Fifteen organizations based at Blindern have come together to protest against oil drilling in the north. They want a decrease in the amount of drinking and an increase in the political activism among students.

The new umbrella organization «Studenter mot oljeboring» - Students Againts Oil Drilling – does not wish to exclusively work against oil extraction in Lofoten, Vesterålen and Senja. Its members also want to raise awareness among students at Blindern. According to initiator Peter Ringstad, commitment among students has become bureaucratic and boring.
- I´m not saying activism is dead, but during the last few years it has become more fragmented and bureaucratic. We want a wider and more spontaneous mobilization of the students, says Ringstad, active member of Changemaker.
-The fight against oil drilling marks a crossroads and an opportunity to raise awareness in a way we haven´t seen in years. We want to show the new students that Blindern is not only a place for beer tents but also an arena for the promotion of political messages.
In order to mark the beginning of the fight against oil drilling, the organization let down a banner from the roof of the administration building Tuesday August 17th. The banner bore the umbrella organization’s slogan.

Joint front

The organization is a sort of ad hoc campaign and consists of 15 different organizations based at the University of Oslo (UiO). Through the organization all students are free to channel their commitment to the fight against oil drilling.
- We just started this last May, and the initiators were myself and two other people. Before summer we arranged an open meeting to which we invited people from different organizations. In the meeting we made plans for what we wanted to do in the future, and the people who turned up could commit themselves to the different groups, says Ringstad.
The campaign ranges wide politically and consists of everything in between Red Blindern and Liberal list. –We created a joint front against oil drilling, so the organizations won´t have to arrange separate smaller campaigns. Between the organizations there are obvious nuances in the arguments against the drilling and for that reason we have chosen to not agree upon why we’re opposing.

Ambitious activists

The activists have made numerous plans for the coming semester and they hope to attract other students’ attention through arranging, among other things, concerts and art installations.
-This weekend we are making an art installation in the square between the Faculty of Social Sciences and the Faculty of the Humanities. A student of architecture from the Oslo School of Architecture and Design (AHO) is building an oilrig, though obviously not a full-sized one. This will be a project in which everyone who wants to can participate, says Ringstad. On the student festival STUDiO´s environment day there will be a free concert in Grisebukta outside of Chateau Neuf. Among the artists playing are My Little Pony and Hiawata!. In addition there will be a debate concerning the issue at Betong on August 31st.
-All these arrangements will be leading up to a big demonstration on Frederikkeplassen, September 1st. We hope to have mobilized as many students as we can by then, says Ringstad.