You’re all dead. Your culture is basically extinct…or more accurately, has evolved into something that doesn’t involve sea-faring raids and pillaging and slave-taking, all those stereotypical things associated with Vikings. You weren’t even all that a thousand years ago — the Vikings were one aspect of a complicated culture of farmers and merchants and politicians and fishers and city builders.
So I’m afraid that if you are calling yourself a Viking now, you’re just a silly poseur*. If you’re trying to live up to Viking ideals today, you’re mistaken — no one wants to live with Vikings around anymore. Imagine a time a thousand years from now, when people try to claim the revered traditions of Americans by insisting on being called Footballers and running about in pads and cleats and punching their spouses in the head. That’s what I see in modern “Vikings”, and I say that as someone who can also claim Scandinavian descent.
I find this story ridiculous: a woman who happens to be Christian (sorry) and graduated from a conservative Christian college (even sorrier) applied for a job with a Norwegian wilderness expedition company — apparently she was otherwise qualified for the job, because she was rejected for being insufficiently Viking.
The Norse background of most of the guys at the management level means that we are not a Christian organization, and most of us see Christianity as having destroyed our culture, tradition, and way of life,Amaruk’s hiring manager, Olaf Amundsen, wrote last month to Vancouver-area job applicant Bethany Paquette, the first in a series of bizarre, angry emails sent from company officials in Norway.According to a complaint she has since filed with the B.C. Human Rights Tribunal (BCHRT), Ms. Paquette’s Christian education cost her an “assistant guide internship” position at Amaruk.
Wait. Norway voluntarily (well, mostly: there was some torturing and murdering involved) became Christian, and has been Christian for centuries, and Mr Amundsen almost certainly has Christian ancestors much more recently in time than any Vikings…and for that matter, for all we know, any of his ancestors who lived during the age of Vikings may have spent their time fishing for herring or growing barley or breeding oxen, and of course his maternal ancestors (so easily forgotten!) were even more unlikely to have spent any time raiding England.
I also have to wonder if Amundsen is equally discriminating against atheists and humanists — there are a heck of a lot of those in modern Norway — because no True Viking™ would have been an atheist. I hope he isn’t a follower of Ásatrú, because that hokey religion isn’t even as old as Mormonism. There’s pretty much no recourse for a modern devotee of Viking purity but to fire everyone in the company — by hanging, probably, or possibly in hand-to-hand combat.
This is also unfortunate because the rather stupid rejection just reinforced that Christian sense of martyrdom.
Ms. Paquette says she hasn’t tried to force her beliefs and opinions on anyone. In fact, she has questioned her religion and until recently she did not regularly attend church. But the Amaruk “attack” has strengthened her faith in Christianity and in God, she says, and has made her decide to “stand up for what’s right.”
Getting a rude set of emails from a pseudo-Viking douchesnekkja is a piss-poor reason to believe in a god, but I can see where resentment can lead to that kind of invalid response. But really, anyone who calls themselves a Viking nowadays, unless it’s in a mocking sense, is full of shit.
* Or you’re a bird-murdering felon, but that’s a whole different story.
Hmm. This story is getting weirder and weirder. It looks like Amaruk Wilderness is a fake company.
Sophie Waterman applied for the same job, but soon believed it sounded too good to be true. She withdrew her application after a friend in the tourism industry warned her Amaruk might not be all that it seems.
"When I cancelled the interview, I received about 15 emails in quick succession," she says. "All pretending to be from different people involved with the company, and all very litigious, accusing me and my friend of slander. My feeling is that it’s all one person."
But if that’s the case, who that person is remains something of a mystery.
Christopher Fragassi-Bjørnsen and Dwayne Kenwood -Bjørnsenare are listed as co-CEOs of Amaruk along with several other businesses, including Norealis, Spartic and Militis.
But the men do not live in Europe and they are not diplomats. And if Olaf Amundsen — the man who allegedly sent Paquette the offensive emails — is real, the picture of him on the company website is not. In fact, it’s an image grabbed from social media site Pinterest.
One of the companies, Norealis, is listed as owning a male erotic website called MaleCorps.com. Many of the models found on that site can also be found in images on the other companies’ websites.
The domain names of the websites for all the companies were registered in B.C. by a Christopher Fragassi, who lists a Whistler P.O. Box as his address.
These are really fake Vikings, it seems — so fake they don’t even exist.
ODIN!!!!
Hanging? What’s wrong with a Blood Eagle?
apologies. my reference.
