Eva Michalakova

Author: Katrine Haugen

Eva Michalakova is the mother of two children. Two boys. David and Denis.

To ensure that the two boys grow up to become solid and productive Norwegian citizens the Norwegian authorities have decided that both David and Denis are to break all bonds with their mother Eva and the rest of their Czech family. They are to be brought up in two separate Norwegian homes. Even though both of them are citizens of the Czech Republic.

The system of Child Welfare has long and solid traditions in Norway. As the first country in the world to pass a law that gave the Norwegian State permission and responsibility to take care of children (in reality children from the lower parts of society) in the year 1900 – the tradition carry on with increasing strength today. An enormous growth in the Norwegian economy the last 40 years or so is one plausible explanation why the numbers of children taken away from their parents by force, have exploded in Norway over the past decade.

Another reasonable explanation is that Norway continues an over 100 year old tradition of a severe form of social control. The laws that applies in these cases proves this point. They are written and interpreted in a way that leaves no room for the family to object to the state interference in their private lives.

The government appointed expert-group on the matter «Raundalen-utvalget» states in the year 2012 that their ethical stand is «to weaken the families power and freedom to enable society to rescue the most vulnerable children».

With this viewpoint, it is no wonder that five children are taken away from their parents without warning each day in the supposedly «best country on earth» to live in. The group also says that one of the reasons for this ethical stand is to make sure that children grow up to become «solid and productive members of society in the best interest of the nation».

That this policy breaks with basic human rights is not an issue for the Norwegian Government that blindly continues its offensive campaign against families living in Norway. The thought behind this policy is the same today as it was when the law first was written – control over the working class – to protect society against children that might be a threat to social order. Today Norway has the resources to implement this ideology to its full potential and in this regard finalise an experiment that started well over a century ago.

One can also read into the state´s premise a goal to eliminate all social problems – to be the first nation in the world to create «The Perfect State». And the means to achieve this goal is through an extremely tight knit system of laws and subsequently the effectiveness in which these laws are carried out.

Today we see that a very high number of foreign citizens under the age of 18 are taken into custody by the Norwegian authorities. It is as if the mantra is: «What we don´t understand is considered a danger to our form of life».

This process of assimilation is not new in Norway. This summer – 2015 – an official report states that Norway has indeed conducted an assimilation process against the Tater-Romani people – a process – the report states, that is in breach with human rights. It is interesting that the actions by the state that are condemned as a criminal act against the Tater-Romani people are the same actions Eva Michalakova is subjected to.

It is no wonder this form of politics have created protest movements in Russia, Poland and the Czech Republic.

In July 2015 Eva came to visit me and my family in the small town where we live. We did some interviews, had meals together, talked about her children and how her case has inflicted her and her family. During the period she was here we spent one day at the beach. The pictures are taken out of the film we shot.

Eva connected well with my daughter Alma – and it is sad to think about what her sons are missing.

I first met Eva in Prague in October 2014 during a session held at the Charles University.

I was there shooting footage for my documentary about the Norwegian Children Services. It was my first time in Prague and I went on a boat-trip to get some footage of this beautiful city.

I also spent time at the Franz Kafka museum and the striking resemblance between «The Trial» by Kafka and Eva´s experience with the Norwegian repressive state apparatus can not be ignored.

To first be accused of «something» and on the background of these vague suspicions – that are constructed by strangers, to the next step in the process; the massive de-humanising process Eva was – and still is – subjected to. A sign of miscarriage of justice – professor dr. philos. Arild Linneberg states – is when one conducts a character-murder on the accused.

Eva was first noticed by an employee in the kindergarden. She thought Eva was «strange». The seed of suspicion was planted – and with this gaze of mistrust that was cast upon Eva – the suspicions grew to accusations that subsequently grew both in number and in severity until Eva ended up becoming «the monstrous» mother. And without being in a position to prove that the accusations are false – Eva loses the right to have any contact with the two boys she has carried under her heart and also given birth to.

I think this is a predicament that is impossible to fully convey in a documentary. I think one has to go to Franz Kafka to comprehend what it feels like to be put in this situation.

It is important for me to demonstrate that it´s not the parents that are the criminals in these cases.

The pattern that repeats itself in all the cases in this documentary are constructed beforehand. First of all there is a story constructed at a national level – a narrative developed over the last century were scientists strongly influenced by The Positivists School of Criminology has won the hegemony. Since this version of reality won the battle on how to view the world, the consequences are an enormous growth in professions relating to detect, diagnose and treat children. It is also important to emphasize that all professions regarding children in Norway – from the midwife, to medical doctors, nurses, kindergarden teachers and teachers – are constantly reminded of their obligation to report any form of abnormality to the authorities.

Civilians are also – through massive campaigns both paid for and editorial pieces in newspapers and TV – reminded of how vulnerable children are – and that we all have an obligation to contact the Children Services if we have the slightest suspicion of anything being wrong with a child or its parents.

