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Regjering

Posted by Kari

Sep

2009

Goverment. I suppose it’s time that you learn about government in Norway. I think I found the longest description ever of the norsk regjering: parliamentaristisk representativ demokratisk inskrenket monarki (parliamentary representative democratic constitutional monarchy). What does that mean, you might ask? It means that executive power rests with the King (Kong Harald) and his council, the cabinet, which is led by the Prime Minister (statsministeren), Jens Stoltenberg. Legislative power is held by both regjeringen and Stortinget (the parliament), which is elected within a multi-party system. The Judiciary branch is separate from the legislative and the executive branches.

As I have mentioned in previous posts, den norske grunnloven (the Norwegian Constitution) was signed at Eidsvoll in 1814. This document transformed the government from an absolute monarchy to a constitutional monarchy. Although the signing of grunnloven in 1814 granted the people of Norway more frihet (freedom), Norway was in a union with Sverige (Sweden) until 1905, at which point Norway became completely sovereign.

Norway was one of the first countries in the world to allow women å stemme (to vote). Universal suffrage became a law in 1913. In 1956, religious freedom was enacted, which abolished prohibition of Jesuits. In general, Norway has been extremely progressive in terms of enacting socially liberal laws. Last year, Norway enacted a lov to allow homosexuals to marry, adopt, and exercise artificial insemination.

In Norway, the king (Kong Harald V, who has reigned since 1991) is for the most part simply a symbol of power. He does not hold the same power that Barack Obama does, for instance. Although grunnloven granted the king important power, the Council of State actually exercises this power. The reigning monarch convenes the Council of the State, which consists of the prime minister and his or her council. Stortinget (the parliament) must support the Council. Typically, the king asks the parliamentary party that has a majority to form the regjering. Since WWII, with the exception of non-Socialist regjeringer, most have been a coaltion.

I often think to myself how well Norway seems to work. Universal health care, high average salary, healthy population, etc. Sometimes I forget how small of a country Norway really is and how much money Norway really has. There are some qualities that a country so large and diverse as the United States will experience great difficulty achieving. I certainly welcome any thoughts on this!

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Posted under Norway and the world, Politics

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Antisemitism in Norway

Posted by Kari

Aug

2009

My guess is that most of what you hear or read about Norway is positive. Land of the midnight sun, a country where gender equality is a major priority, a place that encourages a healthy lifestyle, environmentally friendly. Rarely are there negative images of Norway portrayed in the media. Whaling is definitely one of the very controversial activities Norway engages in. Another, some will say, is antisemitism. Based on both historic accounts and current issues, some argue that Norwegians are an antisemitic people. The foreign minister of Israel is the most recent example of criticism of Norway with regards to antisemitism. First, a brief history of antisemitism in Norway.

Although the population of Norway is becoming more diverse every day, for most of its history as a people, the population was very homogenous. As Norway began to encounter mainland Europe through Viking travel, opinions were formed about Jews based on what was said about them. A bit later on, after the Protestant Reformation settled in Scandinavia, Norway (under the rule of Denmark) adopted religious restrictions, some of which were against the Jews in particular. In 1814, although Denmark (and thus Norway as well) had recently lifted all bans against Jews, Norwegians gained indepedence from Denmark and actually reinforced the negative treatment of Jews, “banning them from Norway’s borders.”

Oddly enough, Henrik Wergeland, son of Nikolai Wergeland, a member of the constitutional assembly who strongly supported banning Jews, for years fought to repeal the ban. In 1851, the ban was repealed. The younger Wergeland is known to this day as the champion for the Jews in Norway.

Some of you may have read an earlier post about Vidkun Quisling, leader of the national socialist party in Norway, who supported Hitler and Nazism to the fullest extent. There is no doubt that Hitler had a strong following of Norwegians (whether passive or active) during the Holocaust, but it must be known that there were also many brave Norwegians that actively opposed the Nazi movement and risked their lives to save Jews.

