Hoist With Their Own Petard

I think most readers already know how politically correct Modern Multicultural Norway is. Like so many Western Europeans, Norwegians are devoted to the cult of Diversity, and no party in the country is more immigrant-friendly than the Labour Party.

That’s why the article below from The Local is so surprising — the Labour Party is unhappy with the high number of immigrants who won election to the Oslo city council. The culture-enrichers now hold a majority on the council, and that is apparently not the result envisioned by the mandarins of the party.

The story opens with a startling headline:

Labour Party Looks to Slash Oslo Immigrant Dominance

And then continues with this jaw-dropper of a lead paragraph:

Leading Labour Party politicians in Oslo believe voters have too much influence in the city and are calling for changes to the country’s election laws after immigrant candidates snagged eleven of the party’s 20 seats on the City Council.

“Voters have too much influence”? I thought Norway was a proud democracy — how could voters have too much influence?

And these are Labour Party voters, mind you. The most steadfast proletarians of one of the staunchest social democracies in the world. When it comes to progressive European socialism, Norwegian Labour Party voters are the crème de la crème.

Among those backing legislative change is Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, who sits on the board of a local Labour committee that wants parties to be able to present voters with a list of 15 hand-picked candidates.

Now we get down to the nitty-gritty. It turns out that Mr. Støre doesn’t trust the members of his own party with any task as complex as voting. Better leave that to the experts, who can pick the privileged leaders for whom the party rank-and-file may then dutifully vote.

The article continues:

In accordance with current rules, the party populated its list with ten names in this autumn’s city elections.

This left voters with plenty of scope to select their own preferred candidates, enabling seven politicians with immigrant backgrounds to sail into winning positions after managing to secure enough personal votes for a seat.

But the Labour Party loves immigrants! How could it possibly object to having lots of them on the Oslo city council?

The problem, you see, is that Somalis exceeded their quota — three Somalis are too many:

“We’ve now got three representatives from Somalia and Somaliland. That’s in excess of what one might expect,” party veteran Rune Gerhardsen told newspaper VG.

So how many Somalis would have been just right? One? Two?

Mr. Gerhardsen takes great pains to assure the public that there is nothing wrong with all these immigrant councillors, just that there are, well, too many of them:

Gerhardsen stressed that his desire for a rule change did not stem from any sense of dissatisfaction with the current councillors, but he did argue there was a need for greater balance.

And how did these ethnic chaps end up being so effective? By bloc-voting, of course — at which the Muslims in the West are specialists:

“Comparatively small pressure groups can make relatively large gains when they apply enough resources. Ethnic groups have shown themselves to be good at mobilizing,” he said.

Needless to say, the ethnics themselves are distressed by all this racist and discriminatory talk:

Abid Raja from the Liberal Party (Venstre) said he found the comments alarming.

“What he says about his own party colleagues with Somali backgrounds is way beneath his dignity,” Raja told news agency NTB.

“Instead of increasing the number of set candidates we should be going in the opposite direction and getting rid of it altogether.”

And Labour’s leadership is enjoined to remember how much they owe to their loyal immigrant voters:

Raja pointed out that ethnic Norwegian candidates had also harvested their fair share of personal votes, with Rune Gerhardsen himself the main beneficiary. Of the Labour Party’s candidates, Gerhardsen and Libe Rieber-Mohn attracted the highest number of personal votes, followed by Abdullah Alsabeehg.

The 25-year-old Alsabeehg, whose family came to Norway as political refugees from Bahrain when he was very young, denied his election success had stemmed from a recruitment campaign targeting voters of the same ethnic background as himself.

Sure. Right. Go on, pull the other one!

Instead, he attributed his large personal vote haul to the backing he received from the Labour Party’s youth wing (AUF).

“I was the AUF’s youth candidate in the election and was supported by young people of various ethnic backgrounds from around the city,” he told NTB.

Actually, that may be true — AUF members are well-known for their strong support for Hamas.

And other parties are only too happy to see the Labour Party hoist with its own petard:

“I can see that the Labour Party’s City Council group in Oslo is skewed, both from an ethnic and geographical perspective, but that just shows that party democracy is more or less dead within the Labour Party beyond the group of active immigrants,” said Conservative Party (Høyre) MP Per-Kristian Foss to politisk.no.

“That’s a problem for Oslo’s Labour Party; I don’t think parliament should change the election law,” he added.

Anders Anundsen from the Progress Party said Labour would be better advised to move in the exact opposite direction, a view supported by the Centre Party’s Per Olaf Lundteigen.

Forget for the moment the monstrous hypocrisy of the Labour Party, so piously celebrating Diversity and promoting Multiculturalism whilst disdaining the election of its own immigrant charges to high office.

Norway is home to one of the most intelligent indigenous populations on the planet, based on standard IQ tests and the academic achievements of its students. It has a rich history of success in the arts and sciences, and has been the home of many brilliant thinkers.

How is it, then, that you, the best and brightest of Norway’s political elite, failed to predict the inevitable outcome of your fervently-embraced policy of importing more and more Third-World immigrants?

How could you be so stupid?

You brought in strangers by the thousands. You gave them the vote. They’re not as smart as you are, but they are politically shrewd. Although still a minority, by using that shrewdness they gamed your electoral system and gave themselves a majority in the legally elected representative body of your capital city.

You didn’t like this result, and now propose to overturn it through procedural manipulation. Good luck with that: the mess you have created may not be so easily remedied, with or without democracy.

But now we know your true opinion of those wonderful “New Norwegians” — you who were so keen to label Fjordman and other immigration-critics as “racists” and “xenophobes”.

It’s time to eat your words now, every single one of them.


Hat tip: C. Cantoni.