"Norway Displays Unity at Attack Victim’s Funeral"

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/30/world/europe/30norway.html

By MICHAEL SCHWIRTZ
Published: July 29, 2011

NESODDEN, Norway — While her friends saved for iPads, Bano Rashid worked at an amusement park last summer to buy a bunad, the ornate and expensive national costume of Norway. Though she was an Iraqi Kurd who came here as a child, Ms. Rashid wanted to stretch the limits of the country’s blond and blue-eyed identity, to help redefine what it means to be Norwegian.

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On a hill overlooking the waters of the Oslo fjord, Norwegians, Kurds and others vowed to honor her life by defying the man responsible for her death.

“We would rather strengthen our trust and love rather than fall victim to his degeneration,” said Roland E. Goksoyr, 18, a friend of Ms. Rashid’s. “We will punish him, not by killing him or torturing him, but by defying his every wish.”

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“Standing here on holy ground, it is important to affirm that we respect one another’s beliefs,” Mr. Stoltenberg said. “Against that backdrop, diversity must be allowed to blossom and to color the picture of the Norwegian ‘we.’ ”


RIP Bano Rashid

In unity,
suffragette