This weekend, Fawzi Warsame is likely to be elected as the new leader of the AUF. Even though Warsame has praised Somalia on countless occasions, and even though he has conducted what can only be described as an ‘ethno-Somali’ election campaign in Norway.
Unanimously nominated as AUF leader
“I want to be leader of the AUF!” announced Fawzi Warsame on Facebook and in VG on 22 June this year. Three months later, on 14 September, he was indeed nominated as the new leader of the AUF by a unanimous election committee within the Labour Party’s Youth Organisation, i.e. the AUF. The election will take place this Sunday, bringing the 60th national conference of the Labour Party’s youth wing to a close. It will then be decided whether Fawzi Warsame will succeed Gaute Skjervø as the new AUF leader.
Fawzi Warsame (27), from Sagene in Oslo, is the son of two Somali parents who came to Norway in the 1990s to seek asylum. Sagene is a background he often refers to, but he is also very proud of his Somali roots. Or perhaps not so much outwardly now, as he is gaining increasing political influence amongst Norwegians.
Celebrated Somalia draped in the Somali flag
In a video he posted on his second Facebook account on 1 July 2019, Wardsame appears to be solely preoccupied with his Somali culture and his Somali people. Wrapped in the Somali flag, he proclaims his love for Somalia, partly in Norwegian and partly in Somali.
– Somalia is a wonderful country. The future will be wonderful too, and that is down to us. “We’re doing our bit,” Warsame tells the Somalis, whom he clearly regards as his own people.
We cannot reproduce the rest, as it was mostly in Somali. The only thing we caught was ‘inshallah’, an expression of thanks to a foreign deity which he is also is said to have uttered in the Norwegian Storting. He also shared the post with the words “Somalia Ha Noolaato” and a blue heart. That is, “May Somalia live long”, according to Google Translate.
Ethno-nationalist election campaign for Somalis
His Somali roots were also decisive for an election campaign collaboration in August 2023. Warsame did not post the message herself, but was tagged by Ahmed Farah, who wrote: “Many thanks to the Stovner Multicultural Association for organising a public meeting for Somali candidates and voters for the Oslo City Council and district committees,” in connection with the photos.
wrote Farah, who is himself a Labour Party politician in Oslo City Council.
In the photo from the Somali election campaign, alongside Warsame, were, amongst others, Marian Hussein from the Socialist Left Party (SV), Anfa Hashi Godir from the Conservative Party (wearing a hijab, like all the women) and Ismail A. Hussin from the Liberal Party, to name but a few.
Electoral alliances based on foreign cultural backgrounds, and so-called ‘clan voting’, have been the subject of much debate following this autumn’s election in Sweden. A debate that is set to continue for some time to come, but which has barely begun in Norway. Where Norwegians seem to be subjected to abuse if they work specifically for their own people and nation. Something that has even affected the apolitical ‘Preserve Norway’.
“I am Norwegian,” wrote Fawzi Warsame on Facebook in 2024. But how Norwegian are you if you’re not particularly concerned with the interests of Norwegians, but rather with another culture and another people, and on top of that don their flag? As in the picture on the right, where he is being interviewed by a Somali TV channel.
Fawzi Warsame has been involved in ethno-nationalist election campaigning for some time. That is to say, campaigning for and with ethnic Somalis, and their needs and interests.
“At the weekend, I was lucky enough to be invited to Stovner for an information meeting about the election. The fantastic, passionate Shuhayb, who is standing for election for the Labour Party in Stovner, organised an important meeting! Please vote for him if you live in the Stovner district!”
Warsame wrote this in August 2019, and on the photos there were only Somalis. This was on a Facebook account under his full name, that is, Fawzi Abdirashid Warsame, and before he himself held any political office. The passionate Shuhayb is also a Labour Party politician from Somalia, employed by Oslo City Council, and someone who prefers to holiday in Mecca, Qatar and Somalia, rather than amongst Norwegians in the Canary Islands.
The Kurds are among the peoples – like the Palestinians – who, in Fawzi Warsame’s view, must be granted the right to self-determination in their own nation. Although, unlike the Norwegians, they have never had a country of their own. The screenshots also show that Warsame is a privileged young man.
The AUF has had Syrians as leaders
Warsame will not be the first AUF leader to come from a Muslim country and have a refugee background. Mani Hussaini was born in Qamishli, Syria, in 1987, came to Norway at the age of twelve and was leader of the AUF from 2014 to 2018. Hussaini made a name for himself by calling for «kick that woman Sylvi Listhaug out of the government», because he disagreed with her immigration policy. That was in 2016, whilst Hussaini was leader of the AUF.
Hussaini represented Norwegians as an intern at the Norwegian Embassy in Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates from 2010 to 2011. Today he sits in the Storting for the Labour Party. He considers himself a Kurd.
