Ahmed Al-Saidi was elected as the new vice-president of the National Red Youth Meeting at the end of the week.
Al-Saidi received widespread criticism on social media because of messages he had previously published on the X website.
Young Conservative Party leader Ola Svineby and Russian expert and author Age Borchgrevink were among many who criticized Al-Saidi's post on X.
The new MP also had a selfie of X where he stands holding a Kalashnikov rifle.
– This is a photo of me from a holiday trip in my native Iraq in either 2021 or 2022. We knew the head of the police station, so he allowed me to shoot, says Rud Ongdom's deputy leader, Ahmed Al-Saidi, to Netavisen.
– I understand that this may raise questions. The picture is new, but my X account is from 2014. I was young when I created my account. It's had the same style ever since, with my friends and I writing a lot of nonsense. And then I became deputy leader of Rød Ungdom overnight, and then there were people who took my X messages a little more seriously, he says.
– You also made a political statement about X. I support that to some extent. So it's not all nonsense.
Removes the image
– How do people differentiate between the silly and the serious, Al-Saidi?
– That's a good question. I'm 22, so my friends get the bullshit, but a 60 year old probably doesn't. “So I'll be more careful about how I express myself on social media,” he says.
-This picture has caused so much trouble that I'm not sure I want to use it anymore. It is a shame that people think that I want to start an armed revolution tomorrow, just because I was on a holiday trip in my home country with some friends. But I have to change that, I think, says Saidi.
“I hope people interpret me in the best sense online,” he adds.
Al-Saidi changed his profile picture on X shortly after the interview with Nettavisen.
Don't rest assured
Nettavisen asked Unge Høyre leader Svenneby, who has been among Saidi's most prominent critics on social media over the past 24 hours, what he thought of the explanation given to the deputy leader.
The “it's just a joke” strategy is well known among far-right extremists. I notice that the far left chooses the same strategy. It's quite descriptive of Rod Ongdom that it's a bit unclear whether what they're saying is a joke or actual politics, he tells Netavisen.
Svinby says he is more concerned with the opinions of deputy leader Ruud Aungdom than his image.
The way he describes Ukraine and Ukrainian soldiers is inappropriate. It reproduces Russian propaganda and appears to have an alternative relationship to reality, says Svenby.
-His profile also overflows with relativism to Stalin and various other tyrants. It is somewhat unfortunate that extremists are elected as deputy leaders of the Youth Party in parliamentary parties. His positions belong on the scrap heap.
Al-Saidi describes Svinibi's criticism as strange.
– It's troubling that Svenby equates what I do with what people on the far right do, when perhaps he should be focusing on the growing threat to Muslims from the far right, Al-Saidi says.
– As a refugee from war, I believe that the war in Ukraine is terrible and must end today, before tomorrow. Thus, I question Stoltenberg's strategy, which in short is: the way to peace is through weapons, he says.
– In the end, I think it's strange that someone who likes Thatcher and thinks Pinochet was good would come and tell me who I should talk about, and who I shouldn't talk about, says Deputy Leader Rod Ongdom.
Reply to X's posts
There are many messages that both Svenneby and Borchgrevink interact with.
“With a deputy like this, it is perhaps not surprising that Ruud Ungdom opposes the Ukrainian resistance,” Svenby wrote on his website. X It refers to the following messages:
“Russia will leave Donbass. In Donbass, they will enjoy autonomy. But instead of trading with a rich neighbor like Russia, Ukraine has chosen to go to war.”
“Maybe if Zelensky had actually continued his political campaign and started paying attention to eastern Ukraine and returning water to Crimea, we wouldn’t have ended up here, I don’t know,” he wrote on January 18, 2023.
“Lord Jesus. It is sad to see Ruudt’s leadership recycling Russian propaganda. “It reminds us of how Ruudt’s predecessors in the AKP in the 1970s supported Comrade Mao,” Borchgrevink wrote. X.
“Coffee trailblazer. Certified pop culture lover. Infuriatingly humble gamer.”
