I CHANGE ON BEHALF OF BUT RATHER TOGETHER WITH
Name: Anna Sabina Lindroos Soggiu
Age: 31
District: Sagene
Nationality: Norwegian
I live together with my girlfriend in an allotment-cottage at Etterstad while my flat is being build.
I have an MA in social work, and I currently work at Grünerløkka Social Service. I am on a sabbatical from Grünerløkka to work in the association management at FO.
I belong to the ones who enjoy food that tastes, the self-demanding, the hardworking, the multitaskers, the ones wanting to let everyone be heard, the living conditions-fighters, the ones receiving confirmation for what they are doing, the cooperators, the levelheaded Vålerenga supporters, the city walkers, the control freaks, the planners and the iPhone-users but I do not belong to the ones who belittles, the ones who think it’s no use, the excluding, the forest walkers, the couch potatoes or the spontaneous.
My thing in Oslo is Grønland, and my family has lived here for generations. I like that I have the possibility for cultural events even though I don’t have to go all the time. I appreciate that you can find more than two Chinese restaurants. That you can go alone to a café and talk to someone, also the people you don’t know. That something is happening all the time.
I don’t believe that “the strongest in the world is the one standing the most alone”. I believe in the collective, but that’s not always popular. This belief means you have to endure being disliked, and then you are strong. The people will rise. At one point you have to, if you become angry enough. Just look to Europe, to Italy, where my grandfather came from. The people are standing up for themselves. The anger can be used for all sorts of crazy things. Look to the terrorist – to Breivik – he probably feels sorry for himself, but he probably feels it was necessary – that he sacrificed himself. But he was of course wrong.
A turningpoint came when watching Breivik in court. I thought he looked sad, I felt sorry for him. Even though he had tried to kill my friends. He is the opposite of me. Everything he has mentioned as horrible means something to me. Even though he is against everything I stand for, I felt empathy towards him – it was a process and development to understand that this is the difference between him and me: I feel empathy for the ones I disagree with.
For the performance I will take the 37 bus from Etterstad to centrum. And then I will walk from Karl Johan to the theatre.