One in Four

Recently Aftenposten reported that new statistics show that one in four people living in Oslo is a foreign immigrant, i.e. non-Norwegian, i.e. like me. The breakdown goes like this:
Year: 1998. Population of Oslo: 499,693. No. of immigrants: 85,550. Percentage: 17.
Year: 2008. Population of Oslo: 560,484. No. of immigrants: 137,878. Percentage: 24.5.
So what does this mean for “us” and for “them” ?


1. If all the immigrants went on strike, Oslo would not be able to function. Obviously immigrants make up a significant part of the workforce, especially doing the jobs that Norwegians wouldn’t do.
2. If all the immigrants went on strike, there’d be no-one to tell the Norwegians what to do, because we’re all over-qualified for our jobs.
3. The issue of institutional racism will come more into focus. Foreigners’ job applications tend to get rejected because of their “foreign-looking” (particularly “Arabic-looking”) names. So it’s quite hard to get a job you’re qualified for!
4. As immigrants interbreed with the Norwegians, beautiful, exotic-looking children will be born.
5. The future is beautiful and exotic.
6. Perhaps Oslo people’s tendency to vote for obnoxious right-wing political parties like the FrP will become untenable. Remember: beautiful and exotic, not bad driving, silly hair and fascism.

barry
Barry Kavanagh writes fiction, and has made music, formerly with Dacianos.

Contact him here.