“Varslerne” – new book about Giske

“I have notified my employer, I have been believed, he is accused of sexual harassment, but then I am the one who has lost everything,” says one of the whistleblowers in a new book about the Giske case. She adds that she shouldn’t have been surprised. Anyone who has followed such cases knows that it rarely goes so well with whistleblowers who stand up to the authorities.

In Ap, things went horribly wrong from the start, according to Heidi Helene Sveen’s sharp analysis of the party’s handling of the case that rocked Ap in the winter of 2017/18, and which led to Trond Giske’s resignation as deputy leader and a short break from national politics. In the book “Whistleblowers”, as the title says, the women who reported sexual harassment speak, some for the first time in public, but the majority are given pseudonyms. Sveen justifies this with the risk of incitement and reprisals. Many have already been exposed to it, and several have chosen to quit politics.

Wild West on the West Bank

Already before the first notifications against Trond Giske was discussed in the press, a story was established that the notifications were part of a power struggle. That autumn, the metoo campaign exploded all over the West, originating in the USA, and it was only a matter of time before cases also appeared in Norway. Many inside and outside Ap knew that the party was sitting on a ticking time bomb.

At a group meeting, the leader of Ap’s women’s network, Anniken Huitfeldt, encouraged reporting cases to the party office, but at the same time warned against using rumors about sexual harassment in a power struggle. Several who were present reacted strongly and perceived it as an attempt to stop notifications about a specific person, but when the case was discussed in Dagens Næringsliv, party secretary Kjersti Stenseng chose to confirm that such rumors had been misused.

Haha, good luck

It did not help that party leader Jonas Gahr Støre a few days later came out and rejected the claims from Huitfeldt and Stenseng. The narrative of a dirty power struggle had caught on and received ample space in the media’s coverage. It may not be surprising. Power struggles in Ap are the rule rather than the exception, but there are also accusations against whistleblowers that they have a hidden agenda. Knowledge of sexual harassment and reporting was not exactly widespread in the newsrooms, which were themselves affected by metoo cases that winter.

The power struggle angle did not make it easier for Støre to handle reports against one of his deputy leaders. A whistleblower was asked not to implicate Hadia Tajik, to avoid such accusations. Whistleblowers urgently asked Støre not to let Stenseng handle the notifications. They didn’t trust her. Støre nevertheless left the handling to the party office to avoid internal chaos.

Weinsteins metode

The accusations that the whistleblowers should have run Tajik’s errands are perhaps tempting, but still rather far-fetched. This means that the whistleblowers were willing and able to lie systematically over a long period of time to the party leadership, thereby risking their own career and integrity for a highly uncertain outcome, as Sveen points out. A more credible theory is that the whistleblowers, inspired by metoo and the ongoing debate, found the courage to speak out about a powerful, elderly politician’s unacceptable behavior towards young women in the party. Although it is constantly portrayed that the whistleblowers came from one environment and knew each other and not least Tajiks, the truth is that whistleblowers came from different parts of the country and different environments. Several say they admired Giske and were therefore flattered by the attention.

Trond Giske admitted certain incidents, but never gave up the fight against whistleblowers and the attempt to brand them as part of a power game, i.e. liars. The relationship with Støre eventually became irreconcilable, despite Støre’s very generous handling at the start. He let Giske himself go out in Dagsrevyen and define the seriousness of the warnings, and in “Political Quarter”, just before Christmas Eve 2017, Støre claimed that Giske had actually been a driving force to clean up an unculture with a lot of alcohol at events where young people were present . He referred several times to Giske as a kind of authority on sexual harassment and challenges when it comes to asymmetrical power relations. It must have been fairly surreal for the whistleblowers to listen to.

Thought pregnancy was illness

Sveen is neither a politician commentator, or an actor, and therefore not characterized by the political game in which the Giske case is hailed. Her field of expertise is, among other things, sexual violence against women, about which she has previously written books, and she asks questions about what kind of cultures accepts sexual harassment. Her agenda is open: What will it take for whistleblowers to speak out in a safe and responsible way?

Unfortunately, that was not possible in Ap. The concern for Giske and perhaps the fear of getting him against them overshadowed the concern for the heralds. As a herald says in the book: “He is assigned an intrinsic value that far exceeds mine.”

While several of the whistleblowers have left politics because of Giske, he is at full speed back in national politics as a critic of Støre. In the massive coverage of his new political project, the notices are mentioned in subordinate clauses as the only thing that can stand in his way. The way to clear it up is to undermine the whistleblowers’ credibility and accuse them of waging a power struggle. It has worked well so far.