Bernt Hagtvet criticizes Red Youth leader for using age and skin color as an argument

– Using age and skin color as an argument shows how weak you are, says Bernt Hagtvet (78) to Nettavisen.

He is emeritus professor of political science at UiO and professor at Nye Høyskole in Oslo. This week he threw himself into the debate about the series in Rød Ungdom.

In a post in Email Hagtvet writes that NRK Dagsrevyen has reached a “temporary bottom”.

He refers to a feature on the channel on April 20 where Amrit Kaur (20), the newly elected head of Rød Ungdom, represented. Kaur announces that she is a communist and talks about taking the youth party in a new direction.

According to Hagtvet, the feature was “brain dead babble about the right to use violence”.

He gets immediate feedback from the new RU director.

“Well grown white men”

– A political and intellectual striptease that you have to go back to the glory days of AKP to see the match, wrote Hagtvet in Aftenposten.

In particular, the professor responds that Kaur calls herself a “communist”. He believes that the leadership in Red Youth stands for a totalitarian view of the left side of society where violence is inevitable as a result.

Kaur does not recognize that description.

– I don’t have the same relationship with communism that many old people have, she says to Aftenposten, before beating Hagtvet:

– Well-grown white men hate to see young, brown women entering politics.

Response to word usage

Hagtvet deals with the rhetorical movement in the youth party. Kaur is clear that she is a communist and when RU got a new leadership, this term was reintroduced in the party’s programme.

The former leader of the party Bjørnar Moxnes argued for removing the word from the programme.

– It is suicide, because they do not understand the intellectual legacy they are playing with, says Hagtvet.

Furthermore, it echoes Kaur’s suggestion that well-grown white men hate to see young, brown women enter politics.

– Using age and skin color as an argument shows how weak you are, says Hagtvet.

– Obviously feeling beaten up

Kaur explains to Nettavisen that the statement about “well-developed white men” was the focus of all the questions she received recently.

She believes that much of the criticism she has received “does not include real arguments”.

– I think it is amazing, because I have made it clear that my target group is a minority of young people. However, it is clear that white men, who have grown up well, feel very offended, says Kaur to Nettavisen.

The head of the RU believes that people who express themselves politically for others than this group are being tried to be stamped.

– The same people who roar against the “woke hysteria” and the “elimination culture” are the first to try to disempower and ridicule political opponents.

Armed rebellion?

Kaur also does not recognize herself in Hagtvet’s description of violence. He believes that the leadership of the youth party stands for a social vision where violence is inevitable as a result.

According to the father of communism, Karl Marx, armed revolution was necessary to create the classless society. But for Nettavisen, Kaur is clear that she does not see violence as a legitimate political tool.

– Red Youth stands for a democratic upheaval on the social structure we see today, says Kaur.

She says that her communism is inspired by activists such as Fred Hampton, Angela Davis, as well as the former leader of the AKP, Jorun Gulbrandsen.

Kaur has come under fire for saying that deputy Ahmed Al-Saedi is “in love with Lenin”. Later, comments from Saedi have appeared in which he defends Stalin and the Berlin Wall.

The Berlin Wall was a wall and fortress built by the authorities in East Germany around West Berlin to prevent their population from escaping there.

Nettavisen has written about the conflict that is ravaging the youth party. You can read more about that for her and for her.