Guro Sibeko has spoken to at least 20,000 young people about racism. Now her book is out.
It is called ‘Amandla! Awethu! – A conversation about racism’, and was launched at the Anti-Racist Centre in Oslo on Wednesday, with poetry, a panel discussion and Palestinian food.
A conversation. That’s a lovely word. I wish I’d been able to experience it.
When I was working at Resett, I wrote an article about Sibeko that caused quite a stir. Afterwards, I reached out. I invited her for a cup of coffee in Oslo, to have a chat, face to face. She declined. She didn’t want to talk to people like me.
People like me, that is. Who are they? She didn’t say. But it’s not hard to guess.
Because Sibeko has been very clear about how she views us. When *Klassekampen* invited the then *Resett* editor Helge Lurås to a debate at Arendalsuka in 2018, she compared it to inviting the terrorist organisation IS. She believed it was dangerous to talk to Lurås.
“Resett and the Sweden Democrats are fascists,” Sibeko said at the time.
“When fascists take part in a debate, it should be polarised. We must be the other pole, just as extreme defenders of democracy, freedom of expression and anti-discrimination as they are opponents,” she told Resett at the time.
Just as extreme. Those are her own words. Perhaps it’s also open to debate who exactly is the one being extreme?
So here we are. A woman who has made it her life’s work to build bridges between people travels round Norwegian schools and lets young people challenge one another and disagree. Fine. But when a grown man who disagrees with her asks for a chat over a cup of coffee, the door is shut. The young people are allowed to disagree. We white men over fifty aren’t even allowed into the room.
If that’s how you build bridges, they’re going to be rather flimsy affairs.
I have no doubt that Sibeko has experienced racism. But anyone who wants to have a conversation about racism must be prepared to talk to people who do not see the world in the same way. Otherwise, it is not a conversation.
Then it is a sermon.
And Norwegian school pupils have had enough of sermons. That is to say, sermons from people who really shouldn’t be delivering them at all. That should be reserved for priests.
Nor is it difficult to see who ends up left on the outside. The young people Sibeko meets learn that there are two types of people. Those who are part of the conversation, and those who are so dangerous that you can’t even have a coffee with them. And who ends up in the latter group? Anyone who questions immigration policy, anyone who has written for Resett or Document, and anyone who doesn’t say the right things.
That isn’t combating polarisation. It’s creating it.
By the way, the offer still stands. The coffee’s on me, Guro!
