Finally Christian Democrats?

Norway's Christian People's Party (KrF) has never been a large including Christian-democratic people's party like the dominating parties on centre-right in Continental western Europe since the war. More they've been a narrow counter-cultural phenomena of the peripheral west/south-west of Norway promoting pietistic and today anachronistic ideas. However, with the proposals of their 2. deputy leader, the young Inger Lise Hansen, a pragmatic, liberal and cosmopolitan up-date of their current program, this might change.

Moderating their pro-Israel policy in line with mainstream views, removing the party clause that party officers must be Christians, accepting civic same-sex marriage, change their view on EU membership to "yes", and accepting wine outlets in all municipalities. With these changes KrF might still be a compassionate party based on Christian core values, but without being fundamentalistic low-church evangelists.

Ms Hansen, you have my full support.

Copenhagen and Versailles(?)

So COP15 didn't end with an agreement that actually will save the world. No surprise there. The Norwegian Minister of the Environment and International Development Mr Erik Solheim came back to Oslo disappointed that the final text wasn't as far-reaching as he would have liked it to be. Also, he was furious with Sudan, Saudi-Arabia and Venzuela for their behavior. However, there was one positive point - that US President Obama and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabo making an apparence and negotiating.

For the record, Mr Solheim was the chief mediator in Sri Lanka before he first became Minister of International Development in 2005.

So, Mr Solheim praises Obama and Wen, saying without them it might not have been any agreement at all. He says it's unique that heads of state and government from the USA, China and Europe sits down and negotiates an agreement. It's comparable to the Versailles Conference in 1919!

Now, we've established that Mr Solheim doesn't have the best track-record when it comes to negotiating, but even he should know that to compare an international conference to the one in Versailles in 1919 is not a compliment.

Back to the future

The Noughties are rapidly approaching their end. Although the decade technically doesn’t end until 31 December 2010 (remember all the fuzz about the third millennia beginning on 1 January 2000 or 2001? Same thing, just on a lesser scale), for rhetorical purposes it ends in roughly three weeks. Borrowing from others the 1990s was as a decade what the 1800s were as a century – a long and somewhat peaceful one.

The 19th century famously started with the French Revolution in 1879 and ended with the onset of the Great War in 1914. It was a century of hope, peace and progress. It saw liberal revolutions, the first attempts of democracy, the industrial revolution in Europe, an urban middle class paving the way for meritocracy over aristocracy and a globalised wave of free trade and free thoughts. And in the end the most advanced countries, industrially as well as culturally, went to war with one another and a generation of young men lost their lives on the fields Europe.

The decade of the 1990s were in many ways a rerun of the 19th century. It was in many ways a post-20th century decade. It kicked of with the Berlin wall being torn down in 1989 and it saw the spread of democracy, this time beyond the borders of Europe. Francis Fukuyama talked about the End of History and the victory of liberal democracy over all other forms of political systems, Boris Yeltsin made Russia part of the West and internet flattened the world and brought the most valuable commodity of all, information, to the poorest and most remote places of our planet. Utopia, here we come! Then came 11 September 2001.

The attacks on the World Trade Centre in New York and the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. were very much the starting point of this decade. They effectively ended the illusion of a liberal world order and brought us back into the age of rivalry. The Noughties haven’t only been the years of Islamic terrorism, although the people of London and Madrid have had their fair share. They have also been the years that ended the monopolar world of the Nineties, and brought back not the bipolarity of the Cold War and the 20th century, but rather the old multipolar system of Europe.

The 19th century, 1789-1914, was a long one. The 20th, 1914-1989, a short one. The 1990s, 1989-2001, was a long decade. There are those that argue that the election of Barack Obama as President of the United States and his subsequent reach-out to the Arab world represents the emergence of a new world order and thus that the Noughties ended in 2009. I am not one of those, I think neither he is Our Savior nor that he deserved the Nobel Peace Prize, but I shall not dwell further on this. History is easier to judge in hindsight and there is not often you can see, and realize that you’re seeing era-changing events in the happening.

The Noughties have been, in my eyes, a trip back to the future. In addition to the US and Russia, the superpowers of the 20th century, Brazil, India and China are stepping onto the plate as elite players. South Africa has successfully made the transition to democracy, although they have yet to have a change of government since the transition, is a role model for the rest of Africa and represents a leading voice of the global South. In Latin America Venezuela has taken the role of a leader, and together with Iran they reject the notion of liberal ideas as we see them in Western Europe. International politics is no longer about the fight between Communism and The Free World, as it was in the Cold War. Nor is it about spreading Human Rights and liberal ideas. We have returned to Realpolitik and the era of national interest, only on a larger scale. It is no longer the European states that fight among themselves over control and influence in other parts of the world. Rather, it is Europe as a whole that competes or cooperates with Russia, China, the US, Iran and other emerging powers over influence in places like Africa, Latin and South America, the Middle East and Central and South-East Asia. It’s back to normal.

I cannot see a single event marking the end of the Noughties. If Copenhagen is a success it might be the one. If the world leaders in Copenhagen manages to come to a responsible agreement that will actually lead the way into a green and sustainable future that will be the end of the Noughties and a realization of what we believed in in the Nineties. But I don’t think so. What I can see is the re-emerging of a world order where nations don’t have friends, only common interests. It is a world where countries like France and the UK, as well as my own Norway, must realize their limitations but also the potentials of constructive and institutionalized cooperation. It is a world were autocratic regimes, like Russia, China, Iran and Venezuela, together with the US and regional powers such as Brazil, India and South Africa will play leading roles, but were Europe, it acting as one and being aware of its potential can still take the lead. This is not the world for idealist, but rather for leaders like Bismarck and Kissinger.

