The Debate, NRK | Will reintroduce conscription for 19-year-olds: – Everyone must be included

On Tuesday, NRK’s ​​Debate addressed the question of whether conscription should be reintroduced for absolutely everyone who has finished upper secondary school. Figures from 2023 show that out of a cohort of 50,000, approximately 9,000 complete first-time service, a figure the current government wants to increase to 13,600.

also read

Slave labor for 19-year-olds

– Can call it a civil service 2.0

But Dag Mossige in the Stavanger Arbeiderparti thinks you should go further than that. He and his party colleagues in the Rogaland Labor Party have decided to investigate the introduction of a year of compulsory military service. This is something that will be presented to the Labor Party’s national meeting later this year, but the debate already got off to a flying start on Tuesday evening.

– There are far too few who serve their conscription. 15 percent is not good enough, it is unfair to those who do and unfair to all those who do not get the chance as well. We want far more young people today to have the opportunity to show that they are needed by society. It is right to make demands on everyone and everyone must put up with it, says Mossige during the Debatten broadcast and adds:

– You could well call it a civil service 2.0, but this is actually much bigger than that. First of all, we want to increase the number of conscripts for regular first-time service, then we want to greatly increase the scope and number of people admitted to the Civil Defence, he says.

But that’s not enough. For those who should not end up in first-time service in the Armed Forces or in the Civil Defense, Mossige suggests the following:

– Then we envision a variant for the civil service where it can be used in humanitarian organizations and perhaps in the healthcare system, he says.

also read

The government strengthens the fear that Norway is the last Soviet state

Strongly disagree: – A bad idea

Precisely the last part of the proposal has caused the coffee to get stuck in the wrong throat of many people, including the editor-in-chief of the newspaper you are now reading, Gunnar Stavrum.

– I think it’s a bad idea and I also think it seems poorly thought out. The bad thing about this idea is that you try to solve a problem that doesn’t exist with overly drastic means, says Stavrum during tonight’s Debatten broadcast.

The editor-in-chief says that in the times we live in, he has no objections to the fact that bi should increase military conscription, but that the proposal from the Rogaland Labor Party has several bad elements.

– As this proposal has gained ground, there have been many bad versions of it. Someone should have more young people in agriculture and in health and social care. Free labor for the world’s richest state, I think that is a very bad idea, he says.

– Authoritarian and quite strange

Stavrum is supported by Unge Venstre leader Ane Breivik. She calls it all “authoritarian”.

– I also think it’s quite strange. It does not come close to solving the challenges that Norway is facing. The Rogaland Labor Party’s desk proposal is that thousands of young people should spend a year of their lives as unskilled rather than completing their studies and getting a job – and thus serve society, she says and continues:

– What they are advocating here is precisely to delay their entry into the labor market. What do we need now? Yes, more trained electricians, teachers and nurses. This will lead to fewer people and will awaken our readiness, says Breivik.

Trade union: This does not solve the staffing crisis

Mette Nord is head of Fagforbundet, LO’s largest confederation with over 400,000 members. She is also negative to reintroducing compulsory conscription.

– So you don’t solve the staffing crisis in the healthcare system by having cheap labor that needs to be replaced. We need continuity, we need to build expertise. The defense bit is also something completely different. We need a strengthened preparedness, we completely agree with that, but sluicing 30,000 19-year-olds into the health system and kindergartens because you want cheap labor is wrong.

Will break up the period when people are only recipients of public support

Aslak Sira Myhre was also part of Tuesday’s panel. He is a former politician (for RV) and journalist, but is now the national librarian. Myhre welcomes the discussion on reintroducing conscription for all.

– If a society is to take such a drastic step as reintroducing civic duty and community service, it must first be discussed in principle, says Myhre.

He believes there are two good reasons for a reintroduction. One is community building and the other is to prevent people from going 20 years in a row where they receive public support without giving anything back.

– You offer the military, i.e. conscription. If you don’t want to do military service, you offer a community service. Here we are talking about contributing to society and that it is a good idea, he says.

Myhre has caught the dissenting voices who say that through working life you contribute to the circumstances and that you therefore do not need a mandatory year as a 19-year-old where you have compulsory military service for everyone. To that he says the following:

– We are raising a generation that sometimes goes to school for 20 years before they can enter working life. Part of the problem with that is that throughout the 20 years you are only the recipient of public support and you contribute very little to anything other than developing your own life and friends around you. Having a breakup during that period, I think for many people, will lead to feeling a stronger connection to society, he says.