We require multilingual firemen!

I know it’s Christmas and everything – everything is supposed to be joy and happiness. I still have to comment on a news report from last night on the Norwegian channel TV Norge.

The news report is on the recent fires that have taken several lives. Lately an old Pakistani woman died in one of the fires – she tried to get out through a smoke filled hall way and down the stairs. Sad story, but lets get to the point.

The representative for several foreigner organizations in Norway have used the oportunity to require that firemen become multilingual – or that translators are hired by the fire departments to avoid situations where foreigners do not understand what the firemen are saying. Seriously? Ok, so you have a hall way full of smoke. Smoke is bad. Smoke will kill you. You have a fireman outside your window in a basket signaling for you to approach the window and get out. Now, which do you choose? Clearly, foreigners who do not understand Norwegian would choose the smoke filled hall way, because apparently when you do not understand Norwegian, you are automatically ignoring any instinct of danger and simply jump in the arms of Mr. Death.

Come on? Is this really the image the foreigner organizations want their press contacts to give? That foreigners in Norway simply have no means of knowing what is danger or safety – or understand what is dangerous for them in any possible way? I hardly believe that the inability to understand Norwegian was the reason for the tragic death of this poor Pakistani woman.

And seriously, which is better; learn to speak the language of the country you live in – or at least learn some basic english – or make the fire department waste thousands on the most stupid suggestion of 2008?

Do you want the goverment to appoint you a personal translator when you go on vacation abroad as well? Give me a break.

Enjoy your holidays – and if you do not know how to use the fork, I suggest learning English and looking it up on the Internet.