Kjersti Stenseng (Labour), Minister for Labour and Inclusion, admitted on NRK Debatten on Tuesday evening that the Labour Party had been too naive. “I thoroughly enjoyed it,” Carl I. Hagen told Document.
“I watched Debatten and enjoyed myself. It’s great fun that everyone is confirming that what I warned about 40–50 years ago has come to pass,” Carl I. Hagen (82) told Document.
“It’s very sad that this has happened, but now the others are talking as if they want to do something about it,”
Programme host Steinar Suvatne confronted the Minister for Labour and Inclusion, Kjersti Stenseng (Labour), with the fact that the Labour Party has governed the country for much of the last 30 years, and asked whether the party had been naive.
– “I think I would have to say yes, we have been too naive. I think we have underestimated how difficult it is to succeed with integration,” replied Stenseng.
Watch video: Full hijab row: – You have never taken a stand!
She listed the shortcomings.
– There are too many people who are not in work, too many who do not participate in their local communities, too many who speak Norwegian poorly, and too many who live in areas facing challenges in terms of living conditions.
In the studio, Stenseng was joined by, amongst others, Erlend Wiborg of the Progress Party, NRK veteran Anders Magnus, Conservative Party MP Mahmoud Farahmand, Socialist Left Party deputy leader Marian Hussein and Usman Rana.
Hagen led the Progress Party from 1978 to 2006 and made immigration policy one of the party’s key issues. Clips regularly surface on social media in which Hagen has warned of today’s problems in the areas of asylum and immigration. On Tuesday, he heard a Labour Party minister admit to naivety live on air.
Carl I. Hagen warned against a ‘Swedish situation’ in Norway as early as 1977. Here from the ‘Partiene svarer’ programme during that year’s election campaign. Photo: NRK
But Hagen agrees with Wiborg that so far it is all just talk.
– “Erlend Wiborg is absolutely right that they’re talking, but they haven’t come up with any concrete measures yet,” Hagen tells Document.
– “In a way, that’s satisfying. But it is tragic that they have been naive for so many decades.
Hagen wants to go further.
– The natural thing would have been to ban the hijab for everyone under the age of majority, he says.
He bases his view on Anders Magnus.
– Anders Magnus is absolutely right in what he has written: that when it is imposed on them from nursery, primary school and so on, they become indoctrinated in their youth.
According to Hagen, this is about far more than faith.
– The big question, which Anders Magnus has raised, is that Islam is not really a religion. It is a form of governance, culture and values for a society. In other words, something entirely different from merely a religion.
Towards the end of the debate, Syria, Afghanistan, Somalia and Pakistan were highlighted as the countries causing the greatest problems, Hagen points out.
– In other words, Islamic countries. So we must start treating Islam as a system of governance that we do not accept,” he says.
Hagen also believes that the programme revealed that ARK is in full swing. ARK is the old term Hagen used to describe NRK as the ‘Labour Party’s National Broadcasting Service’.
– Erlend, Mahmoud and Anders Magnus were cut off, whilst Marian Hussein, Stenseng and, to some extent, Usman Rana were not cut off. It was biased programme hosting that makes no sense whatsoever, he says.
Hagen has a clear message for the NRK presenter:
– Steinar Suvatne needs proper training if he is to come across as a neutral presenter and debate moderator.
