This is an editorial. It expresses the view the Verdinytt (Christian Value News) editors.
In Norwegian: Hvorfor så taust om dette flagget?
We regularly get questions about why we started the online newspaper Verdinytt.no (Christian Value News) a little over a year and a half ago. After all, there is already media diversity in Norway – and there are also several other Christian newspapers.
We have always said that that the public conversation in our country needs greater media diversity. That the Christian movement needs some “home fields” where value-conservative viewpoints are enthusiastically raised.
That the good news from Christian Norway is spread for inspiration, edification, and challenge. And that someone raises the voices, focuses on the issues, and asks the questions that touch on our society’s value foundation but do not get attention in the mainstream of leading media.
Flag news
This summer’s flag news serves as a stark example of the latter reason for Verdinytt’s existence.
In early July, our newspaper reported that a Norwegian online store had begun selling a self-designed hybrid flag where the Norwegian and the Palestinian flags were mixed together.
THE UNOFFICIAL FLAG, where a triangular Norwegian flag, with a cross, is incorporated into the Palestinian flag, hangs, among other things, on a balcony in Oslo, Norway. Inset, a picture of the flag sold in a Norwegian online store.
Foto: Image sent to Verdinytt / screenshot from online store / Verdinytt collage
Our first thought was that it should be interesting for our legislators to react to the misuse of our national symbol – perhaps the only symbol that truly unites all our inhabitants in an otherwise fragmented and individualized time. A time where polarization has become one of the hallmarks of the development in the Western world.
But the quick response from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which administers the flag laws, was that there is nothing legally to be done about this. From KrF (Christian Democratic Party), we heard that such flag mixing “should not” be done, but no other political parties have taken the initiative to raise a legal issue around this.
Our next thought was that this should probably be a news story that would capture broad interest in other media here in Norway. We had expectations that this would be taken further in the public conversation in the country. But no other media reported the news.
It was not until the Iranian refugee, author and social debater Lily Bandehy raised the issue in a comment in the online newspaper Nettavisen on July 18th that it was put on the agenda for more than Verdinytt’s readers.
Verdinytt has been allowed to publish the same commentary article.
We are happy to point to concrete examples that our (still relatively new) online newspaper is needed in media diversity. But we are also appalled that our national symbol can be tampered with without more people reacting.
As Dag Øyvind Juliussen of the International Christian Embassy in Jerusalem said to Verdinytt when he commented on the matter:
“The beautiful Norwegian flag is a common symbol for our nation, heritage, and history. The Palestinian-Arab flag, on the other hand, has been a symbol for the PLO, meaning a symbol for violence, terror, and the destruction of Israel. This flag is a misuse of our Norwegian flag and our common identity.”
MAPS: “That the liberation project is ultimately about the annihilation of the world’s only Jewish state, Israel, can be seen on numerous maps, printed on merch that can be found in many places – it is not kept secret.” This pendant is sold in a number of online stores, and they are also available for sale in Norway.
Foto: Screenshot
We agree with him. The Norwegian flag was democratically adopted in 1821, as part of our long process towards independence as a nation. The colors stand for freedom.
The fact that the motif would be a cross was not significantly problematized in the debate at that time. In the heyday of revivalists from the Hauge movement, everyone knew the christian value foundation on which our nation was built. Moreover, the other Nordic countries had thought in exactly the same way, with a cross in their flags.
The Palestinian flag has a history as an Arab battle flag and has only since 1964 been used in the PLO-driven project for the “liberation” of “Palestine”. That the liberation project is ultimately about the annihilation of the world’s only Jewish state, Israel, can be seen on numerous maps, printed on merch that can be found in many places – it is not kept secret.
Among the blind spots of many of the constitution men and the first generations of elected representatives in the parliament was their view of the Jews. Fortunately, the Jewish clause was repealed in 1851.
In the Palestinian territories, which the Norwegian government has now “recognized” as a state, it is taken for granted that the content of the Jewish clause shall apply. There, there should be apartheid – Jew-free zones. And anti-Semitism should flourish in peace. There, the mutilations, rapes, massacres, and kidnappings from October 7, 2023, will go down in history as a freedom struggle.
Our flag has nothing to do in a mix with a flag used as a battle tool by leaders with such a view of humanity. We hope it outrages you.
Our flag has nothing to do in mixes with divisive questions at all. It is the symbol we can all proudly raise, both on May 17 (Constitution Day is the national day of Norway) and at all other major occasions.
In the Norwegian flag, we are all included. It is a banner of freedom, grace, and national history, telling all our citizens that here we belong. It must never become a polarization tool. We cannot allow hints that our flag should not mean the same for friends of Israel as for others.
It is already a tragedy that the law on flagging at municipal public buildings has been watered down so that interest organizations can mark their issues on poles built for our Norwegian flag. When moving from tampering with the use of flag poles to tampering with the flag itself, a decency alarm should go off.
Another point, finally: How would Palestinian leaders react if they became aware that someone had incorporated a cross into their flag? It is not exactly the bastion of religious freedom where Fatah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the various “people’s fronts” for Palestinian liberation rule. “Israel will rise and remain until Islam eliminates the country,” it says in Hamas’s founding document, the charter from 1988.
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