Happy Eid! Norwegian TV celebrates the end of Ramadan.

By Bruce Bawer

n March 31, Norway’s biggest TV channel, state-owned NRK1, broadcast a special half-hour program, beginning at 9:15 PM — prime time, mind you! — entitled Festen etter fasten, or “The Party after the Fast.” The occasion was the end of Ramadan, the holy month of dawn-to-dusk fasting on the Islamic calendar, and the beginning of Eid al-Fitr, during which Muslims celebrate the end of the fast.

“Be a part of the year’s Eid celebration!” read the cheery program note on NRK’s website. “NRK invites you to a party with exciting guests, delicious food, and great music!” Who could resist?

Under Islam, eating and fasting are, like everything else, a big deal. In many (if not most) Muslim countries, eating in public during Ramadan can lead to arrest — and worse. In Western Europe, this isn’t the case. Yet. But hey, it’s only a matter of time. You can see it coming. In recent years, imams in Western Europe have increasingly thundered that non-Muslims shouldn’t be allowed to eat in public during the holy month — it’s simply, they say, a matter of respect (as is every other attempt to control the lives of infidels). And every time Ramadan rolls around, there seem to be even more videos than there were last time in which you can see Muslims badgering fellow passengers on public transport for daring to sip a soda in their presence.

Meanwhile, more and more leaders across Western Europe are taking part in Ramadan-related activities. That sound you heard on March 2 was Queen Elizabeth rolling over in her grave while King Charles welcomed 360 guests to Buckingham Palace’s first Iftar meal. Iftar, of course, is the meal that’s eaten after sundown during Ramadan. (Yes, I hate knowing these things too.) On March 31, Charles issued a statement in which he wished British Muslims a happy Eid.

No word yet on whether he issued a statement congratulating British Muslims for breathing.

Anyway, back to NRK’s big Eid show. It was hosted by NRK news anchor Rima Iraki (42), born in East Berlin to parents from the Levant who brought her to Norway when she was five. She had four guests, three of them men. Hkeem (27), born in Oslo to immigrants from Ghana and Niger, is a famous pop singer. Tarik Elyounoussi (37), born in Morocco, came to Norway at eleven and was a successful athlete, playing for soccer teams all over Europe. Arman Surizehi (32), born in Lillehammer to Iranian parents, is a well-known actor on Norwegian TV.

There was also one woman: Ayesha Wolasmal (38), who was born in Oslo to Afghan refugees and who studied terrorism and radicalization at King’s College London. She’s been a diplomat and foreign-aid worker, and in 2021 was among those who were evacuated in Biden’s brilliant Kabul airlift; last year she published a book about the Taliban.

Let it be said that none of the men were bearded. Nor, unlike many of the Muslim men whom one sees in the streets of Oslo, did any of them wear a djellaba (robe) or taqiya (skullcap). Both of the women, for their part, were expertly made up and wore tasteful jewelry. Both had long, luxuriant auburb hair, which was not covered by a hijab. And everyone was dressed elegantly.

The premise of the show was simple. Sitting in a pleasant room that was decorated with candles, around a beautifully set table that was covered with heaping plates of food, Iraki and her guests talked about their lives, about how they’d found their way to their vocations, and, at least briefly, about the role that Islam has played in their lives.

The conversation was charming, amusing, and honest. And, above all, civilized. A couple of the men bonded over being told by their parents that their career choices were bringing shame to their families. Several of the participants discussed the ways in which they’d had to break with their family traditions in order to have the lives they have now. None of them seemed to be terribly religious; perhaps one or more of them aren’t really believing Muslims at all. (Apostate Muslims, to be sure, tend not to announce such things to the world, given that the Islamic punishment for apostasy is death.)

It was interesting to observe the way in which Iraki and her guests conducted themselves. Often, when Muslim women in Norway are obliged to socialize with men who aren’t in their families, they’re accompanied by male relatives serving as chaperones. That didn’t happen here. On the contrary, the women interacted with the men in an easy way and on an equal footing; and the men, in turn, treated them with respect. There was a good deal of laughter. When it was time for dessert, the group moved into the adjoining room, which contained a wall of shelves filled with books, and was served cakes by a handsome young man who gave off very non-heterosexual vibes.

In short, aside from the menu and some of the clothing choices, these were five highly Westernized people sharing an entirely Westernized experience. In no way was it representative of the social lives of most Muslims in Norway.

Whom, I wondered, did NRK think it was kidding? Maybe a few unworldly Norwegians in remote parts of the frozen far north, where Muslims are still relatively thin on the ground, might be persuaded that this half-hour was presenting a realistic image of Muslims in Norway. But any Norwegian who lives in a reasonably large town or city knows better. And Norwegian Muslims themselves certainly weren’t fooled.

Watching this show, I imagined Muslim husbands all over east Oslo furiously turning off the TV lest their wives get fancy ideas about what their lives might be like without Islamic social control. And I pictured their imams beginning to write splenetic sermons about the show.

For my part, toward the end of Festen etter Fasten, I surprised myself by breaking into tears. Why? Because I was thinking about all the Muslim women in Norway who’ve never had and never will have the opportunity — an opportunity taken for granted by non-Muslim Norwegians — to sit comfortably at a table like that and speak their minds freely with a group of decent, intelligent, and accomplished people. And I was thinking something else, too; good God, if only this were the reality of European Islam!

But it wasn’t. It was fantasy. It was propaganda.

Every Christmas Eve, NRK broadcasts hours of live programming, complete with cooking and baking and holiday music, that reflects the way in which most Norwegians actually celebrate Christmas. This Eid show was apparently supposed to be a Muslim version of that. But it presented a thoroughly phony picture of Islam — a picture founded in the naive European illusions of half a century ago, when European politicians opened up their borders to armies of Muslim immigrants in the foolish belief that the only significant differences between Islam and Christianity were culinary, sartorial, and ceremonial.

Patently, the aim of this show was to make us all feel that everything’s just plain dandy — that the Muslims among us are no different from us. Instead, it served as one more reminder that NRK isn’t only a TV channel whose hefty budget is covered by the extortionate taxes that are squeezed out of us every year; it’s Norway’s largest and best-financed deliverer of what laughingly goes by the name of news. Alas, much if not most of what NRK presents as news, day in and day out, is hard-core, reality-challenged propaganda of the first order. Which is most assuredly what they were serving up in Festen etter Fasten.

First published in the American Spectator