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Misha in the Vliegeland-sculpturepark. This one of his most famous piece and a loved tourist attraction.

the PW OSLO 2016 crew - serious family portrait.

Why Norway Reminds Me of Home

Okay, I’ll admit that Ane’s house is quite undeniably cozy, and that I’ve had the first set of consecutive meals in a terribly long time that have made my jaws drop (literally). However, I think that this trip is much more significant to me as an individual than just coziness and fresh food: it reminds me of the country that my family has lived in since my birth. Botswana.

As hard as it might be to imagine that a largely unheard of country situated in Southern Africa shares a number of few important similarities with Norway, supposedly the nation with the highest standards of living in the world (here I do not intend to contend the validity of measures such as the Human Development Index, because I believe that they are sufficiently reflective of the standards of living of a nation), the complementing nature of these two countries only dawned upon me during this trip.

A similarity that has struck me a number of times this week is that Botswana and Norway share analogous beginnings to their present-day economies. As I came to learn from a visit to Statoil, Norway only discovered its vast oil and gas reserves in the 1960s, approximately the same time that Botswana was astounded to have discovered diamonds (1967). Both nations professed to utilise their sought-after commodities for the purposes of economic and social development, to establish and maintain a robust economy, and to ensure that the country has a future well past the depletion of its resource commodities.

Today, Botswana is hailed as one of Africa’s very few success stories, as diamond revenues have legitimately been used to alleviate poverty, reduce the once terrible unemployment rates, and found a society that caters for the genuine development of its citizens. Botswana, managed to overcome the HIV/AIDS epidemic (which affected half of its population) with great efficacy, using a mix of good governance and effective deployment of its funds towards the widespread creation of education and health programs. And it is also worth noting that Botswana is seen today as Africa’s most developed nation. While it fairs modestly in terms of development, it is also notoriously famous for its high economic inequality; one of the greatest in the world.

Norway, to a much larger extent, has used its oil and gas reserves to expedite development. It tops the HDI charts with a formidable 0.944 (a rather comprehensive measure of how well developed a nation is in terms of literacy, healthcare, and gross national income). And unlike Botswana, Norway is considered the least economically unequal country in the world.

And today, both countries are to a similar degree dependent upon a single commodity as a life-line to their respective economies. 20% of Norway’s national income is derived from the sale of oil and gas, while approximately 43% of Botswana’s national income comes from the export of rough diamonds to the rest of the world. In fact, it seems coincidental that both oil and diamond prices are at a rock-bottom this year, with grave consequences to both economies; mass retrenchments, falling welfare benefits, fluctuating currency prices, and insecurity among citizens.

Having stated all of the above facts, I’ll try and make sense of it all. Botswana and Norway in their own right have benefited from forward strides, having been bestowed with a plethora of desired resources. However, Norway has managed over time to disperse the benefits of these gifts of nature to all of its people, far more than Botswana has managed to. I believe that this is largely due to Norway’s socialist principles, collectively known as the welfare state. Although I have been critical of this conception of governance during the past week, I do to a large extent admire its ability over other means of governance to ensure that there exists equality and prosperity. In Botswana on the other hand, we have come to adopt a more capitalistic view of organising society, where classes have begun to arise, and where the rich become richer and the poor become poorer.

However, it must also be said that I do not know how long Norway will manage to sustain ‘socialism’, when its key driver is oil. It seems that in some sense, a compromise will one day be made, the degree of which largely depends on the usage of current revenues to develop other economic avenues. As a resident of Botswana, I know that this has not happened, due to a fundamentally flawed long-term national vision. It seems to me that the Norwegians are acting to avoid this, and I only hope they do...

The streets of Oslo

As we took the convenient metro to the heart of the city for the first time, the mood I experienced compared to the suburban areas changed immensely. Busy people walking everywhere, briskly and quietly, systematically ignoring the significant amounts of homeless people sitting on the streets with a empty coffee cup in front of them. We headed into the park with the national theatre and the royal castle, the heart of the city. The fantastic architecture in the centre did not at all reflect the amount of homelessness in the centre of Oslo. All the flattering of international media of the nordic utopia was not wrong, but the issues regarding homelessness that are very evident when you arrive in the capital are never mentioned when one thinks of Norway. We often gave the people we met some food, and these people were extremely thankful to receive it. They also often shared a small story of their life, and more often than not it was not because of any addiction, but instead because of difficulties in finding work or getting opportunities in supporting themselves. Often those people come to Norway because the charity of others earns them more than working hard back home. Thus, people ending up on the street is often caused by an unfortunate hole in the support system that helps so many others in Norway.

