“Burning the Qur’an: Blasphemy, Free Speech and Hate Speech in Norway”

Sindre Bangstad

Research Professor, KIFO/ Institute for Church, Religion and Worldview Research

"Under what conditions does freedom of speech become freedom to hate?" asked Judith Butler in a 2010 essay. For over a year now, towns, cities and suburbs throughout Norway has seen a highly theatrical 'free speech ritual' in which leaders of the racist far-right fringe group SIAN or Stop The Islamisation in Norway engage in racist hate speech against Muslims in Norwegian town squares, and immigrant-dominated suburban areas, and engage in public desecration of the Qur'an by means of burning, spitting on, and tearing out pages of the Qur'an. Norway abolished its blasphemy paragraph by an act of Parliament in 2015, but SIAN leaders have already been convicted of criminal violation of Norwegian hate speech laws in 2019. The current 'free speech ritual' in which SIAN engages is inspired by similar rituals pioneered by the far-right and racist party Stram Kurs and its leader Rasmus Paludan in Denmark, and has drawn widespread international media attention in countries such as Turkey and Pakistan. Based on extensive contacts and interviews with local Muslims, municipal officials and civil society actors that have sought to prevent polarization and radicalization as a fall-out from a public Qur'an-burning by SIAN in the Southern Norwegian city of Kristiansand on Nov 16, 2019, Sindre Bangstad will present preliminary findings from an ethnographic study conducted under the auspices of the INTERSECT project on this matter.