We are told that this campaign is to ensure the help to children in need, but when one studies the texts, the laws and the ideology behind this social construction, the premise is still the nation´s need to keep a high degree of social control. The state has a special obligation to ensure that the «gold of the nation» – the work force – becomes as solid as it can be.

The fact that the apparatus constructed to «help» these children have a work-force the state itself on several occasions acknowledges does not have the educational level nor the level of personal abilities to do their job properly and in accordance with the law, does not stop the authorities from increasing the number of children subjected to this peculiar form of assistance in becoming well functioning adults.

The Franz Kafka Museum displays a board with a text that reads:

«Franz Kafka was born into a myth called Prague. A city with three human groups (Czechs, Germans and Jews) at work, brought togheter there centuries ago, yet separated by cultural, racial and linguistic differences. The conflict leaves its mark on the city´s physiology, turning the districts into hermetic compartments, drawing out invisible borders, but it does not determine the ultimate nature of the cage. We also have to intuit it from the bird´s point of view».

Eva´s two sons are born into a myth called Norway. To comprehend the time one lives in is hard and it might be impossible to understand the invisible boarders the group of people migrating to Norway now have to relate to. To be a part of a society and still be a stranger in it, are experiences I believe everybody can relate to. One need not be a foreign citizen in a strange country to feel like an outsider. One can feel estranged even from one´s own family at times. These feelings are not to be considered a diagnosis, nor is it a hinder to a nations growth that people from different cultures, races and languages live together. On the contrary. Diversity is creativity and innovation.

It is understandable that Norway as an extremely homogeneous nation with a long tradition in practicing what one can say is a severe form of social control, feels the need to use force to uphold peace and stability when the demographics of the country changes dramatically. But there are limits to what the state can allow itself to do in this regard and the Human Rights are one of the regulations Norway has agreed to enforce and uphold.

Forceful integration of individuals are assimilation. It is interesting to witness the lack of patience the authorities in Norway have regarding those who deviate from the standard settings. And it´s fascinating to experience the breach in what is said and what is actually done in this country regarding those who are labeled «different». We say that we are a tolerant and understanding nation – but if a child has the wrong kind of clothing in kindergarden – the alarm goes off and the authorities are notified. Because there are so many that deviate from the «normal» the numbers of families reported to the Children Services are rapidly growing. Around 50 000 families are being subjected to a thorough investigation by the authorities each year. The lack of trust in parents ability to care for their own children will have a long term consequence – what this kind of policy does to the nation as a whole is hard to predict – but the protest movements and demonstrations in Norway and abroad is an indication that the state is in fact in breach with its own population´s view on what is acceptable and not.

The title of this film is taken from an utterance made by a social worker. She said that every child living in Norway has the right to live under the Norwegian Standard. This standard being something very definite. It is clear to me when I read the texts constructed around Eva and her family that the kindergarden employee´s – and later the Children Services´- view of these Czech immigrants were that Eva´s sons did not live under what they considered to be a high enough standard. The boarders between the compartments that held Eva and her family isolated from the rest of the society was perceived to be so strong that the authorities had an obligation to take the children out of their «isolation» and put them into two different Norwegian families.

It has to be pointed out that Eva´s two sons did not live under conditions that in any way justifies the states actions against them. As I said earlier and as this film will prove – the pattern in all the cases are the same. Whether the children taken come from a – in material way – wealthy Norwegian family or an immigrant family with less money – the system acts the same way. As long as someone in the state apparatus feels concern the families and children are to be repressed.

Now Eva´s two boys are separated from their parents and their respective families, they are separated from each other as siblings, but they are becoming Norwegians. The social order is obtained.

To be living in a hermetic compartment where there are invisible boarders between those who are born in to «The Norwegian Standard» – economically, socially and linguistic – and the immigrants like Eva who had to work long hours in the textile industry to secure her right to stay in Norway, and her two sons who even though born in this country, was different than the majority, might be hard. And it might form the children of foreign nationals to feel like outsiders. But this should not be an argument for the State of Norway to forcefully remove David and Denis and assimilate them – depriving them of their mothers love, their Czech identity and language so that the state can be in control of the process that is to turn these two boys into «good, productive Norwegians».

The text at the museum asks us to imagine Franz Kafka´s childhood and see it through a veil of fear and guilt. The texts in Eva´s case describes her two sons experiences when they without any warning was taken from their family and placed into foster-care. The total lack of understanding these children are met with by the people in the state apparatus are almost unbearable when one intuit the children´s point of view . These texts are documentation that one can use when imagining what  the two little birds of Eva might have felt of both fear and guilt when captured in the golden cage called «The Norwegian Standard».

The down-side to this kind of politics is a lack of understanding of the individual and the rights of the individual. There is a strong consensus in Norway – a monophony that is surprising to researchers. Perhaps one can explain the protests in the Czech Republic against the treatment Eva and her sons are subjected to as a from of disbelief. To strip two Czech, under-aged citizens of their right to have contact with their biological family without prove of neglect, is not what one expects from a democratic nation in Europe in 2015. It might be something one could expect from a totalitarian regime, but not the democratic nation we perceive ourselves to be.

