Norway elects parliament made up of Muslims, minorities and migrants
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Shazia Majid, a Pakistani Norwegian investigative journalist, is delighted with the historic makeup of the new Norwegian parliament. Eleven of the 169 lawmakers elected last month represent visible minorities, and immigrants are now represented roughly in proportion to their fraction of the eligible electoral population.
âEach community must be represented among the legislators of any country,â says Ms. Majid. âThis is a case where Norway offers opportunities and the children of immigrants seize these opportunities with both hands. “
Why we wrote this
Norway’s general election in September was a subtle but important victory for multiculturalism, giving the Nordic nation its most diverse parliament ever.
Some see this class of politicians as evidence of a gradual and subtle change in what it means to be Norwegian; a sign that the nation is asserting itself as a multicultural society.
Visible minorities are relatively new to Norway. The country characterized guest workers who began arriving in the 1970s from Pakistan, India, Morocco and Turkey as “foreign” workers. Migrant communities have grown over the years, especially in the capital, Oslo, where 1 in 3 residents are now of immigrant origin.
Ms Majid still remembers when the first politician with an immigrant background entered the Norwegian parliament in 2001. She then realized that anyone could reach the highest positions of power. âThat’s why representation is so important,â she says.
Oslo, Norway; and Basel, Switzerland
Marian Hussein started her first day in the Norwegian parliament rushing to overcome technical issues before entering politics. âI’m out of my comfort zone but can’t wait to be there,â Ms. Hussein says, smiling on a Zoom call.
His trip to the vanilla brick parliament building in the heart of Oslo is the result of a colorful education. It all started in Somalia, where his father trained as an engineer, and spent time in the Saudi town of Jedda before arriving at the age of 10 in rural Oslo, bordered by forests. . As the first ethnic Somali woman in parliament, she hopes to change conversations about race, religion and migration, and promote policies that reduce inequality.
“I’ve always been a minority and it gives you a perspective in life on how we treat people who look different or how your status as a citizen is different,” said Ms Hussein, who entered Norwegian society as a refugee and entered politics as a member. of the Socialist Left Party. âBeing here today, I also think Norway is the land of opportunity. “
Why we wrote this
Norway’s general election in September was a subtle but important victory for multiculturalism, giving the Nordic nation its most diverse parliament ever.
Ms Hussein is among the most diverse group of lawmakers to set foot in the Storting, Norway’s parliament, which started working on October 1. Eleven of the 169 lawmakers elected last month represent visible minorities with their roots in Africa, Asia and the Middle East. Immigrants are now represented roughly in proportion to their fraction of the eligible electoral population.
Some see this class of politicians as evidence of a gradual and subtle change in what it means to be Norwegian; a sign that the nation is asserting itself as a multicultural society. At the same time, anti-immigrant populists also made electoral gains.
Experts say the inclusive partisan politics and successful integration policies of the oil-rich nation’s welfare state have played a role in bringing candidates of such diverse backgrounds to the top.
According to the Norwegian sociologist Grete Brochmann, this development is important from the point of view of representation and reflects the fact that minority groups are increasingly integrated into Norwegian society. “It is also a reflection of an awareness that minority groups are important for the success of parties, especially left-wing parties,” explains Dr Brochmann, who teaches at the University of Oslo.
“We see different things”
Unlike the United States or the United Kingdom, visible minorities are relatively new in Norway. The oil-rich Scandinavian country characterized guest workers who began arriving in the 1970s from Pakistan, India, Morocco and Turkey as “foreign” workers. As migrant communities have grown over the years – particularly in the capital, Oslo, where now 1 in 3 residents are of immigrant background – the Norwegian Labor Party has recognized the importance of mobilizing this electoral base, as other parties have done so.
Most political careers start at the local or regional level rather than at the parliamentary level in Norway. Parties choose who to put forward in closed list systems to determine who comes first. The Labor Party has the largest number of elected parliamentarians of immigrant origin. Of the ten parties represented in parliament, most have at least one legislator of foreign origin.
