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During the so-called refugee crisis five years ago, I was able to see up close how the man and woman on the street reacted when buses full of refugees arrived in Norway.
Many of those who made it here had to go through the police immigration unit in Tøyen. The capacity there quickly expanded and a large crowd rose in the outer plaza. While the neighborhood children collected stuffed animals and toys for their classmates, the adults provided food, time and care. The local rockabilly club functioned as a warehouse, cafes and restaurants provided food, while Tøyen’s Night Guards greeted people and provided advice and guidance.
One of the volunteers, Abrar, stood in line almost every day, week after week, in the time he had available between his two jobs. In addition to volunteering in their own neighborhood, people raised money for boat refugees arriving in Lesbos and for internally displaced people in Syria.
Nobody seemed to think that there should be a conflict between the two measures, to help people “here” and “there”. It was not experienced as a ruthless one or the other, but as a natural both and
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Similar grassroots initiatives emerged in many other places, in Norway and in Europe. In the country where I was an immigrant for many years, Denmark, about 150,000 people, for example, joined Venligboerne, a welcome initiative that in a short time organized more people than all the Danish political parties combined.
Author Carsten Jensen cited these “everyday democrats” as an example that our civilization, despite constant claims to the contrary, is not a fine veneer on barbarism. On the contrary, civilization is as strong as reinforced concrete: if it wants to give in, it will require a prolonged bombardment.
And the reinforcing steel that supports it all consists of something as simple as it is general: ordinary decency.
“There are everyday democrats everywhere,” writes Carsten Jensen in the book “Hodestuperne”: People who not only invoke democracy at major parties or when there are elections, but practice it in their daily lives. People who “live by the basic rule that other people should be treated the way they would like him or her to be treated. If he sees another human being pushed helplessly into a corner, he is not content to be sad or angry, but steps in to help.
At the end of this formidable third year, FRP party leader Siv Jensen was pleased to state that “for the first time, persecuted Christians should take priority” when Norway withdraws transferred refugees. Of all the things that have been difficult to tackle in 2020, this was the hardest.
If someone had told me five years ago that my own country should have such a degrading idea, and even get a political majority for it, I would not have believed them.
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How did we get here, as individuals and as a society? The only explanation I can think of is the ongoing bombing of the most influential country in the Western world over the past four years. After the world’s most powerful head of state has normalized right-wing extremism, concentration camps for migrants, and entry bans for Muslims, he’s obviously doing something to us too.
But maybe it’s enough now?
Trumpism and its deviations have for too long been hidden behind a rhetorical cloak of false populism and compromise from below. Those who want as few people as possible in the country, and who want to sift through the few who come after life’s opinions and beliefs, have appeared as the angry and desperate ones that we must all listen to.
But if the last weeks of 2020 showed us something, it was also that rebellion, anger and despair can also come with another recipient and sender. Reactions to the treatment of Mustafa Hasan, 18, and to UNE’s justification for “immigration regulatory considerations” show that the last word has not been said in any way, neither in the case of Mustafa nor in immigration policy in general .
“Individual cases cannot be decided based on the commitment of the enthusiasts,” it is often said. But generally it is the individual cases, and the individuals, that ignite commitment, that rebellion arises. It is the reaction to concrete injustice that makes it possible to move borders and adjust policies.
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Just as Trump has moved our borders of decency and justice for four years, and the FRP Green Party has been allowed to dictate immigration policy, a majority can be created for a policy that emphasizes human rights and general decency with more strength.
One of the few things that suggests that 2021 may be a better year than its predecessor is the strong commitment to racism, by the Moria children and by Mustafa Hasan. The labor movement can and must, with its long historical tradition of solidarity, help lay the new foundations that we now see taking shape, through popular engagement from below.
“Aid is provided to all recognized refugees regardless of political opinion,” it was stated on the cover of LO’s newsletter in the fall of 1937. The article dealt with the many who had had to flee from the fascists in their own land and on the duty of Norwegian workers to contribute to what became called “a question of solidarity for the whole labor movement”.
The Workers’ Justice Fund, which had been established at the LO congress ten years earlier, was tasked with helping refugees arriving in Norway. The fund quickly ran out of money as refugee flows increased, so at the LO supervisory board meeting it was decided to issue a “justice fund label for inclusion in the membership book.”
Both the Labor Party and the AUF continued to back the decision. The unemployed had to pay half the price. The fund manager, Lars Evensen, wrote in the appeal that “we will call on all class-conscious workers to buy at least one brand. Everyone must do their part to help refugees. The motto is: Fight against fascism and help its victims! “
Four years later, Evensen himself had to flee to Sweden, where he took responsibility for working with the thousands of Norwegian refugees who escaped from the Nazis. It can be a reminder to all of us of the important insight of solidarity: it could have been me and me you.
Best new year!
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