When a communications adviser writes a letter to one of the press’s principal organisations in order to have the editor of an opposition medium expelled, one ought to prick up one’s ears. Medier24 has a major feature and interview with Svein Tore Bergestuen. They forget a relevant and obvious question: Who sent you?
Bergestuen presents himself as an “engaged citizen”. He neither problematises his own roles nor those of Eva Sannum. They run a communications firm together, and for many years she was a member of the Norwegian Press Complaints Commission (Pressens Faglige Utvalg). This is a situation ripe for drawing attention to the issue of wearing several hats.
If Bergestuen were merely an “engaged citizen”, he would have pointed out these connections in order to blunt criticism. This applies not only to Sannum & Bergestuen. Both have worked at Geelmuyden Kiese, and Sannum was employed by Try. Bergestuen was a personal adviser to Hadia Tajik. The connections to social and political actors are numerous.
Among the clients we find the Antiracist Centre (Antirasistisk senter). Had Bergestuen been a little more “on the ball”, he would have known that the state subsidises the Antiracist Centre with several million kroner. Sofia Rana receives a state-funded salary to telephone around the city in order to prevent Norgesdemokratene and Document from renting premises. If they do not succeed, they turn up in force outside in order to harass and photograph the guests. Harald Klungtveit of Filternyheter.no publishes the identities of those who attend lawful demonstrations. I have not heard other media problematise the fact that a state-funded press organisation and an NGO actively expose people for exercising their freedom of assembly and freedom of expression.
Is it because they want these freedoms for themselves alone? The answer is obviously yes, but none of the actors will admit that this is what they want. They become furious with JD Vance when he says that the greatest threat to Europe comes from within. Støre did not applaud.
This “development” has been going on for many years. But it is beginning to rebound, in step with increasing censorship and surveillance. The authoritarian turn provokes a response.
In such circumstances, the messenger must be shot.
Cheating
The advocates of public exposure cheat: The public is supposed to be deceived into believing that everyone who attends a meeting organised by Norgesdemokratene knows who will be there and bears collective responsibility for them. This is a principle that applies only to the right. No one asks NRK why left-wing talking points permeate everything it broadcasts.
But the strategy is failing, and Bergestuen’s letter is a sign of that: They want complete control. They do not want a medium with influence that can threaten the official narrative.
Autism
But it is also a sign that one has been inside an echo chamber for so many years that reality appears utterly distorted. One no longer understands what is going on.
The war in the Persian Gulf has been a wake-up call. For the first time, Western Europe is showing sympathy for a theocratic dictatorship that massacres its population. This comes after the media have run a Gaza campaign for three years and convinced themselves that the Palestinians are the new Jews, as Erna Solberg once claimed.
We are witnessing a decline in political culture caused by mass immigration, the replacement of Norwegian culture, and media that consistently sweep the consequences under the carpet.
Norwegian public discourse needs Document to tell it what the others remain silent about or distort. It is actually vital if the ship is not to run aground. Blind people make insane choices.
I actually believe that this is part of the reason why Document has been allowed to remain a member of the Editors’ Association (Redaktørforeningen). Norwegian public discourse needs a corrective.
No Bourgeoisie
When Oslo’s Mayor Anne Lindboe speaks like a member of Antifa — “no racists in our streets” — it is entirely surreal. Yet this is a change that has taken place inside the minds of the leadership of The Conservative Party (Høyre). There are simply no journalists present to describe the mental replacement that has occurred in parallel with the demographic one. That is why Pride is so important. The rainbow is meant to drown out the dissonance.
The conclusion follows naturally. There is no bourgeoisie any longer. That is the tragic reality. A bourgeoisie presupposes enlightenment, that one has maintained the values of the Enlightenment. Those values have been under pressure for a long time.
The values of the Enlightenment come at a cost in a multicultural society. We saw that during the cartoon controversy. Denmark has now introduced the law against the desecration of holy texts.
Støre was farsighted. He adapted already in 2005/06, when he attacked Vebjørn Selbekk. Støre saw which way the wind was blowing. Upholding the values of the Enlightenment in a multicultural society becomes too painful.