I think maybe the protests and the closer look other nations now are taking on Norway will reveal the actual social machinery – the state apparatus – hidden behind a beautiful exterior. Perhaps is the official presentation of Norway in conflict with what Norway really is – that there is an official (fairy)tale showing an harmonious nation which is in fact covering a system that are not comparable to the status and standing Norway has as a bearer of human rights.

If one tries to answer the old questions; Who, what, where, when, how and why in view of the Children Services and the nations obligations and ethical stand «to weaken the families power and freedom» there is a consensus in this country that the greatest danger a child is subjected to is its parents. And strangely enough it is the mothers that represents the greatest threat to their children. As is shown both in the single cases and the national narrative – it is a great fear amongst the social scientists – the architects behind the politics – that the mothers psychological conditions might influence the children in a negative way.

Here one has to take an even larger construction of stories and narratives into consideration when one tries to find out why this is so. I keep thinking of a book by Salman Rushdie I read many years ago – Shame – and how the need to control women´s sexuality stems from the need to control resources. To be in control over the «machine» that produces «the nations gold» – the most valuable product we know – children, is not a new invention in society. What might not be obvious is that the policy of controlling children by forcefully taking them away from their mother is considered normal in a country like Norway.

In Eva´s case it is both fascinating and deeply frightening to see how the narrative of Eva and her life in Norway is constructed. And for me – as a writer – the hardest thing with working on these cases – what upsets me the most, is the obvious prejudice behind the construction of the texts that form the evidence against parents and children like Eva and her sons. The total lack of sobriety and decency in the forming of the sentences that are to prove that these persons are guilty in what the repressive apparatus have accused them of, brings me back to the witch-hunting era. Any sign is to be interpreted in the worst kind of way. Also signs of love and affection are filtered through what one might call a delusional system until the world is turned up-side-down.

And for me this is a process which makes the accusers become the criminals.

Eva Michalakova has decided to fight for her and her sons rights. She has taken on a system that for over a century systematically has taken children from their families to be brought up by the state. «The road to hell is paved with good intentions» is a saying that might apply to the official Norwegian family politics. But this only applies if the intention is in fact to rescue children from abusive parents and, in turn this intentions failure to secure the children´s rights .

If the goal is to secure a stabile work-force and to uphold a strong social control – the premise changes. There is a huge difference in an ideology constructed to protect the individual from an abusive power structure and the opposite – an ideology that defends the power structure against an individual. In this case a child.

This is of course also a philosophical question – who has the ownership of a human being. It might be that the majority of Norwegians actually finds that it is the national state that owns the children, and that the majority thinks it is OK to give up the parental rights to the state apparatus so that the society as a whole can decide how, where and by whom children are to be brought up. But this has not been a clear political idea discussed and voted over in a democratic fashion. Therefore one can state that it is the parents that have ownership over the child and that this principal is equal to all parents. And this means that the parents have a saying in what the purpose of the child´s life is. It might be that the parents find it problematic that the child is to be born into a state to become a mere productive part in the apparatus. It might be that parents make room for their child to develop into an individual human being with wants and needs of its own.

In Prague there were lawyers, politicians and academics from all over Europe discussing these matters. Some of the families that had lost their children to authorities both in the UK and in Norway was also present to share their stories.

At the start of the event I was not aware that Eva´s two sons had been taken by the Norwegian State, so I was not prepared to film her. But when she entered the podium I did my best to catch her speech on tape.

After her speech Eva Michalakova broke down in tears. So did many of the participants at the event. As a Norwegian I felt ashamed. Eva´s father and I talked during a break. He reminds me of my father, and I can only imagine the hurt this family has endured for years now.

The press was present at the event and Eva had to give interviews. The Norwegian lawyer attending the event was also interviewed by two TV channels. They wanted answers to why Eva´s children could be taken from her in this matter.

This is a question I try to answer in this film.

I have spent time with Eva the past year. I have visited her where she now lives. I have talked to people who know her very well. I know the texts that constructs her story. And I have seen how she connects with children.

Eva Michalakova´s case is what we consider a Miscarriage of Justice – a Justizmord – there is no doubt about that and this will be proven in the documentary film. In the meantime the years passes by and Eva´s two boys have been away from their mother for so long now. The damage that has been done to her and her children can not be rectified. But this does not mean that we should give up the fight against what comes across as a un-democratic regime. It is very important that there is constructed an alternative version of the official story – and it is important that this version is based on factual and proven incidents – which is not the case with the version the Norwegian court system upholds as the truth.

Prof. dr. philos. Arild Linneberg says that a lie does not become more truthful even though it is repeated again and again. This utterance is indeed valid in this particular case.

Eva works as a teachers assistant here in Norway. And she does a great job for our children. It´s too bad the Norwegian State does not grant Eva´s two sons the privilege and pleasure of her presence that our children have the advantage of.

KILDE

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