ABSTRACT
Told by a Somali girl:
It was in the music class. By accident, I pushed a Pakistani girl on my way from one side of the classroom to the other. She turned around, and shouted 'whore' at me. This was certainly an attack on my honor and it made me furious. I decided to show her who I am. Later, after school, I asked some Somali girls to help me. The Pakistani girl was standing alone, and my friends and I surrounded her, and I hit her hard. Then a lot of girls came running. They were her Pakistani friends. We all shouted at each other and fought until some teachers who were working late came running. The Pakistani girl was injured and had to be taken to the accident and emergency department. She only had some nail scratches so it wasn't serious. The next day, after school, the Pakistani girl asked her brothers and cousins to avenge her. Because they don't like fighting girls they attacked my brother instead, and all his friends got involved in this fight. Then the teachers came and stopped everything. Later, on another day my brother and his Somali friends were in Oslo City, 1 where they caught sight of the Pakistani brother and his cousin. So the Somalis attacked them. My brother told me that they would have killed the Pakistanis if the police had not turned up and parted them.
The human personality is a sacred thing; one dare not violate it nor infringe its bounds, while at the same time the greatest good is in communion with others (Durkheim 1953:37).