“About 80% of politicians entering parliament have served on a local council,” says Jon H. Fiva, professor of economics at the Norwegian Business School who studies the dynamics of political selection in Norway. âThis career system means that you will have a significant time lag between when new groups of people [arrive] … until they reach the top of the hierarchy. Even though Norway has seen a lot of migration for decades, it may be some time before people of immigrant background reach the top. “
This was certainly the experience of Labor Party politician Kamzy Gunaratnam.
She arrived in Norway when she was just 3 years old and became politically active as a teenager, initially motivated by the Tamil conflict in her native Sri Lanka, but later also motivated by Norwegian issues. Her teenage years were also the first time she felt like a foreigner, as she attended high school in a predominantly white neighborhood in the western part of Oslo. âThe inequality really affected me,â she says. âWe are brought up with different views on society because we see different things and we don’t live in the same reality. “
She joined the Labor Party in 2005, then was elected to Oslo City Council two years later. Ms Gunaratnam was at the Young Workers League summer camp on the island of Utøya on July 22, 2011, which was attacked by far-right terrorist Anders Behring Breivik, killing 69 people. She managed to swim to safety and says a terrifying experience only amplified her determination to work in politics and to deliver on the promises made by national leaders in speeches following the attacks – brotherhood and equality. , freedom of expression, openness, democracy. In 2015, Ms. Gunaratnam was elected Deputy Mayor of Oslo.
She’s proud to be one of six lawmakers who survived that day, though she’s also worried that the values ââthat galvanized Breivik are more prevalent than Norwegians are willing to admit. “What Breivik did was attack a diverse Norway, so it’s kind of a big slap in the face. [to Breivik] for us to enter Parliament this year, âshe said.
“If she could do it, I can do it”
For older generations of migrants, the 2021 results mark progress as they show that migrants have risen through the political ranks instead of just being used by parties. âTwenty-five years ago no one in Norway was talking about immigrants. Nobody cared about us or what we wanted, âexplains Khadim Hussain, originally from Pakistan. “But some local politicians wanted our votes and tricked those who did not yet master the Norwegian language into voting for political parties we knew nothing about.”
Shazia Majid, who is Pakistani-Norwegian, is delighted with the historic makeup of the new parliament – not because some members are visible minorities, but because the combination of their cultural, religious and social backgrounds could inform the development of better policies . They also send a positive message to her children – the second generation Norwegians – that the people who make the country move can come from all walks of life.
“This is an extremely important moment,” said Ms Majid, investigative journalist and columnist for the newspaper VG. âEach community must be represented among the legislators of any country. It is essential for democracy. This is a case where Norway offers opportunities and the children of immigrants seize these opportunities with both hands. “
She still remembers when the first politician with an immigrant background, the conservative Afshan Rafiq, entered the Norwegian parliament in 2001. It was 30 years after the first guest workers arrived in Norway. It then dawned on her that anyone, even a Pakistani Muslim like her, could reach the highest positions of power in Norway. âI thought⦠if she could do it, I can do it,â Ms. Majid said. “This is why representation is so important.”
This sentiment was reinforced for many when Hadia Tajik became Minister of Culture in 2012, the youngest woman and the first Muslim to serve in government as a minister. Ms Hussein is now making history as the first black woman to enter parliament and the first to wear a hijab in the office. With her feminist and anti-racist discourse, she is already an inspiration for many young girls.
âI feel more integrated into Norwegian society now,â says Yasmin Mohammed, a Muslim high school student window shopping with her friends on Karl Johans Gate, a shopping street near the gray lion statues that guard the parliament. She was born in Norway to Somali parents.
âMarian Hussein is the direct reason I recently started researching political articles and books,â she says. “And although I have no idea what I want to become in life, it is not impossible that I will go into politics in the future.”
Ashraq Said Hussein, who was also at Karl Johans Gate, arrived in Norway at the age of 9. The Somali native finds it strange – and great – that people from so many multicultural backgrounds are writing Norwegian laws.
âI have a feeling that many Norwegians still want us foreigners to go back to where we came from. So how did it happen, you know? she says. “The fact that now we have people in parliament openly saying ‘I’m a Muslim, black, female – and I’m here to make a difference’, is fantastic.”
Silje Kathrine Sviggum contributed to the concept of this article.
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