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..

Sweet brothers? Norwegian-Swedish relations...

Commenting on my blogpost on meatballs, Renny jokingly said that he hates when people mix up the Norwegian meatballs with the "Swedish substitute." In that comment lies a little trace of a peculiar neighbourhood-relation with our "Sweet brother." I'm sure it's not unique for Norway and Sweden, but the relationship between us is quite fascinating.

In any Norwegian joke where Swedes are present, they are portrayed as the dumb ones, coming up with one stupidity after another. There is one joke where two Swedes are on holiday with a Norwegian guy who for some reason went missing. In the police office the two Swedes are asked to describe the Norwegian. The two Swedes think long and hard, then one of them says, "yeah I know - he's got two holes in his bum!" The policeman, who thinks that was a somewhat unusual description ask "and how do you know that then?!" "Because everytime we go somewhere, people are saying: There's that Norwegian with the two assholes!"

So, that's generally the Swedish stereotype. The Danes are not portrayed as dumb, but still not quite up to the Norwegian intellectual level. Finns are not either dumb nor smart, but are portrayed as hard drinkers with a insatiable sexual appetite. Icelanders are generally absent from Norwegian jokes.

It's not only in jokes that the Swedes are the dumb ones. One needs only think of the song "Jag är inta sjuk, jag är bare svensk" (I'm not ill, just Swedish). And there is something comic about how sports journalists seek up Swedish sportsmen for interviewing every time the Norwegians place first, just to rub it in that we won and not they.

Historically, it is at first glance a little strange that the Swedes, and not the Danes are the ones we want to make out to be the stupid ones. Norway has been under both Swedish and Danish yoke, but definitely the longest under Danish. And I dare say that the Danish period was the worst for Norway. Some has even dubbed the period of Danish rule "The night of four hundred years." So, from that perspective, the Danes are the ones that really should have been at the receiving end of our jokes.

Still, the period when Norway was in union with Sweden from 1814 to 1905 was a period of national awakening in Norway - the period when Norwegian-ness took hold in the people's mind. So - although I do not have empirical evidence for this assumption, I do think that the seed of the current-day relationship with Swedes stem from that era. It might also be that we have a eeny-weeny little bit of inferiority complex to Swedes - the Swedes being twice the size of Norway, it was a regional superpower in the Vasa-era (ca. 1521-1654), and more successful in their industry (IKEA, Volvo, Saab, etc.) than us..

Still, at the end of the day, even though we make all kinds of joke about Swedes, on a deeper level, there is no bad feeling between our two countries. The relationship is harmonious and friendly, greatly helped by cultural and linguistic similarities. But as with all relationships between brothers, there is bound to be some competition, and brotherly love is after all.. well, brotherly love..

The wonderful cheese slicer..

I don't think there is a single Norwegian kitchen where you cannot find a cheese slicer. It's such an integral part of our Norwegian food-culture, that we sometimes cannot understand how people can live without one, let alone live without missing one.

Whenever I have lived outside of Norway, I have had great trouble finding a cheese slicer, which at first came as a great surprise. How is it possible that this great piece of kitchen equipment is so hard to find? It is possible, but you have to search really hard and long. I remember that I did manage to locate one in Germany once. I haven't been able yet to find one in Liverpool, but I have great hope that I might find it at IKEA. The Swedes are also aware of the existence of the wonderful cheese slicer.

The cheese slicer is in fact a Norwegian invention, and of quite recent date. It was invented in 1925 by a carpenter by the name of Thor Bjørklund from Lillehammer. Since then it has become a much-used utensil in every Norwegian kitchen, but surprisingly not achieved much recognition abroad. With all due modesty - it is a great invention.

The virtues of the cheese slicer are many, but the most important ones are that it cuts the slices to perfect thickness, and it's ability to bring out the flavour and aroma of the cheese. You can of course get cheese pre-cut into slices from the shop, but that does not compare at all to the taste and flavour you get when it is freshly sliced. The cheese slicer works best with a slightly hard cheese, like a good and nice gouda. Obviously it doesn't work at all with soft cheeses like camembert or brie.

Scandinavian Babel - some more thoughts on language

My last post was about language, and I'll stay on that topic on this one as well.

Generally speaking, Scandinavians - that is Norwegians, Swedes, and Danes at least - have little trouble understanding each other. Applying a little goodwill, we can communicate with each other, speaking our own language with people from the other Scandinavian countries. Still, it is a little harder than when communcating with fellow countrymen. And it seems that not everybody are able to understand the other Scandinavian languages equally well. For me, I always thought that it seems as if we Norwegians understand the other ones better than they understand us.

I have thought that instead of there really being a difference, it might simply be us Norwegians perceiving ourselves as better than them - as we often do. But there is actually a scientific study from 2004 confirming that Norweigans tend to understand the other Scandinavian languages better than what our neighbours do.

According to the study, there are several reasons for this.

For one, the Norwegian language is based upon the Danish language, and thus has a lot of the same words as Danish, but the pronounciation is closer to Swedish. Thus we have an advantage understanding both of these languages.

A second reason can be found in the strong standing of local dialects in Norway. We have a tradition for speaking our local dialects no matter who we speak with, and as Norwegian dialects can differ dignificantly from each other, we are used to understanding people who speak differently than ourselves.

A third reason for us Norwegians understanding especially Swedish quite well, is that we have easier access to Swedish television than vice versa. Even from young age we watch Swedish films and televison like Pippi Longstocking and Emil i Lönnberga with the original Swedish soundtrack/voices.

As for Danish, that can be a challenge to understand, even among the Danes themselves. Check out this sketch on YouTube from the Norwegian comedy show, Ut i Vår Hage: The Danish Language.