Knut Storberget wanted to reintroduce the blasphemy provision and submitted the proposal during the Christmas rush of 2008. At that time, VG stood on the right side:
At that time, there were enough alert people that Storberget was forced to reverse course. Lars Gule and Document’s Nina Hjerpset-Østlie joined forces in an appeal that quickly gained support. Together with Jon Hustad, we were granted an audience with State Secretary Astri Aas-Hansen. Storberget understood that such a law would carry a political cost. He backed down.
At that time, principles were stronger than the instinct to adapt. That is no longer the case.
A new practice was introduced: If realities conflict with principles, it is the principles that must yield.
This applies not only to secular principles, but also to Christian ones. They are too uncomfortable.
Far Right
If anyone should disagree, there was a category waiting for them: the far right.
When Høyre accepted this — and the Progress Party (FrP) largely did as well — the most important bastion was surrendered. One recognised the left’s right to hold the right collectively responsible.
This is a carefully devised trick that only the left is cunning enough to have developed.
People do not entirely understand what is happening because it is disguised as moral goodness and conviction. Bourgeois people are trusting.
“You are not evil, are you?”
“You are not one of ‘them’, are you?”
Here, the events of 22 July became the instrument that brought people into line.
Conviction
But the internet is stronger. The free flow of information and opinions.
If one wishes to persuade people, one must rely on persuasion, not power. The fact that Western Europe now chooses power over persuasion in relation to its own population is a break with the best of our tradition. That is worth fighting for!
But persuasion is something different from manipulation. Those who present themselves as convinced place you before ultimatums in matters great and small.
We can speak of the State’s pedagogical tools: threats, concealed, implicit, and explicit ultimatums. If you do not do as we say, then …
Tolerance does not apply to the intolerant
Freedom of expression must apply to everyone, with one important reservation: it applies to those who themselves respect freedom of expression.
When the elitist left itself allies with power structures that desire control and mass immigration, with all that entails, and defends censorship against the unacceptable right, then it has become, de facto, allied with Islamists. It has forfeited its right to be believed when it claims to be what it presents itself as: morally superior.
That is the currency the elite has devalued over many years, particularly in relation to Trump and Islam.
Devaluation of life
Now the war in Ukraine is also a driving force. It strikes me when I hear Høyre’s Peter Frølich speaking warmly about drones on Nyhetsmorgen, how much has changed since the Vietnam War. Frølich would hardly have joined a demonstration against napalm had he lived at that time. But he is symptomatic of a broader shift: We kill people without it troubling us in the slightest.
To be an enlightened citizen means taking responsibility for what happens to us and for what happens in our name. In Ukraine, there is talk of two million dead in total. There is no discussion of the war.
In the Nyhetsmorgen segment about the diplomatic crisis between Poland and Ukraine, the studio manages to ask correspondent Zofia Paszkiewicz whether the massacre in western Ukraine is something that only Polish historians speak about. Paszkiewicz explains that, for Ukrainians, the militia of that period are people who fought for Ukrainian independence. Remarkably enough, she actually mentions Stepan Bandera in neutral terms.
In the old NRK, Bandera would have been described as an extremist nationalist and would have been beyond the pale. But he becomes acceptable when it serves to defend the war against Moscow.
We buy Kyiv’s argument that raising the issue of the mass murderers’ names is to do Moscow’s bidding.
We accept revisionism concerning mass murder in order to ingratiate ourselves with Kyiv. Thus yet another moral boundary has been crossed. The war affects the morality of the elite and removes inhibitions.
It is now willing to swallow the whitewashing of mass murder in order not to disturb the alliance with Zelenskyy.
The elite is beginning to resemble the far-right forces it otherwise sees everywhere at home. This trap was easy to spot for anyone familiar with Ukrainian history. Now the elite has fallen into it and will alienate the Poles. They do not forget their dead.
But we do. “Never again!” no longer applies.
Politics has become a madhouse.
VG editor Gard Steiro stated on Debatten this winter that we cannot have a public sphere that is not rule-governed. He was referring to social media and alternative media. The signal he gave was that these must be brought under control. That is precisely what the EU is now doing.