#julius

At 22, Karl Johans gate, Oslo

As one might figure (well hopefully), the title of this post is an address. Unassuming as it may seem, this address marks the location of a significant institution in Norway’s legislative body that we had the opportunity to visit: ‘Stortinget’ aka the Norwegian parliament.

There are several aspects of this institution and building that bear resemblance to some of the other parliaments that I have either visited or heard of: the grandeur of architecture, the posh carpets, the antiquity of carpets and furniture, the nitty-gritties of expected etiquette, and of course the symbolic representation of the parliament as being the seat of a nation’s legislative wing. Being a skeptic, my quandary before visiting the parliament was whether anything else set it apart from other legislative bodies that I’ve pretty much become fed up of.

To my surprise, there were quite a few details about the institution that made it unlike other parliaments in some respects. Who would have though, ey?

Of these details, the one that first caught me by surprise was Arne Ekland’s ‘Sisters of Liberty II’: an expansive artwork that covered the wall adjacent to the building’s prominent staircase. Although the painting was not received well at first by the likes of Oslo’s municipality, it is today considered an iconic symbol of what the parliaments stands for; freedom and liberation of a diverse group of people through the eradication of classes in society. And although the artwork’s message certainly does not represent reality, it does clearly represent a political vision that guides the principles of the so-called ‘welfare state’ that Norway is.

A similar thing may be said of the mosaic ‘Community’ found at the top of the main staircase at the parliament. I’ll let you have some fun, and try to comprehend its symbolic nature:

Another aspect of the parliament that I would like to touch upon is its very architecture. To my surprise, the chamber’s position in the building is such that it is towards the exterior of the building. According to our guide, this was deliberately done so as to allow for transparency, and allow citizens to view the parliament in session by looking through windows at the very front of the building. Well, another reason was so that there was natural light, but I guess I’d like to emphasize the first point. I personally think that it is a wonderful notion, merely because it demonstrates the accessibility afforded to the Norwegian public.

There are other facts that I revere. For one, the parliamentarians do not assemble in session according to their political alignment, but rather the district they represent. This means that individuals with ideological differences may very well sit next to each other. And since its inception, the parliament welcomed individuals from all stratas of society: from farmers who were illiterate, to well-educated individuals.

But let this appreciation not lead you into thinking that I am carried away by Norway’s democracy. I am aware of the current crackdown that such institutions impose on asylum seekers and of the controversial prostitution policies that it has enforced in Norway (making the sale of sex legal while making the purchase of sex illegal). As I came to learn while visiting the parliament, parliamentarians do not escape the temptation to do silly things like playing games in session. And such information makes me downright frustrated.

Yet, these small gestures, in the form of paintings and practices, give me reason to believe that there are reasons to look up to the Norwegian legislative body. Ideologies that we can assimilate into our own societies, and principles that not all of our nations practice and attempt to abide by.

art, resistance and democracy: fragments of my identity

My little country Where high mountains are planted among houses, people and words Where silence and dreams grow Like an echo in barren earth - Ole Paus

Birch trees wavering in the wind, mountains stretching from South to North. If landscapes tell stories, surely Norway has much to disclose - resilience, pride. This now “Scandinavian utopia” was once penniless and suppressed, rooted on the labour of farmers and fishermen who overpowered the harshest of conditions in order to survive.

Wandering through the “Dance of Life” exhibition at Nasjonalgalleriet, the National gallery of Norway, I was struck by an odd, melancholic sensation. The expo presented a journey through art from the Classical antiquity until the 1950s, with the central focus on Norwegian art after the 1800s. Browsing through the realist works of Christian Krohg, Munch’s expressionism, and the national romanticism of Tidemand and Gude, I was astounded by the cutting, unshakable beauty of my country, and the resilience of my people.

We visited the Parliament and the Resistance Museum afterwards. It was interesting to reflect upon such a tragic event as World War II, having taken values such as democracy and freedom as granted for long periods of my life.

