A couple of weeks ago, my 63-year-old father was beaten down by two young Somali men. He had talked their younger brother into throwing stones at his window, and then they had come for revenge. One had spoken to him, and then the other hit him from behind. It resulted in a blue road and a police report. My old working class father was beaten up outside his own home. My Arab immigrant father, mind you, lives in Lindeberg, has no education, works in Posten and has damaged his shoulder lifting parcels for over 30 years. Worse working conditions Before there were better working conditions, more permanent employees, and there were many Norwegian colleagues who worked there. Now there are only foreigners on the floor. Many do not know their rights, remain on-call full-time and are not used to being able to make demands. “Don’t end up here. This is slave labour”, said some colleagues when I worked there one summer as an eighteen-year-old. An unsafe growing up environment Gang environments and young boys with guns are emerging. Clans, revenge and sexism. My little sister says that she is often asked by boys if she is a virgin. She says that boys talk about “whore” Norwegian girls they are going to have fun with, before they find a “wifey topic”, i.e. wife material with the same background. There are many child protection cases, learning difficulties and troubled classrooms. Someone was shot right outside Dad’s house. Voted the Labor Party before My father belongs to the quiet working class. The one who neither has the words to write witty posts or lobby. When he was young in Norway, he was a communist and voted for the Labor Party. “They stood for the workers, for justice, freedom and equal opportunities. It was good stuff,” he says. The working class is looked down upon Now he and others like him are looked down upon. Traditional men on the floor who build our houses, grow our food and transport our parcels. The same men who in a war situation would die for us. “There has been too much focus on radical feminism and equality no matter what, but of course only at the top. No one wants women to take on the hard jobs at the bottom.” He says. He becomes more and more conservative, in proportion as he becomes more and more marginalized. The working conditions are getting worse, and it’s becoming rude to talk badly about people like him. The left has failed my father and workers like him. The new left has become parties for civil servants, the chattering class and care workers. So progressive that they have left the working class without realizing it, while they look down on everyone who remains for not learning the “correct” values quickly enough. Not everything is about money In addition to money, all people need a basic sense of respect and dignity. A genuine experience of one’s culture and values being accepted and included in a democratic community of opinion. Instead of including both immigrants and the working-class democratic voice, the new left has waged one-sided, idealistic campaigns by the book of the educated orthodox. Completely realistic objections from the working class, which do not fit into the political scientists’ models, are systematically suppressed. Immigration is just one example. “Many foreigners come with a third world mentality, based on providing services to family, low trust in the state and low acceptance of Norwegian values. It’s the same at home in Morocco,” says my father. Cultural differences naturally exist in people from different cultures. Country with a poorer justice system, clan-based social structures, pervasive corruption and a culture of honor. Values that obviously clash with Norwegian values are ignored in an attempt to be tolerant. Completely without realizing that: “It feels degrading when foreigners get positions and benefits just because they are minorities. Look at qualifications completely regardless of ethnicity, gender or orientation,” says dad. Not to mention that most of the negative effects of immigration, the violence, gangs, sexism and social dumping, do not affect the progressive talking class in Ullevål hageby, but the working class in Groruddalen. A clarifying question It has thus become almost impossible to have an objective conversation about immigration, gender, values and tradition. The left has marched with the banner that everyone should join, downplayed other views and played moral police to the extent that many now do not dare to say what they think. Without asking the simple question: Exactly where in the population do we find the most “outdated”, traditional and politically incorrect opinions? To which the answer is simply that it is with the working class and immigrants. The same groups that the left originally fought for. When the soft power New Left tries to reform society through shaming, self-censorship, finger-pointing and measures to force grown people to share the opinions of the upper middle class, this will reasonably produce some bitterness. No one likes to be talked down to, and even fewer like to be talked down to. Especially when the allegedly correct opinions primarily support the power of our new commentator-bourgeoisie, political aristocracy and the ever-increasing bureaucratic “clergy”. The dust under the carpet All these opinions we sweep under the carpet, of course, do not disappear. Rather, they grow into big, bitter piles that yearn for the light of day. Opinions that are excluded from our democratic dialogue, under the pretext of defending democracy. Almost as if democracy can’t stand being democratic. I am far from agreeing with all my father’s opinions. He sometimes formulates himself harshly, unvarnished and direct. However, I also see that there are underlying legitimate concerns that are being ignored. I see that he, the man of the working class, has been beaten down and stripped of his dignity. Beaten down both physically, economically, socially and symbolically. A marginalized and unheard voice that no one seems to care about. Take back the vote When I think of my father like this, I want to take back the vote I gave the Labor Party the first time I voted, because they no longer speak to my father the worker. However, it is not obvious where it should have gone. Because it seems the only people who listen and talk to the worker these days are those who seek to capitalize on their frustration. What is obvious is that the working class is increasingly marginalised, both culturally and economically. That their opinions and concerns are ridiculed, and that much credit is no longer given to the many workers on the floor. That is why I am worried about our social democratic future. Because one can wonder how long the working class will bother to play along, when they only get worse and worse, without anyone seeming to care. The parties that were supposed to be their guardians and defenders, rather talk down to them with airy political explanations.
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The quiet men of the working class – Speech
