For the people, not for God

Hadia TajikOSLO.Muslim and deputy leader in The Norwegian Labor Party , Hadia Tajik.Photo: Heiko Junge / NTB scanpix

Opinion article (Christian Norwegian newspaper) Vårt Land

Something is happening in  The Norwegian Labor Party  (Arbeiderpartiet ) when a Muslim and party leader says that God is managing for himself, and Kristendom, religion, livssyn og etikk (KRLE) is for the people.

After a very smooth reconciliation, it became clear on Saturday afternoon that Ap ( Labor Party ) attempted to remove the K (Christianity) in the school’s philosophy of life – KRLE.
Muslim and deputy leader in Ap, Hadia Tajik, lost. In advance, she had given the name a warm defense, stressing that ‘The K only indicates that Christianity has a special history for us.’
When the Ap’s national meeting rejected Jonas Gahr Støres, and deputy Tajik’s, warm defense of the K in the name, everyone who follows the national meeting will read into it a bigger picture, and it’s about possible government cooperation with
the Christian Democratic Party (KrF).
Knut Arild Hareide was, for his part, quick to express his disappointment. ‘For KrF it is quite natural that the content of the subject is reflected in the name’, he said to Vårt Land.
It may seem that the refutation in this case is a rejection of Knut Arild Hareide and his party. But the picture is not as simple as it looks at first sight.
It is actually sensational that the leadership of Aps became the voice of about half of the national meeting, where 140 actually voted to keep the K in the name, but 160 voted to remove it. In the past, the party has been clear about the K, and it is important to remember that the K has been contested before, even in Christian communities.
When the Workers’ Youth League (AUF) said they were against K, they emphasised that they represented the bishops, who had been critical.
This was in all respects a symbol of the national meeting, because it was not about changing the composition of the topic, just a change of name.

Thus, in many ways, it was about Ap’s relationship with Christian cultural heritage, and the party’s relationship with KrF.

In the corridor afterward, several key Ap people also claimed that with this particular K, the KrF could easily negotiate in any cooperative relationship.
The leader’s warm defense for the K really showed a new trend in AP’s leadership, a clear recognition of Christian heritage and our common history.

Tajik will probably be remembered for her words that it is not God who needs the K, but the people.
‘We must expect God to manage for himself, our policy is not for him.’

 

Source:  vl.no / Norway Today