children's rights", in addition to "know what you want more or less of where you live "(Barneombudet.no).

Which brings us to Goebbels principle 14, that discusses the use of slogans.
Increasingly, we have witnessed the expression "the best interest of a child" declared in the media when talking about child protection services (Barnevernet),  and other government employees who work with children. The term has almost become a mantra when it comes to issues of children's rights and how children are treated in Norway today.
Last in May this year, the minister Horne to NRK:
"The best interest of a child is always important. As a child minister and parliamentary politician, the best interests have always been my guiding principle, not the biological principle." The article also links to one describing how often the child protection services should have intervened earlier and saved the children from their home and families, as most of the material portrayed in the media.
The same term was used by the Norwegian delegate Børge Brende, in his defense of the Norwegian state practice of separating families, when criticized in the UN Human Rights Council, shortly before this similar initiative by Horne.
It is striking how the slogan is pronounced and emphasizing every word, with elevated tone of voice, by all government employees who defend so-called child welfare actions publicly. The same was done by Brende under Norway's hearing in the Human Rights Council.

People's confidence in the Human Rights Council was probably tried manipulated in advance, when Norwegian media slandered the Council in the run-up to the above hearing. This is consistent with the Goebbels principle 13: Propaganda must be timed accurately.

In line with Principle 14, the Norwegian authorities, with their supporters in the state-owned and/or funded media, also label people from targeted families: social service-children, dandelion children, social service-parents (expressions that label people in the target groups as different and inferior), biological parents (description degrades parenting), disadvantaged, poor;  opposed to carer parents, caregivers of children, foster children, foster parents, bonus children; expressions used in the media when groups are discussed. We see parent demonized and foster-parents described as savior-parents, real parents and care-givers.

Family Love is coldly abandoned as the "biological principle".
The word "concerned" is also used in excess, which I believe is used to weaken the families' credibility in general, as apart of a process called character assassination.