Ok, so now at semester start there is this student parlament thing comming up. First thing is a stay at a hotel to decide upon a paper that, quite frankly, does not really have all that much contents, and more importantly, really won’t have much of any effect. Now for that, they’re planning on spending the weekend at a hotel with whirl and swimming pool outside of town – listening to speeches of themselves and various other people that are important enough to wear ties. And they’re all really concerned about it all working out well, and everybody being friend across political fractions etc.; it’s ridiculous.

So what my fraction and me did was to cancel out hotel tickets and instead to plan on tenting outside the hotel somewehre in the woods.

Now of course, 115,000 NOK (approx. 13,000 USD) is not all that much, but nevertheless, this is a start. It’s a start of trying to combine activism with student politics in the student parliament – and thereby to end the “consensus style” of politics that seems to have been going on at the university between the various political fractions for way too long.

Now I encountered a typical example fo that yesterday: I went to an open meeting by The Conservative Student Organzisation (DKSF) with the current minister of education (a conservative). Before she spoke, there was one guy from the organziation that said a little about the history of the house we were in (Chateau Neuf):

You see those stairs over there? They used to be called the Red Front (red: a famous left wing student organization) stairs. And those over there were The Conservative Student Organization stairs. That was because the two organizations couldn’t even manage to go up the same stairs. […] Now we’re trying re-establish this as a place for discussion amongst people with differing views. […]

The minister went up on the scene, and while most people clap, I start booing thrice, and quite lowly at that.
Kristian Meisingset, leader of ne of the conservative youth groups turns around and looks a bit angry at me: Johannes!, he tries to stop me, as he seems to think it is inappropriate.

Now to me, this seems to be a fundamental contradiction: how can they at the same time wnat some of that fighting spirit back, and at the same time keep the “good friends” thing going where I am supposed to listen to the wishes of some conservative?