Still I reflect upon the year I turned thirteen. Summer passed so swiftly by, and with it my perception of freedom. Our television channel displayed pictures and reports of my city in ruins, children leaping from bullets, an ideology far from my understanding and the face of a man I still cannot stomach without a nauseating sense of resentment. After the terror attack, the Norwegian public swore to learn from such an incident, to treat each other with compassion and kindness. Observing the rise of right-wing extremism as a consequence of the refugee crisis, I cannot help but question our success rate.

#ane

on the road - we can not wait to see more of the beautiful Norway!!

A typical norwegian dessert - as you can see on the faces - it was very much liked.

No really, that was the best sweet Norwegian bread the eight of us have ever eaten.

Inside the parliament in Oslo.

This letter, written during the second World War, as part of Norway’s resistance efforts against Nazi Germany, was the on the scale of micrometres!

The Nationalgalleriet 07.02.2016

#misha

The Scandinavian “Utopia”

In the tight-knit circles of the liberal American elite, Western Europe, and in particular, Scandinavia, is a haven. And in many ways, it is: most Scandinavian states are the model of a social democracy, especially when compared to the US. Education and health care are public and women have more of a role in politics, working days are shorter and lifespans are longer, national happiness is higher and the Gini coefficient is lower. All of these make the Nordic model worth modeling.

They do not, however, make the Nordic model beyond criticism. When I moved to UWC, I remember feeling distinctly surprised at the way many people seemed to consider their countries beyond reproach; or at least, they didn’t feel obligated to critique them. Nobody brought up the astonishingly low number of working women in Switzerland, the homelessness in Norway, the treatment of the Sami in Finland, or any of the other problems I knew were in existence. Nobody talked about the fact that the homogeneity in most of the countries was a factor in their social cohesion, or about the ridiculously high prices around most Scandinavian countries.

So when the opportunity came to do a project week, Norway seemed perfect. One of the biggest goals of project week, for me, was to distance myself from the volunteer tourism that so many project weeks associated themselves with-- or worse, the appropriation of project week funds for simple tourism. I wanted to create something lasting, rather than a week’s worth of labour. In Norway, I would be examining what made Norway work so well, but also get a chance to critically look at the country. It didn’t hurt that Ane, with whom I was planning the project week, lived in Oslo, either. So we sent out an email, looking for more participants, and began planning: we wanted to look at homelessness, the indigenous communities, prostitution, the welfare state, and Norwegian culture in general. We were ready to engage with the idea of the Scandinavian ‘utopia’ and see how true this vision of Scandinavia truly was.

#aru

So, what is an epiphany? Can you for instance say “I had an epiphany: I forgot to wear a hat outside?

Jule

#jule

#misha

Why Lochlann Atack is in Oslo right now

I am on this project week as I want to educate myself free of the constraints of classroom case-study speculation (bound to half-page of textbooks). I suppose I’m on this project week to live and construct my own case study.

A general email arrived in my inbox a month or so ago mentioning the desire to examine the Nordic Utopia. No idea of an alternative, I leapt at the opportunity to join a promising group (Ane, Isabella, Aru, Jule) on their project immediately with a “I am very interested.” Isabella eventually responded in the positive, and I now find myself typing this sentence on a cosy couch overlooking Oslo.

Norway fascinates me. I have always regarded it as a benign country that ought to be a model for sustainable development. That’s my kind of ‘running perception’ of the socialistically stellar spine that hangs off of Europe. It’s the image I’d refer to were it brought up in conversation or heated debate- the sloppy definition scrawled on the whiteboard by a teacher that I copied down but never bothered to refine.

Norway

[nawr-way] (n.) A very wealthy country with blond people, oil, a balance between isolation from and connection to the rest of the world, lots of culture I think, and alcohol, it’s very long and therefore must have a great variance in climate, culture and economy, borders Finland and Sweden I think, probably Russia somewhere too, there’s a monarchy but they don’t do anything, highest Human Development index in the world, highest GDP per capita in the world, quite a few suicides, lots of snow, politically stable but a bit bland in that department I think, lots of money for everyone who lives there, bloody expensive, on the right side of history, norsemen and associated mythology came from there and so did my name, and so did Henrik Ibsen, they have something to do with the Nobel Peace Prize as well.

I am driven to take part in this project to a) revel in the comfort that a Norwegian household and society will afford me for one week and b) update this page of my encyclopaedia.

#lochlann

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