She will also be Minister of Culture next Christmas – VG

In this VG interview, he talks openly about what expectations were like as the new Minister of Culture and how they faded when the pandemic hit the country and shut down Norway on March 12.

Because the year started so well. On January 24, Trine Skei Grande handed him the key to the office of the Minister of Culture. It was such a powerful experience for Raja that she burst into tears.

– I think everyone remembers that I cried during the delivery of keys because I come from a poor family.

He had previously been opened up in a VG interview about his difficult childhood, where he also recounted the hell of pain he grew up with as a result of a serious illness. He has also said that he ended up in child welfare.

– I was in a solitary confinement cell when I was in that youth home. In other words, the probability that I will leave that house and become Minister of Culture and sit at the King’s table … The tears did not end that day, says Raja.

Raja was eager to forge his own cultural policy, that of the Liberal Party and the Government, when he took office in the cabinet in January.

– When Erna asked me to become Minister of Culture, she said I could only be happy. It’s the coolest and most fun album in the whole country: you have to be at all the concerts, all the games, all the theatrical performances, you have to cut the strings, you go to the Olympics!

Then came covid-19.

– I like to say that I became a minister in peacetime, but when the crown happened, I went from being a “normal” minister of culture to becoming a minister of crisis. You have to go back to war to find a similar crisis. Even during the financial crisis, culture was not affected in the same way, he says.

Raja had to save all the political things that he had brought to the Ministry of Culture and postpone his dreams to focus on just one thing:

– Help the cultural sector to overcome the crisis. My goal was for as few people as possible in the cultural sector to go bankrupt, as few people as possible in the cultural sector should change pastures, and as many as possible should overcome this crisis, even if no one comes out unscathed, he says.

As Minister of Culture, Raja’s project has been to make culture diverse, both for those who create it and for those who seek it.

– It is about disabled people, queers, geographic diffusion and that not all culture should end up in big cities like Oslo and Bergen. Then it’s also about parents’ finances, what children learn at home, and not least what they don’t learn at home so that we can facilitate them. Because that’s what culture is about for me; it is the path of formation that culture represents, he says.

During the pandemic, Raja has received praise and praise from cultural workers across the country who are left behind with a work ban.

His various compensation and stimulation schemes have been adjusted multiple times for more people to take advantage of the schemes, but he disagrees that his ministry didn’t have a good enough overview when they were introduced.

– Norway closed on March 12 and already on March 18 I notified the first compensation scheme. We could have sat down and spent several months making various arrangements and fully protecting ourselves in every possible way, with the result that the money had been paid much later. Or we could make an arrangement that is working and can be adjusted over time. We chose the last solution, says Raja.

– But yes, the crown was in front of me when it happened, but I think we have taken it again.

– Can we go back to the festival in the summer of 2021?

– It’s my Christmas and New Year’s wish. That the vaccine is effective, that we get it and that we have vaccinated a large part of the population at Easter, so we have been vaccinated throughout the problem until the summer. I think there is a longing among the population to experience a normal festive summer where people can eat hot dogs and have a beer, or just be there with their children. It is also my dream, says Raja.

The Minister of Culture has another dream for next year, he readily admits.

After the parliamentary elections in September 2021, he would like to continue as Minister of Culture.

– It is my great dream. I have learned a lot from the cultural sector, it has given me a lot and I am looking forward to leading the sector through the crisis also from the other side and helping to ensure that they also have viability in both 2021 and 2022, he says.

Now, a few quiet Christmas days with the family await the Minister of Culture. But it doesn’t even get as usual.

– If all goes according to plan, we plan to eat pork at home in Ekeberg, but we plan to be in Norefjell before and after that so there will be good cross-country trips and downhill skiing. We usually go upstairs and are there all Christmas, but this year the kids wanted to be home on Christmas Eve, so this year they are allowed to decide.

– Considering that the pandemic will continue well into 2021, the brain will not turn off completely, right?

– When I go downhill skiing with the children, I will not think so much, but I promise you that on my long cross-country trips I will only think about what I will do as Minister of Culture in 2021 to help the cultural sector throughout the country.