Politics
While the party failed to gain considerable support in the national and local elections before the war, it made its mark on Norwegian politics nonetheless. Despite the fact that it never managed to get more than 2.5% of the votes, it became a factor by polarizing the political scene. All of the established parties in Norway viewed it as a Norwegian version of the Nazis, and generally refused to cooperate with it in any way. Several of its marches and rallies before the war were either banned, or, as in Germany, marred by violence as working-class activists (Communists and socialists) clashed with the Hird.
A significant trait of the party throughout its existence was a relatively high level of internal conflict. Antisemitism, Anti-Masonry, and differing views on religion, as well as the party's association with the Nazis and Germany were hotly debated, and factioned the party. When World War II broke out, the party had been reduced to a political sect with hardly any real activity.
Strong belief in Norse Paganism, romantic nationalism, authoritarianism, and corporatism dominated NS ideology. It also relied heavily on Nordic symbolism, utilizing Vikings, pre-Christian religion and runes in its propaganda and speeches. It asserted that its symbol (shown at the head of this article), a golden sun cross on a red background, had been the symbol of Olav, painted on his shield.
Read more about this topic: Nasjonal Samling
Famous quotes containing the word politics:
“There is a place where we are always alone with our own mortality, where we must simply have something greater than ourselves to hold onto—God or history or politics or literature or a belief in the healing power of love, or even righteous anger.... A reason to believe, a way to take the world by the throat and insist that there is more to this life than we have ever imagined.”
—Dorothy Allison (b. 1949)
“Of course, in the reality of history, the Machiavellian view which glorifies the principle of violence has been able to dominate. Not the compromising conciliatory politics of humaneness, not the Erasmian, but rather the politics of vested power which firmly exploits every opportunity, politics in the sense of the “Principe,” has determined the development of European history ever since.”
—Stefan Zweig (18811942)
“If politics is the art of the possible, research is surely the art of the soluble. Both are immensely practical-minded affairs.”
—Peter B. Medawar (1915–1987)