Apparently, the owner of the “company” seems to have set the whole thing up so that he can abuse job applicants.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/amaruk-wilderness-questions-raised-about-company-at-centre-of-anti-christian-attack-1.2794452
Shouldn’t that be WOTAN?
This whole thing may just be an unusually successful troll: http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/amaruk-wilderness-questions-raised-about-company-at-centre-of-anti-christian-attack-1.2794452
Too slow, fakeusername, too slow.
Looks to be far more complicated than something set up as a troll. Corporate registrations go back to the late nineties and they have a direct affiliation, lots of the same names, with the Professional Association of Wilderness Guides and Instructors, which is also difficult to get information on but also goes back to the late 90’s. It’s hard to tell how legit these organizations are however it would be a lot of work over more than a decade just to troll some job applicants now.
Wait. You mean my being Italian doesn’t automatically make me a Centurion?
Guess I’ll have to cancel my plans to summer in Gaul :-(
The differences between Scandinavians of several centuries back and those today constitute one of my favorite arguments against evolutionary psychology – and these guys want to launch a reversion and undermine my case?
Where’s my battle-hammer?!?
Bit of a sidebar, but this misappropriation of Viking ancestry really gets under my skin. Okay, so I’m an Englishwoman who used to work in a Viking museum where we dressed up in period costume. We did lots of research into everyday Viking life (the trading and crafting stuff) and we would get Scandinavian visitors who would tell us, “We’re REAL Vikings!” and look at us like we were meant to be impressed. And of course, what I tried to explain was that a) “Viking” was originally a job title, not a race, so no, you’re not a Viking, b) even if we today take the term to describe a race, that I was just as likely to have Viking blood in me as they were, and c) that if you meant you were DESCENDED from Vikings, that I was much more likely to have the blood of the piratical seafaring Norsemen in me, while they were more likely to be descended from the farmers who stayed at home.
But of course they didn’t speak much English, and I didn’t speak any of the Scandinavian languages, so I just nodded awkwardly.
And here’s my historically accurate nitpicking:
@Kevin Anthoney- Blood eagles are apocryphal.
@Al Dente- “Wotan” is usually thought of as the Anglo-Saxon name rather than the Norse one,
I’m fond of saying (speaking as a Norwegian-American) that Norwegians aren’t Vikings; Norwegians are what’s left over when all the Vikings have gone away.
Again, Vikings were one of the most open-minded and mixed people in European history, with descendants all the way from America to Russia and the Middle East. Hardly the paragons of Scandinavian purity these crypto-fascists make them out to be.
But Christianity and Viking life are entirely compatible. Didn’t Jesus himself say in the parable of the Scandinavians “A Norse! A Norse! My Kingdom for a Norse.”
I assert my right to be considered 1% Viking. My birth surname is the Manx version of a Norse name which can be traced through the centuries and of which the first written record is dated to 937 C.E.
And it’s in runes. So there!
Reminds me entirely too much of the hispanic “Indians” so common where I live, known in some quarters as the Wannabe Tribe. Of course, until about 40 years ago, calling someone like them an Indian was considered a knives-out insult, but times changed and it became cool to be an Indian. There is nothing wrong with that in itself. Celebrating ALL your ancestry instead of ignoring the non-European part (it was once insisted by many, especially the old established families that THEY were pure Castilian Spanish) is great. I celebrate my own ancestry, mostly Celtic with touches of other things, and acknowledge my Comanche great, great, great grandfather who raped my great, great, great grandmother during one of the last raids in north Texas. My mom even found an old newspaper account of the event, that mentioned that “outrages” were committed–roughly nine months before my great great grandmother was born, which supported the family tradition. Aside from that, my evidence is that shovel-shaped incisors are actually pretty rare in people of mostly Celtic ancestry, but I have them.
The fact that Cohuiltecan was a group of languages, not a tribe, and that while they might very well carry the blood of the original inhabitants around here, most of their ancestry probably comes from deeper in Mexico and (*whisper* Africa, because the Spanish brought a fair number of African slaves over) is ignored. You see, the culture they are claiming was gone before Texas became independent of Mexico because it was already suffering from the Anglos and the diseases but the final blow was the Comanches and Apaches who came in and kicked them out. That doesn’t bother these guys. They demand things. They want to be federally recognized. They wear turquoise and plains Indian clothes, with fake eagle feathers in their hair. The disdain and annoyance of actual Native American tribes people who have maintained a continuous (though obviously changing) culture throughout the centuries is interesting to watch.
And yet, I feel a little guilty about making fun of them, because the culture of their Native American ancestors was destroyed by the Europeans who came here and that is not something to make light of. If they weren’t so ahistorical and silly about it….
