April 20, 8.30 p.m.

When I checked the calendar this morning, it said April 20. Normally that would spell out springtime in bold letters. But then again, I guess I'm not living anywhere normal, at least not weatherwise. Driving home this evening I took this picture with my mobile phone. Not quite what I associate with springtime..

I suppose this is what you can expect living on 71º north, but to me this is one of the aspects about it that makes me the most depressed. I make no secret of being a summer child. And getting this when I'd rather see the snow gone and the sun shining - not good.. But then again, things tend to change fast, and the spring will probably arrive soon enough. Its just that right now the seems really far far away.

Beware of Islamic oppression of the Samis!

Anyone following the Norwegian news the last couple of weeks could not have escaped to notice the debate about whether or not to allow the hijab in the police force. Some arguments in favor of allowing it has been presented, and many good ones against. The blogger Knut Johannessen is presenting some of them in two postings on his blog Voxpopuli, titled Tilslørte politipiker and It's not the hijab, stupid!. On Wednesday this week one of the most bizarre arguments in this debate was heard.

In the February 18 issue of the local newspaper Finnmarken, the Sami politician Jánoš Trosten claims that allowing the hijab will lead to a renewed oppression of the Sami people. As much as I agree with mr Trosten not to allow wearing the hijab with a police uniform (or with an army or any kind of official uniform for that matter), his reasoning must be one of the most ridiculous ever. According to him, the hijab must be prohibited for the reason that the Sami community will not be able to handle the islamification this would inevitably lead to. Foreign customs like this are a grave threat to "an already weakened culture," which is still suffering from the Norwegianification processes in the 18th, 19th and early 20th centuries.

Seriously, even in the case that his premises were true - how many female muslim cops does mr Trosten think would find their way up to Kautokeino and Karasjok in the case of an acceptance of the hijab in the police force?!? What would make us believe that the Sapmi area suddenly would experience a massive influx of hijab wearing female police officers? It beats me, but mr Trosten apparently believes that would be a probably scenario..

Mr Trosten, whom I mentioned in my post of 19 March 2008 titled Separatism in Norway, pt 2, is known to be among the more extreme of Sami politicians, if not the most extreme. Upliftingly, he seems to be quite alone in his fear that the hijab poses a large threat to the Samis and their culture. Several other notable politicians, such as president and vice presidents of the Sami parliament mr Egil Olli and mrs Marianne Balto, as well as former president of the Parliament mrs Aili Keskitalo, do not have any such fear.

As for mr Trosten's claims that the Sami culture is under any kind of threat in Norway, anyone living in Finnmark would take that with more than one grain of salt. The Norwegian policies towards Samis basically up to the mid-20th century were unfortunate and inexcusable. But with the massive revival of Sami culture and increased political power especially after the 1980s, you could not correctly claim that the Sami culture today is in any way weakened or threatened. As you could read into the post Separatism in Norway, pt. 2, some would say almost on the contrary.

Eavesdropping neighbors

So, it seems that our Swedish neighbors are eavesdropping on us. Listening on our phone calls and reading our emails. With the so called FRA act or FRA law, the Swedish government is at least given the opportunity to do so. Effective from January 1 2009, the act authorizes the state to wiretap all telephone and Internet traffic that crosses Sweden's borders without any individual warrant to do so.

Not surprisingly, this act is part of anti-terrorism legislation, seeking to protect Swedish citizens by stopping terrorist activity and plotting leading up to a strike. But the legislation has - also not surprisingly - run into a wall of criticism, with some commentators predicting the fall of Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt. Basically all major newspapers in Sweden have spoken out against the legislation. Even though the wiretapping is only intended for communication running across the border, some critics say it is in practice impossible to differentiate between international calls and calls between Swedish citizens. Also, the international criticism is stark: the Finnish government has sent an official protest to the Swedes.

Here in Norway, many are speaking up against the law, but the Government has not as of yet sent any official protest. Mainly Venstre (the Left Party) is speaking up, saying the Government is too passive and demanding some action and protest against the act. The act is negating Norwegians' and other non-Swedes' rights with regards to surveillance. Also, Norwegian business is being affected by the law and the surveillance of their activity. Recently, the Norwegian branch of the International Commission of Legal Professionals has filed a suit against the Swedish State at the Human Rights Court in Strasbourg. This has been widely supported in Norway.

This issue digs right into that post 9-11 debate of wether we should allow some infringement on our rights for the State to be better able to protect us against terrorists. As many, among them mr Barack Obama, have pointed out, this is a false choice. In the fight against terrorism, these are the rights and values we should be protecting, not limiting. By broadening the State's surveillance of citizens, we are heading the wrong way: towards an East German Stasi system where anyone the least bit suspect in the State's eyes (i.e. everyone) was secretly wiretapped with thick and growing folders filling up Government file-cabinets, just in case they might be up to something..

Norway, a.k.a. anti-semite #1

After a relatively long, unannounced break, I am once again back in business, writing on my blog.