Today Norway is accused of antisemitism because of her stance on the Arab-Israeli conflict. Norway supports Palestine. I will save the bulk of this issue for another post. So, back to the earlier mention of the most recent criticism of Norway as antisemitic, there is an article in Aftenposten online today titled “Isreals utenriksminister beskylder Norge for antisemittisme” (Israel’s foreign minister accuses Norway of antisemitism). The reason that prompted this headline is Norway’s celebration of the 150th year since the birth of Nobel winning author Knut Hamsun. Hamsun is believed to have been a Nazi sympathizer and thus Avigdor Lieberman, Israel’s foreign minister, is appalled that Norway would celebrate such a person. As you can see, this is certainly a controversial issue. However, regardless of Knut Hamsun’s political beliefs, he was one hell of an author. I read his book Sult (hunger) for one of my Norwegian classes and I can say that it was one of the most vivid stories I have ever read. Absolutely amazing. I will write a separate post on Knut Hamsun as well.

What is important to know about antisemitism in Norway, in my opinion, are the reasons for it’s place in Norwegian history, and the many instances of support for Jewish tolerance and cohabitation. I welcome your comments on this issue!

Posted under Culture, History, Norway and the world, Politics

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1000. henrettelse

Posted by Kari

Jul

2009

1000th execution. In the U.S. that is since it became legal å henrette (to execute) prisoners in 1977. Wow. That is 1000 in 32 years. Seems like a lot to me. I still don’t know what I think is the best method for punishing serial killers and rapists. Who am I to know if they can be rehabilitated and one day give back to society. Perhaps those thousand people didn’t deserve to live after what they had done. I cannot venture to say. I do know two things though: the number of U.S. citizens who support dødsstraffen (death penalty) has gone significantly down (from about 80% to 60% in the last 20 years and the United States is “det eneste “såkalte” vestlige landet” (”the only “so-called western country-according to the article in Aftenposten online the other day) that practices dødsstraffen. While it is true that 60% of the world’s population live in countries that practice the death penalty, isn’t it strange that dødsstraffen, something most people would agree is quite barbaric, is practiced by the United States, the superpower of the world? Seems backwards.

To be clear, 15 states in the U.S. and the District of Columbia now ban the dødsstraffen. This brings me to abolitionism. Most people today are abolitionists in terms of the dødsstraffen, meaning that they do not support it and wish to avskaffe (abolish) the death penalty. Let’s go through a list of some countries and when they abolished dødsstraffen. It was Grand Duke Leopold II who was the first in modern times to ban dødsstraffen in the (then) independent Grand Duchy of Tuscany (in the late 18th century). The Roman Republic banned it in 1849, followed by Venezuela in 1863. In Portugal, 1867. In the United Kingdom, 1969 (the last took place in 1964). France in 1981, Canada 1976, Australia 1985. Togo, Africa,is the most recent country to have avskaffet (abolished) dødsstraffen on June 23 of this year. What about Norge?

In Norway, 300 people were burned in the 16th and 17th centuries during the witch hunts. In 1815, the cruelest forms of dødsstraffen were avskaffet. In 1876 the last execution during peacetime was committed. In Norway the last execution in peacetime was carried out in 1876. During World War II, Vidkun Quisling’s regime brought dødsstraffen back into the picture. In 1988, Norway signed protocol 6 of the European Convention for Human Rights banning the death penatly in peacetime. Norway opposes dødsstraffen at home and outside of the country. In fact, Norway will not send Mullah Krekar (a Kurd from northern Iraq who was the original leader of an armed Islamic group) back to his homecountry, Iraq, because of the potential of being charged with crimes punished by capital punishment there.

Norway is avidly against the practice of dødsstraffen because it violates the sanctity of human life.

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Posted under Culture, Norway and the world, Politics

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Sami

Posted by Kari

Jun

2009

This is a picture of a Sami couple in traditional costume in Oslo on Syttende Mai in 2006.

Upon first glance, this word looks like it could be Japanese, but it is not. The Sami people are the indigenous people that inhabit parts of northern Norway, Sweden, Finland, and Russia. They are among the largest group of indigenous ethnic people in Europe. The Sami speak Sami languages, which are characterized as ‘Finno-Lappic’ languages, part of the ‘Uralic’ language group. ‘Uralic’ languages include Hungarian, Finnish, Estonian, Mari, and Udmurt. If you’ll notice back when I mentioned ‘Finno-Lappic’ languages, you might have thought the the word ‘Lapp‘ is more familiar than Sami. Lapps or Laplanders are deragatory names for the Sami people and unfortunately they are more well-known terms to a lot of people than Sami is. The word lapp means a patch of cloth for mending clothes, which is probably where the deragatory terms came from, describing traditional Sami garb called gatki.