And as for the young Christian woman, I think she should sue the hell out of them. He religion has nothing to do with whether she is a competent assistant guide.
If I was seeking a “Wilderness Adventure”,
I wouldn’t go with someone who thinks he’s a Viking.
I’m castillian spanish and i’m wondering what on earth a “pure” castillian spanish is O_o
I’m afraid as a true, pure Celt (my mother even has blue eyes so come on, you can’t contest that!) i have to tell those fake “Vikings” that they are totally posers…
Actually, I’m sure I read an article recently which stated that many of the Viking graves excavated in Britain that had been assumed to be those of manly males (because they were buried with their swords, see?) had been shown, on analysis of the skeletons, to be of women; I don’t think this is the article but it seems to cover the same points.
Meh, I have to admit to a small twinge of schadenfrauden. Considering that Christians regularly discriminate against non-christians. Still, this guy is an idiot if he thinks he’s going to win.
‘Americans’ will suffice as the name for a people who roamed the world creating havoc militarily, economically and culturally. I suspect most of the world uses it in that sense now. ‘Footballers’ will be used to refer to the Europeans, South Americans, Africans and a few others who played o jogo bonito beautifully.
“Bird-murdering”? So, they own a bunch of crows?
I guess equal opportunities legislation just doesn’t apply to proper Vikings, right?
Ahah! That must be why modern Scandinavians are so peaceful*. All the warlike ones went viking and settled elsewhere!
*Yes, I know it’s a stereotype, and there’s a lot of racism, and Sweden was much more helpful to the Nazis than was strictly necessary.
PZ:
Ikaaaaaaara!*
B5 reference.
Re; jennydraper @ #11… The Jorvik exhibit, I presume.
I’ll match Scandinavian ancestry with the rest of you… Two of my grandparents came to the US just a bit after 1900. My grandfather’s name–before he dropped the part after the hyphen and then changed the spelling because nobody could spell or pronounce it–was Jorgen Jensen Ravn-Jorgensen. Much of the rest of my ancestry comes from areas the Scandinavians went through at one time or another.
But, yes. not only was “viking” a job title, but not one that was well thought of back home.
Anyone who thinks an idea must be great because others attack it, is an idiot, full stop.
If it wasn’t clear in the interview that she was, in fact, an idiot, then that business has a much bigger problem with their HR department than whether or not they discriminate against xians.
…seriously, this is all just fucking idiotic.
Azhael – it was very important in colonial Spanish America to claim pure Christian ancestry, which would mean no Amerindians for sure, and at least initially the colonies were legally under the Kingdom of Castile as opposed to Aragon (Isabel’s lands, not Ferdinand’s). So being “pure castellano” – all Christian, Kingdom of Castile – would be useful to anyone in the colonies. Not that very many people qualified – but the farther you got from the big cities, the easier it was to buy a piece of paper that said otherwise. There were real tensions between penisulares (people fresh off the boat) and creoles (whites born in the Americas) that got worse in the 1700s as the Bourbons shifted more power to the penisulares. That most of the creoles were not strictly European in ancestry was a touchy subject at best.
“Guys“?…Hmmm…I wonder…Is it possible she was rejected for not being sufficiently Viking because they were concerned about the fallout from rejecting her for not being sufficiently guy? Perhaps they feel that wilderness guiding requires Manly Men with lots of Viking testosterone. Or perhaps they were concerned that, as a Christian, she wouldn’t want to join in all their reindeer games.
@29 Theron Corse
Oh i can understand that, my quibble is that castillian refers to anyone who has been born in any of the two Castillas, it’s purely a demonym. I might add that few actual castillians can probably claim a pure christian european ancestry xD
But yeah, i understand your point of course.
Well I do like to go out for a vike, but I’d never claim that I was viking.
One of my great-grandfathers married a Viking princess!
Update: Hemant over at Friendly Atheist is reporting that this is actually somewhat of a hoax; the company is at least semi-fictional, and had already sent her a bunch of messages which either indicate that they were pranking her or were seriously insane.
Amundsen responded in an email saying Paquette’s job application was rejected “solely based on the fact that she did not meet the minimum requirements of the position.”
“Any further discussion after that, including the fact that we strongly disagree with the position that gay people should not be allowed to marry or even engage in sexual relationships, would have been a mere expression of opinion.”
