Red Youth (Norway)

Rød Ungdom or Raud Ungdom is a Norwegian revolutionary youth league. It is the youth organizaion of the party Red (Norway). The current leader of Red Youth is Mari Eifring.

Politics

RU is an organisation with three main principles: socialism, feminism and anti-racism. Their goals are typically communist, and they aim to organise the working class in preparation for an eventual overthrow of the capitalist system. RU wants to extend the democracy in Norway today, and also take distance from the 'Stalinist' Communist regimes in the Soviet Union and China.

The Red Youth is active on several political fronts, supporting the Palestinian and Iraqi national resistance and opposed to the European Union, racism and sexism.

Activism

Red Youth is an activist organisation and has performed political actions and media stunts against Norwegian politicians. One of the more well known actions is when the Red Youth, in support of gay rights, interrupted the Christian Democrats' national meeting in an attempt to expose and highlight what they perceived as the Christian Democrats' homophobia. The Red Youth also built a refugee asylum in the garden of the Conservative Minister of Integration Erna Solberg, as a protest against her immigration policies. In 2004, they tried to arrest the Conservative Minister of Education, Kristin Clemet, for crimes against Norwegian students. Several members of the Red Youth were arrested in 2005 after trying to charge the Norwegian Parliament in what was generally peaceful anti-racist action.Fact|date=February 2007 Since the election of the "RedGreen" government in 2005, the Red Youth have been working to push the Social Democrats in a more leftist direction. They have also drilled for oil in finance minister Kristin Halvorsen's garden as a protest against oil drilling in the northern parts of Norway.

Influence

The mother party of the Red Youth, Red, is the biggest opposition party left of the Norwegian government, despite its lack of parliamentary representation. In the 2005-election Red got 1,2 % of the votes in Norway, resulting in 0 representatives in the Norwegian Parliament.

External links

* [http://www.sosialisme.no Rød Ungdom website]
* [http://www.sosialisme.no/content.php?content_cat_id=1&page_id=20 Political programme of Rød Ungdom]