As some non-Norwegians may know, but certainly all Norwegians are aware of, Norway take great pride in being a peaceful and peace-loving nation, as the whole world can see every year when the Nobel Peace Prize is awarded in Oslo. We have also some history of brokering peace in many different places of the world, maybe most notably in Sri Lanka. But our definitive high-point in this regard is the Oslo peace accords from 1993.

When it comes to Norway having made some attempts on brokering peace in the Middle East, it is slightly amusing that Norway has been branded as one of the most anti-semitic countries in Europe, along with Sweden. This was one of the main conclusions of the 2008 symposium Behind the Humanitarian Mask: The Nordic Countries, Israel and the Jews. According to Dr Manfred Gerstenfeld, chairman of the Board of Fellows at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, "Norway is the most anti-Semitic country in Scandinavia."

I guess we cannot - and would not - deny that Norwegian media and public opinion is slightly on the Palestinian side in the conflict in Israel, and quite critical of Israeli policies with regards to the Palestinians. But to equate anything that smacks of criticism towards Israeli policy with anti-semitism is in my opinion just ridiculous. It must be possible to criticize the policies of the Israeli state without being branded an anti-semite. Our wise, elderly statesman Kåre Willoch, expressed this very eloquently when he said that the accusations made by the symposium and Dr Manfred Gerstenfeld is "traditional deflection tactic aimed at diverting attention from the real problem, which is Israel's well-documented and incontestable abuse of Palestinians."

Any illegitimate accusations of anti-semitism aside, Dr Gerstenfeld & co. now have got a legitimate issue to point at, namely a gargantuan diplomatic faux pas made by Trine Lilleng, first secretary at the Norwegian Embassy in Riyadh. In a private email, mrs Lilleng compared the Israeli conduct of their business in Gaza with the Nazi regime in Germany before and during World War II. However much one may disagree with how the Israeli state goes ahead in respect to the Gaza area, it is very unfortunate that mrs Lilleng made a comparison such as this. It will be interesting to see how long into the future she will be staying at the Foreign Ministry...

Convoy time!!

So that was it. 2008 is over, and our calendar reads 2009. I hope you all had a great Christmas, and wish you all the best for this year.

This year, I spent Christmas in Liverpool, but I am now back home, up north. And, oh my, it really feels like up north now, with the New Year's storms blowing. Generally, the weather up here is not bad, and nowhere near as bad as most people guess when I tell them where I live. Temperatures are bearable (at least on the coast - the warm current from the Gulf of Mexico really helps to keep the temperature not too far below zero), and things are over all good, weatherwise.

But around New Year, things tends to get a bit rougher. The winds take on force, and sometimes it gets quite nasty. Working 32 km of mountain roads away from home, I will probably have to drive in a convoy to get to work in the coming week or couple of weeks, as I did for the first time this winter today. As the weather has gotten even rougher now than what it was this morning, I am stuck here at work until the weather lightens up and the road will open again. Hopefully it will happen this evening some time.

The convoys are pretty good things, though. When the weather is rough, with massive snowfall and/or limited visibility, cars are not allowed to drive unaccompanied on mountain roads. So, at certain times, there will be a convoy going, with a ploughing truck in front. So, even though the weather is quite bad, you will normally be able to drive from one place to the next. But alas, not right now...

For more on winter driving in Norway, check out this post on the blog 57 North.

Political ads allowed on TV

Not very long ago, I wrote a post about political advertising on TV in Norway. During the three weeks since then, things have surely happened.

Despite political ads on tv being prohibited, the small local tv station TV Vest ran three ads for the local branch of the Pensioners Party in 2003. As a result, they were fined 35.000 NOK (roughly €4.500). This they refused to pay on principal grounds and took the case to the Courts of Human Rights in Strasbourg. They claim that the ban is an offense against the rights of free speech. Yesterday, the Court decided in favour of the TV-station. So, the way things are looking, political advertising is in principle allowed...

Interestingly, the British TV station Channel S was fined £40.000 on Wednesday this week for having run a total of 44 political ads for the Liberal Democrats. Also somewhat curious is that this case and the verdict has received very scarce attention in international media.

Check out the blog Word From the North for an interesting post about the ban, the case and the verdict.

Nice things half forgotten

Living away from home, there are always some things that you seem to forget. The little things. Smells, little things you see in your everyday life. Things that are around, that adds flavor to your life, and that sometimes are more 'unconsciously' noticed.

Part of my everyday life right now is my half-an-hour drive to work, driving through an area that is not populated. The area I live in right now is pretty sparsely populated to say the least. Anyway, on my way to work, especially in the morning, I see all sorts of animals running about, flying or doing whatever they do. I see grouse, foxes, eagles, and I've seen otters and lynxes. Some times of the year there are reindeer grazing about.

The last couple of years, I've been living in quite urban areas. I can't say that I have consciously missed all this while I've been away from home. But every time I drive along and I see one of these animals on the side of the road, I keep thinking how nice it is to live this close to nature in this way. You might of course come across a fox or some other animal elsewhere, too, and I've even seen one in the UK. But it's nothing like this, where I seem to pass some wild animal every other day.

Even though I am a bit ambivalent about living up here in 'nowhere', in a small town far away from everything else, this is one of the very nice things about living here. It adds to my quality of life.