That from CBC:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bethany-paquette-trinity-western-grad-has-prejudice-claim-rebuffed-by-tourism-company-1.2793114
The job application of this individual was rejected because Paquette did not meet the minimum requirements. This seems to say she was basically unqualified…. The comments that followed in the published letters back and forth demonstrated very crude rejection of Paquette’s Christianity, or rather, the wilderness Viking adventure version of Christianity, but this was tacked on after the statement of rejection on basic qualifications. Until those details are made known, the specific lack that led to the rejection, all the religious opinion remains a separate matter, doesn’t it? The quote above suggests this to me. Or do you feel this is the company’s way of trying to deny the real reason for their saying no to Paquette, their deep hatred of Christianity.
In my work, I spend time daily with both assholes that are God’s saved assholes and plain old unsaved assholes like me. We mostly manage to muddle through. Now though, with this young person in the news, I have to hear a Trinity graduate who works with me complain about the hatred of belief in the world and how God’s people should be allowed to believe what they want.
So what is wrong with students swearing to almighty God that they won’t go over the line with sex while attaining a higher education? Or the bald condemnation of sinful women who seek to stop God’s work in their wombs? Or prayer meetings to save Horace because he expressed a wish to date John, down the hall at dorm? Nobody deserves to be be bullied. If Paquette was not qualified to work for the company, then that is a sufficient rejection. All the bullshit about Trinity, woo-woo school that spreads sick ideas, belongs elsewhere, not in a rejection letter to a young applicant.
Actually, she was rejected for not being qualified for the position. There’s a bit of a clue in that their first email to her starts,
“I do not understand the purpose of your application considering you do not meet the minimum requirements that are clearly outlined on our website”
http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/1310195-copy-paste-of-all-amaruk-emails-in-chronological.html
You can also find the details of how amaruk deal with job applications on their website
“Applications that do not meet all minimum requirements, and/or do not include all required documentation, will be rejected with prejudice.”
http://amaruk.com/en/info/careers/internships.html
Seems like they kept their end of the bargain.
So it’s like how the U.S. voluntarily gave up slavery.
As someone from a Scandinavian country, I find it quite ridiculous that anyone would think ancestry from here makes them somehow better. I suppose it fits with the general bigotry here (It’s difficult to get people to stop making jokes about the Holocaust, not to mention what some think of Romani or Middle-Eastern people), but I think even some of the worse bigots here would not discriminate openly based on religion when hiring.
This is also a country that was far far too enthused about invading Afghanistan and Iraq, though, so I can’t exactly claim that we don’t have people ready to raid and pillage…
Bethany Paquette is planning to continue with her complaint, according to the CBC:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/bethany-paquette-won-t-back-down-on-human-rights-complaint-against-amaruk-wilderness-lawyer-says-1.2795844
I wonder if anyone will be investigating if the company actually had any jobs to offer in the first place.
Maureen, we must be cousins! O: My grandfather’s name is a Scots version of a Norman name that must be Viking if you go back far enough and squint a bit.
Since corporate personhood, it is now possible for a corporation to be a troll.
While it was very inappropriate for what the so called company did, to some extent she is almost as much to blame. Ms. Paquette by her own admission deliberately escalated the situation.
“I signed it God Bless, probably partially because I knew it would irritate them,” Paquette said.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/british-columbia/trinity-western-grad-attacked-for-being-christian-in-job-rejection-1.2791323
So she went looking for a fight. I like to think of myself as a tolerant person but at times the sense of self-righteous entitlement and victimization of these so called Christians really does piss me off. If she had walked away from the confrontation at the first exchange no problem, she would have had the moral high ground and a pretty good case against them. But to further escalate things like that? Obnoxious to say the least.
Forgot to add in reading the entire email exchange on the CBC news site, its clear that at least initially the comments made by the company were not made because she was a Christian, although that was obvious, It was made because she was a graduate of Trinity Western University – a fundamentalist Christianist college that makes it a policy to discriminate against gays and non-Christians. If you are a student and come out, you are expelled. Same if you are Jewish, Muslim, Hindu or Atheist.
Moreover given that she was taking a biology program for a so called college that makes it a point of declaring its Creationist beliefs, I serious doubt the value of any biology degree from such a program. Bluntly put she was not qualified by any stretch of the imagination. Again a false sense of entitlement and an over inflated sense of victimization.
As a descendant of people who were attacked by Vikings, i find the apparent need of some to associate themselves with those professional arseholes not a little distasteful. How much time has to pass to make rapists, robbers and slave traders seem noble?
There is a clue to how fake Amaruk is in the names of the CEOs. Bjørnsen/Bjørnsenare is a pun where these guys in modern “Scandinavian” translation would be called “Bear late” and “Bear later”. Bjørnsenare is not a reasonable surname in any Scandinavian language.