Sir Humphrey vs. populism

Just watching an old "Yes, Minister"-episode, "The middle-class rip-off", on art subsidies.

Bernard to Sir Humphrey: - But the people want it!
Sir Humphrey: [calmly] Bernard, subsidy is for art, for culture. [almost furiously] It is not to be given to what the people want! It is for what the people don't want but ought to have! If they really want it they'll pay for it themselves!

So much for populist culture policies!

Young man, you should know this by now.

Walking down King's Road from Victoria Station towards Belgravia I passed a young man clearly preparing for his day as late as possible. This man, probably no older than, maximum, 16, walking in the opposite direction, was wearing suit trouser, a white shirt hanging outside his trousers, and had his jacket hung over his arm. Around his neck was a black tie hanging untied. As I walked passed him his hands were on the knot desperatly trying to tie it and I could litteraly see how frenetically his mind tried to remember how to do it properly.

Poor sod, didn't your father teach you this ten years ago already?

A Night at the Boleyn Ground

Reading today’s papers I see that I was lucky. The queue outside Upton Park tube station stretch for maybe a hundred metres and the streets where lined with shield-and-baton bearing Met officers. Nevertheless, things seemed to run smoothly. Not long after, I learned, all hell had broken loose and these few streets in East London had turned into what some described as a “war zone”.

Three hours earlier I found myself at the Boleyn Tavern, trying to avoid having beer thrown at me. I was standing in a pub doing social-anthropologic field work on the 21st century tribes of working class England, or football supporters, as they’re also referred to as. I’d come to watch West Ham United take on Milwall in the second round of the Carlings League Cup, and was in the middle of a pre-game ritual including singing, shouting obscenities about their rivals and, of course, throwing half-filled plastic-cups of beer in the air. Abiding to the laws of gravity beer falls to the ground and at one point I found myself between the beer and the floor. Oops!

The match itself is worth remembering. Together with 24,491 others I was packed into the Boleyn Ground, or Upton Park as it’s usually known. A friend of mine from the area had gotten us tickets at the Bobby Moore Stand/South Bank, which was inhabited mostly with, from what I could see, fairly die-hard home supporters. For those not having an intimate knowledge of London football rivalries, myself included, Milwall is not very popular in this part of town, and long before the match began there was a heightened tension in the air.

Milwall is a few divisions below West Ham in the league system, so normally this should be a walk-in for the home team. It was far from it. West Ham got of to a decent start, but half-way into the first half Milwall took the lead. This seemed to knock the air out of the home squad, and for the next forty minutes or so, until only fifteen minutes remained of the match, there was not much to enjoy for the over 20,000 home supporters. They sang, they cheered, they shouted and they cursed, but for an outsider the entertainment was much more to be found on the stands than on the pitch. In the far end, where the Milwall supporters were gathered, things started to happen. From where I was standing, some 120 metres away, it was hard to tell exactly what was going on, but steadily more and more police and security guards gravitated towards the area, creating a solid blockade between the Milwall supporters and the pitch and between the supporters and the local majority. Then the bubble burst and the tension, for now at least, was released. With full time less than five minutes away West Ham equalized and crowds from three sides flooded the grass in a jubilant explosion, the guards unable to do anything but watch them in despair. It took a good five minutes or so before the pitch was cleared and the match could recommence.

Full time ended in a draw and early in the first extra half West Ham got a penalty shot. The guards braced themselves, only to find once again the pitch crowded as the home team taking the lead was celebrated. When the match finally ended, 3-1 to West Ham, once again the pitch filled with cheerful boys and girls, men and women celebrating.

After the match the streets were packed, people singing and shouting. As I walked to the tube I saw the police prepared for trubble but everything went smoothly all the way home. A night that could have ended so badly was just one long and joyful study of human interactions and turn of emotions. Then I watched the news this morning and saw what had happened after I left…


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdJNu_KtA-4

Brick Lane

I’m not from this part of town. I’m not even from this very city. I’m a tourist. I’m an intruder, and it’s tattooed on my forehead. I’m a tall, blond, blue-eyed Norwegian in an Indian/Pakistani/Bangladeshi area. I’m in exotic Brick Lane. Yeah, right!

There’s nothing exotic about Brick Lane. On the contrary, Brick Lane on a Sunday in late August 2009 is a hang-out for the middle-class children and grand-children of 1968. It’s a London symbol of western cultural relativism and liberal colonial guilt. The entire street from one end to the other is filled with white Bob Marley-loving hippies and cappuccino-drinking slim-jeans & hat urban hipsters selling each other books on spiritual enlightenment, the “for Dummies” version, and African wannebe artefacts. And I fit right in.

I jot these lines down while sitting at a café called “Verge” and drinking herbal tea. In my bag is a copy of St. Augustine’s Confessions. Just after I’ve sat down and put my block on the table and started writing an old man, probably remembering when this place was still exotic for anyone looking like me, walks by and exerts “Ah, inspiration!” as his eyes fall upon my activity.

Obviously English is the most common tongue I’ve hear around here, but Hindi is not number two. The language I’ve heard second most often is French. And it’s not Maghreb French, nor is it the French of the banlieus. No, it’s proper French. It’s the French you teachers whish they commanded. It’s the French of Jean Sarkozy when he lunches with his mother-in-law.

The guys walking by are fit and slim. They wear loose and light summer clothes, sport Beatles anno 1964-long hair, smart hats and Ray-Ban Wayfarer sun glasses. They’re my age and a little older, a little younger. Some just got their A-levels and are heading for university, others graduated years ago and are already in comfortable jobs. The common denominator is that they’re all educated, successful and on top of their lives.

I'm in Brick Lane and there's nothing exotic about it.