The Many Dimensions of Kristen Nygaard, Creator of Object-Oriented Programming and the Scandinavian School of System Development - History of Computing: Learning from the Past - page 45

engaged in work to establish alternative institutions for treating alcoholics and
the homeless. During the intense political fight before the 1972 Referendum on whether
Norway should become member of the European Common Market, he worked as coor-
dinator for the large majority of youth organizations that worked against membership.
Nygaard joined the Labour Party in 1971; this membership lasted for about thirty
years. In 2001 he left the party, “ disap-
pointed by the right turn of the party ”. Ny-
gaard was active in several Labour Party
subcommittees discussing research policy
and was a member of the party subcommit-
tee on Data Policy (1980) [5].
In late 1988 he engaged himself as the
chair of the Information Committee on Nor-
way and the EEC, an organisation that was
reorganized in August 1990 as “Nei til EU”
(No to European Union Membership for
Norway, NTEU). Nygaard was an extremely
capable leader of NTEU. He managed to
keep together an organization of people that
belonged politically from the far left to the
far right, people with highly different in-
ducements for their opposition to EU
membership. A prerequisite for such an
organization to be trustworthy and have an
impact was that it had a platform (a set of
cornerstones formulated by Nygaard) that
underlined its democratic ideological basis, as
well as international orientation, and sharply
disassociated itself from any racist attitudes.
In a lengthy lecture first presented in Munich in 1995, Nygaard tried to explain his
and NTEU's views on EU and EU membership to foreigners [25].
Before the Referendum Nygaard took part in a long line of public meetings and
discussions with opponents and supporters of EU membership. He was a clever and
knowledgeable debater and a worthy opponent to his foremost antagonist, Prime Min-
ister Gro Harlem Brundtland. NTEU disseminated information from a critical point of
view about Norway's relation to the Common Market and coordinated the efforts to
keep Norway outside. Before the Referendum on November 28, 1994, NTEU had
145 000 members and succeeded in getting 52.2% of the votes.

Nygaard at a public meeting in Trond-
heim 1994, advocating democracy
while opposing a union.

8 From Conflicts to Recognition

Nygaard's views on conflicts and research were expressed in [20]: “ Has anyone re-
sented the content of your work recently? If not, what is your excuse? ”
During his career Nygaard met several conflicts with what he termed as the research
bureaucracy and “ the research-industrial power elite ”. He writes about his lack of
popularity in this system and his many turned down applications for research funding
[20]. He considered himself the Norwegian record holder in rejections.