Trond Andresen

Trond Andresen (born 30 April 1947) is a Norwegian engineer, political activist and debater. He was an associate professor of Cybernetics at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU). Andresen has a long history of political activism, originally as a communist. In the 2000s, he became increasingly known for his antisemitic writings. Andresen left the Red Party in 2009 and has pivoted to the far right, announcing his support for Marine Le Pen in 2016.

Career

He earned the M.Sc. degree in electrical engineering at NTH (now NTNU) in 1973, and has been assistant professor at NTNU since 1982. He was elected as a member of the university board in 1999, serving one term. He earned the dr.philos. degree in 2018 with the dissertation ''On the Dynamics of Money Circulation, Creation and Debt – a Control Systems Approach'' and was thus promoted to associate professor.

Political activity

Andresen has been a member of a number of left-wing organisations in Norway, and was a co-founder of the Red Electoral Alliance (RV) political party in 1973. In 1982, he founded a left-wing radio station affiliated with RV, Radio RV, and served as its editor until 1996. He has also freelanced for the NRK. Andresen was a columnist for the left-wing daily ''Klassekampen'' from 2000 to 2016, and also for some time moderated its online forum, launched in 2008. He was also very active in hosting and participating in the debate about the newspaper's strategy that ended with the replacement of then-editor Paul Bjerke by Jon Michelet by the owners of the paper, the Workers' Communist Party, in 1996.

Due to his membership and activity in several communist organisations, Andresen was under surveillance by the Police Surveillance Agency from 1970 until the early 1990s, and has published his dossier, which he obtained following the inquiries into the Police Surveillance Agency's activities, on the Internet.

In February 2009, Andresen left the Red party.

In recent years, Andresen has been a vocal critic of Israel. He was one of the signatories of the petition to the university board that NTNU boycott Israel, an initiative which received worldwide media attention. The initiative by 34 NTNU professors eventually failed in the university board.

Historian Kjetil B. Simonsen argued in 2011 that "in recent years, Andresen has authored a number of posts and articles containing clear antisemitic accusations, in which Jews are stereotyped and attacked ''as Jews''." In his book ''Ingen er uskyldig: Antisemittisme på venstresiden'', historian Torkel Brekke discusses Andresen's history of antisemitic writings and his increasing pivot toward far-right alliances. In 2017 Andresen met with Hans Jørgen Lysglimt Johansen. "In the debate that followed, Andresen said he broadly agreed with him on the most important questions, such as the claim that The Holocaust has been exaggerated", Brekke writes.

In April 2015, he was asked by the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions not to bring a poster to the International Workers' Day stating that "whining about anti-Semitism is a derailment tactic", that he had used for several years. In 2016 he announced his support for Marine Le Pen.

Awards

In 2006, Andresen received the SINTEF Prize for Excellence in Teaching.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Andresen, Trond
Norwegian engineers
Academic staff of the Norwegian University of Science and Technology
Red Party (Norway) politicians
Norwegian columnists
1947 births
Living people