The Sami people of northern Scandinavia and Russia have inhabited these regions for at least 2,500 years. There are several anthropological theories that predict the geographic and cultural origins of the Sami people. One of the theories states that the Sami people orginiated on the Iberian peninsula, their ancestors being the Catalonians and the Basque people. Another theory claims that the Sami people come from the Volga-Ural region. It’s nice when historians discover soemthing and agree on a theory, but I have always thought that’s it is more fun to entertain the theories and be unsure. Historically the Sami were nomadic people that hunted, fished, farmed, and herded reindeer. Today only the minority of Sami people are nomadic and maintain these forms of livlihood. Roughly half of the estimated 50,000-100,000 Samis today live in Norway.

The traditional Sami religion was based on the shaman, similar to native Americans in the United States. The shaman, or noaidis would enter a trance with the aid of a drum and was able to prophesy and predict future success and welfare of the community. The drum was the link between the people and the gods. The Sami gods were centered around the sun. Prayers and sacrifices were made to Leaibolmmai, the Alder tree man, the god of hunting and animals.

Although Christianity came to Norway in the 13th century, it wasn’t until the 18th century that the religion was pushed upon the Sami people. The Sami began to paint Christian symbols on their drums below the paintings of the shaman gods. Samis also began to attend Christian services on Sunday and practiced the Sami religion at home. Norwegians placed a stronger influence of Christian religion on the Sami by confiscating the rune drums and either burned them or sent them abroad to musuems. Samis who showed visible signs of shamanistic pre-Christian religion were actually criminalized. Norwegian authorities were very clear about the desire to universalize Norwegian culture; they forced the Samis to assimilate into the greater Norwegian culture. Between 1900 and 1940, Norwegian authorities spent a great deal of money on eradicating Sami culture, languages, and Sami education.

After World War II the pressure on the Sami to become/remain assimilated into Norwegian culture was relaxed and there was somewhat of a cultural revival. Today the Norwegian authorities and Norwegians in general actually support the Sami culture as a separate part of Norwegian culture as a whole. Samis are Norwegians too. There are government grants today to promote Sami language, culture, and religion. In Norway, the Sami parliament was established in 1989 and since then, they have been able to democratically elect representatives who see to it that Sami culture, language, education, and industry are regulated and protected.

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Posted under Culture, History, Language, Politics

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Syttende Mai

Posted by Kari

May

2009

Syttende mai is the 17th (syttende) of May (mai-notice months are not capitalized, unless of course they come at the beginning of a sentence). Norwegians celebrate syttende mai because it is the anniversary of their Constitution day or Grunnlovsdagen. In 1814, a small group of Norwegian men, the Constituent Assembly, signed the constitution on May 17 in Eidsvoll, Norge, a small town north of the capital (which was called Christiania at the time).

Norway was in a union with Denmark from 1536-1814. In 1814, Crown Prince Christian Frederik of Danmark initiated the Norwegian independence movement. During the winter and spring of that year, the Norwegian constitution was drafted; on May 16 it was ratified and the following day it was signed. This constitution was one of the most radically democratic constitutions in the world at the time. It was inspired by the United States Declaration of Independence in 1776 and the French revolution in 1789.

The feature of the Norwegian constitution that sets it apart from the American and the French is that of the king. Norway opted for a constitutional monarchy and the Crown Prince of Denmark, Christian Frederik was the obvious choice for the job (since he was the one that initiated the indepenence movement in the first place). While most countries in Europe at this time were absolute monarchies, meaning that the king essentially had absolute power, Norway chose to implement a constitutional monarchy, which put a system of checks and balances on the king.

Unfortunately for Norway, the rest of the world was not ready to support the country as a sovereign entity and Norway lost in battle to Sweden in the late summer of 1814. Norway was then in a union with Sweden until 1905, when Norway finally became a completely sovereign nation. And thus, the importance of celebrating syttende mai! This year, syttende mai falls on a søndag and it happens to be this coming Sunday, so I will write all about what happens on this day in Norway-and actually several blocks away from my house here in Northfield, MN!