Norway at war

My home town, Molde, is currently in the middle of an annual celebration of literature (which follows a few weeks after an annual celebration of jazz -- once we get to setting up an annual celebration of chocolate all will be perfect, and the ugly post-war architecture will be forgotten). It is called Bjørnsonfestivalen, and as a literary festival it includes segments on the failure of the justice system, the political situation in Turkey and Ukraine, and a panel on Norway at war in Afghanistan alongside interviews with authors, readings of poetry and discussions of books. This festival is not one that believes in art for art's sake alone, nor the separation of art and politics. Quite naturally, I'd say, since the author it is centred around, Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson (one of the four* greats of Norwegian literature and a Nobel Prize winner in literature, who went to school here), was for much of his life a strong radical political voice in both Norwegian and the wider European society.

After a lovely breakfast lecture about the importance of Gabriel García Márquez to the author Pedro Carmona-Alvarez when he came to Norway from Chile as a young boy onwards, I therefore went directly to a panel called "Norway at War", which opened with a clip from a wonderfully frank documentary footage created by young Afghani women, trying to show the real Afghanistan, ranging from amusements to problems to attempts to solve the problems. Unfortunately it was cut short, and I never found out what the documentary was called.

The panel lasted two and a half hours, and was divided in segments. First, the Norwegian politicians Kjell Magne Bondevik and Bård Vegard Solhjell; then, the head of the Norwegian veterans' organisation, Thor Lystøen; he was followed by Kristin Solberg, female journalist who lived in Kabul between 2011 and 2013; and finally a look at the human cost of war, in Aurora Skare Haavaag and Guri Skaret, the daughter and sister of a Norwegian soldier who lost her life in Afghanistan, and Solhjell, who lost his cousin. The occasion of this panel was the withdrawal of the Norwegian forces from Afghanistan, which is scheduled to happen this year.

The politicians
For those unfamiliar with Norwegian politics, Kjell Magne Bondevik is a right-wing politician from the Christian Democratic** Party, who was Prime Minister when Norway entered Afghanistan; Bård Vegard Solhjell is a left-wing politician who has been the parliamentary leader of the Socialist Left Party*** and served as a minister in two different governemnts.

Neither man identified as a pacifist (Bondevik made the interesting claim that it would be impossible for a pacifist to be prime minister, which I think could make for a lengthy discussion), but it was interesting to see where they drew the line at Norwegian military involvement. It should be noted that Norway's military identifies as a defence force ("Forsvaret"), and the question of when and how it can function outside the nation's borders therefore becomes a little tricky. Both Bondevik and Solhjell considered Iraq beyond the pale, but they disagree about Afghanistan.

Bondevik's apparent criteria for "just war" (which he talked about with the full weight of his theological studies) are that we must have been attacked, that one of our NATO allies must have been attacked, or that the international community in the shape of the UN must have decided to go to war. I cannot help but be sceptical. I suppose he does deserve some credit for facing down Bush (again drawing on their Christian cofraternity, which is of course the root of good sense) on the Iraq matter. Let's move on (I can feel myself growing sarcastic, and it is so bad for one's digestion).

Solhjell (who, unsurprisingly, is much closer to my own position) argued that while it is a good start to have a UN mandate, it is by no means enough.

*Together with Alexander Kielland, Jonas Lie and Henrik Ibsen; most sensible people would include Sigrid Undset, who won the Nobel Prize of Literature. This is not the place to get into the absurdity of reducing a literature to four dead men, but let me just say this: Norwegian literature is more than Ibsen. Quite a part from Knut Hamsun, to name another Nobel prize winner, there is Ludvig Holberg, Camilla Collett, Sigbjørn Obstfelder, Amalie Skram, Tarjei Vesaas, Haldis Moren Vesaas, Inger Hagerup, Jens Bjørneboe, Olav Duun, Agnar Mykle, Cora Sandel, Arnulf Øverland, Nordahl Grieg and Sigurd Hoel, just off the top of my head.

**Directly translated, this should be the Christian People's Party. Possibly, they thought that sounded too... something.

***The more I think about it, the worse the English names of Norwegian political parties sound.