Excerpt:
Her name is Faten Mahdi Al-Hussaini. She's twenty-two years old, she lives in Oslo, she wears a hijab, she's praised the Ayatollah Khomeini and blamed Jews for all the world's travails – and she's the newest star on the state-owned, public-funded Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation (NRK).
In the run-up to the recent parliamentary elections, Faten was tapped to be the host for a four-episode TV series about the campaign. The show, aimed largely at young people, was called Faten Tar Valget. The title is a play on words: since valg can mean both "election" and choice," the title can be translated both as "Faten Takes on the Election" and "Faten Makes the Decision." The premise was that after talking to political experts and representatives of all the major political parties, she would figure out which of the parties she wanted to support. "Faten is a strong young voice in the Norwegian public square," said NRK official Håkon Moslet. "She is unusually brave and has demonstrated the ability both to confront and to build bridges."