When Lubna Jaffery, the country’s new Minister of Culture, was in the school band at Li School in Åsane in Bergen, the time came when she had to become an aspirant, get an instrument and a uniform. But the parents had to pay for the uniform, and Jaffery’s mother bluntly said they couldn’t afford it. To her surprise, she got a uniform anyway, but only as an adult did Jaffery realize that it was the corps leadership who had tacitly given her a free uniform. GROWING UP POOR: Lubna Jaffery has told how her parents could not afford a corps uniform. Photo: Christina Gjertsen / news A few years later, it was the dues in the taekwondo club that the parents could not pay. The solution eventually became that the daughter became an instructor for the youngest children, and paid by working. Jaffery told about these experiences herself in an article in Bergens Tidende in 2019. It was about how in adulthood she had understood that she grew up in a poor family, even though her father had generously distributed banknotes to those who had even less during a visit to his homeland Pakistan. He was one of the migrant workers who came to Norway in 1971. AT THE PARLIAMENT: Until today, Lubna Jaffery was a permanent deputy at the Storting, for Labor and Inclusion Minister Marte Mjøs Persen. Photo: Leif Rune Løland / news In this way, Jaffery will not only be the minority minister that many have been calling for. She is also a minister of culture with a class journey behind her. She knows what it’s like to be left out of cultural and sports institutions because the entrance ticket is too expensive. Jaffery was 14 the first time she went to the cinema. These experiences can be useful when she has to manage a field where one of the big questions is how art and cultural experiences will be accessible to everyone, all generations and all social strata. Jaffery is also strongly committed to issues of discrimination and diversity. She was one of three Labor politicians who publicly called for comedian Shabana Rehman to be buried at state expense. Otherwise, she appears as a competent and experienced woman with experience from several heavy roles in politics. In recent years, she has been a regularly attending deputy representative in the Storting, but before that she was a labor and social councilor in Bergen, and acting city councilor in the same city during the demanding corona years. Before that again, she was state secretary in Anniken Huitfeldt’s Ministry of Culture. RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CORONA CRISIS: Lubna Jaffery was acting city council leader in Bergen during the corona lockdown. Photo: NTB She has also been a political adviser in the Ministry of Labor and Inclusion and the Ministry of Health and Care. Like so many high-level politicians, she has also had a foray into the communications industry, as a consultant at Geelmuyden Kiese. There will hopefully be full transparency around this. The cultural field would like to have someone who understands what artists do. But perhaps even more they want someone who can raise money. Norway is a small language area with a thin audience base. Then it costs money to keep a cultural life going, in any case a cultural life that is varied, ambitious, and also available outside the big cities. Many battles are about who will get how much, the narrow or the broad, the volunteers or the professionals, the national institutions or the local zealots. A NUTS: The rehabilitation of the National Theater has been a political challenge for several ministers of culture. Photo: Christopher Isachsen Sandøy / news There will be plenty of challenges ahead. Departed Culture Minister Anette Trettebergstuen barely had time to present her artist report before she had to resign. It marks the start of a major debate about how artists should get better living conditions. It will probably be characterized by fundamentally different social views, between a left-wing side that wants people to be employed and a right-wing side that wants to make things easier for entrepreneurs. The Book Act recently passed through the Storting, but much is still unclear. Exactly how much freedom publishers and booksellers will have to make advantageous agreements for themselves remains to be seen. And the National Theater is still standing and rotting. KUNSTNERNES KÅR: Anette Trettebergstuen managed to present her artist report before she left. The debate about artists’ living conditions and social rights will be one of the first things the new culture minister has to deal with. Photo: NTB A culture minister, who is head of one of the smaller ministries, depends on having weight within the government. She has to create understanding and influence the needs in the field. Jaffery seems well equipped for this, and can also boast experience from the boards of the Litteraturhuset in Bergen and from the Festspillene in the same city. For “Lubnaen” is described as arch-bergens. She is a passionate participant in Diaspora Bergensis, the gathering for exiled Bergens with a heart that beats from a distance for the sports club Brann. A source from Bergen excitedly told me that there might now be a new opportunity to get Bergen’s old city coat of arms back from exile in Copenhagen. HEART FOR BRANN: Lubna Jaffery is involved in Diaspora Bergensis, Bergens outside Bergen with a beating heart for Brann – and Bergen culture. Photo: Gerd Johanne Braadland / news Jaffery is said to have spoken loudly and cordially to familiar people as well as strangers on the tram in Oslo when she moved over the mountain, before she realized that this was not common this far east. She must have an irrepressible good mood and an infectious laugh. This can be a great advantage in a cultural field filled with eloquent people who like to talk loudly and at length about what they are dissatisfied with. Lubna Jaffery’s political involvement officially began when she joined AUF as a fifteen-year-old. When the bomb went off in the government quarter on 22 July 2011, she had actually arranged to meet her six-year-old daughter outside at around the same time. By chance, they changed that deal. On the same day, the child was supposed to go with a family friend to Utøya, but arrived too late for the ferry. Thus, Jaffery’s family came very close to being directly affected by the terror, a terror that hit many she knew with full force and which is part of the lives of two of the colleagues she will have in the government. The great seriousness of political involvement will thus never be far away, not even today, where Lubna Jaffery stands in Slottsplassen with her arms full of flowers.
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The family could not afford to buy her a corps uniform – Statement
