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Norwegian Web Links Terje Korsnes, Hon. Consul Young Norwegians of Boston www.norumbega3506.org www.morgensolen.org www.norhouse.com http://digitalarkivet.uib.no/index-eng.htm http://dictionaries.travlang.com/norwegian.html www.sonsofnorway.com www.pastforward.co.uk/vikings/index.html http://www.dep.no/odin/engelsk/index-b-n-a.html http://employees.csbsju.edu/tnichol/norwegian.html http://www.hfaa.org http://www.lawzone.com/half-nor/home.htm http://www.northerner.com/norway.html http://www.visitnorway.com/ http://www.katolsk.no/norge/ http://www.freetranslation.com/ http://nor-am.org www.pilegrim.no www.nytt-fra-norge.no Webcams in Norway www.brekketours.com www.visitnorway.com www.hunderfossen.no www.museumsnett.no/vigelandmuseet/ www.dryeparken.no http://www.tyzo.com/tools/metric.html Gifts and Souveniers http://www.rootsweb.com/~wgnorway/index.html http://www.scanfashion.com Geneaology Links http://digitalarkivet.uib.no/sab/howto.html www.riksarkivet.no/english/about.html www.vesterheim.org/geneaology.html www.naha.stolaf.edu www.fellesraad.com http://www.rootsweb.com/~wgnorway/index.html | |||||||||||||||
From the Embassy The list is now under construction and we urge you to tell those who you think might be interested about it. Anyone who wish to recceive information are welcome to send me an e-mail and they will be added to the list. Larger organisations are also encouraged to send a larger contact list with e-mails. They can also forward them on their own if they wish, or just forward the information and let their members e-mail me. Karin Scharlund
A Nation That Exports Oil, Herring and Peace Article from the New York Times By FRANK BRUNI OSLO - With a population of about 4.5 million, a cruelly tenacious winter and an awful lot of herring, Norway will never stand out as an economic powerhouse, a vacation paradise or the culinary envy of the world. But its claim to global fame is an arguably rarer one. Now more than ever, Norway seems to be the international capital of peace. The Nobel Peace Prize, awarded here since 1901, is only a glossy part of it. Just before former President Jimmy Carter swept into Oslo earlier this month to receive this year's medal, Norwegians brokered a once-unthinkable power-sharing agreement between the government of Sri Lanka and Tamil rebels, who had been at war for two decades. Just after Mr. Carter left, the Indonesian government and separatists from Aceh Province signed a peace treaty, the fruit of negotiations financed by the Norwegian government. True enough, the 1993 Oslo accords between the Israelis and the Palestinians did not, ultimately, turn out well. But the effort was valiant, and it touched off a frenzy of Norwegian peace-making, or at least peace- trying, that has put peace somewhere alongside oil and timber as one of this country's signature exports."If we can make a difference, we feel it is our obligation," said Foreign Minister Jan Petersen, perhaps understating the Norwegian knack for, and interest in, all matters peaceful. "We do what we can." That turns out to be quite a bit, and it inevitably raises the question: what makes Norway such a welcome interloper and lulling force? "We're small, we're way up here and we have no colonial past," said Vidar Helgesen, a deputy foreign minister with a leading role in the Sri Lanka talks. Because Norway does not - and, really, could not - have grand designs on other countries, it does not engender suspicion, Mr. Helgesen and other diplomats here said. In addition, Norway is not perceived to be doing the bidding of larger, more muscular and more meddlesome nations. While it belongs to NATO, it does not belong to the European Union. It has its alliances, but wears them lightly. "We are not Americans and we are not Europeans," said Nils Morten Udgaard,who writes a column on foreign affairs for Aftenposten, one of Norway's largest newspapers. "We are just ourselves." Norway has never really lorded it over other countries, so it does not carry its olive branch across reservoirs of bad blood. Rather, the Norwegian government and Norwegian charities have financed so much humanitarian work in volatile countries that Norway is often a welcome guest in those places. Norway is rich - its per-capita gross domestic product is among the highest in the world - and relatively untroubled, so it has money and time to lavish on faraway missions with uncertain deadlines. It is also remote, an incalculable benefit when negotiations actually end up here. Several diplomats said that the 1993 Oslo accords worked, at the time, because the participants were so far from the glare of television cameras and the second-guessing of political peers. "It's easy to be discreet here," said Janne Haaland Matlary, a professor of international politics at the University of Oslo. "This is not, after all, the center of the world." But it is certainly peaceful. Candles flicker in countless windows. Professional boxing is against the law. Drivers rarely honk, and are seldom given reason to. "We're not known for being aggressive," said Henrietta Berggren, the manager of a trendy Oslo restaurant where, on a recent night, the conversation never rose above a tranquil hum. The background music - the softer side of Alanis Morrisette, the moodier reaches of Moby - was, in two honestly chosen syllables, peaceful. Over the last decade, Norwegians have had a hand in peace talks between Communist rebels and the Philippine government; Croatia and Yugoslavia, and Colombia's government and the FARC rebel movement. Norwegians have ventured into Cyprus and Somalia and Sudan. In 1996, they helped negotiate a cease-fire, signed in Oslo, between leftist guerrilla leaders and the Guatemalan government, ending an armed conflict that had claimed 100,000 lives over 35 years. Norwegian diplomats say there is no one model that they follow, and that such flexibility is crucial. Sometimes they ferry proposals between the two sides in a conflict. Sometimes they merely provide the meeting rooms. Sometimes they consult early, and closely, with the United Nations, and sometimes not. Always, they say, the two sides must already be willing to talk, and often, a key to success or near- success is Norway's willingness to let the process begin quietly or even secretly. Mr. Helgesen said Norwegians had been working with Sri Lanka, at the invitation of its government, since 1998, which was about two years before the world got a whiff of it. Much of what Norway did, he said, was simply remind the two sides of their interests, although Norway also helped draft a cease-fire agreement that the sides signed in February and the power-sharing plan that was announced in Oslo in December. He said Norway was also careful not to hurry the talks. "As long as the discussion lingers, we don't interfere," he said. "We're very patient." Indeed, since most Norwegians endorse these efforts, no one government feels political pressure to get quick results, and that allows Norway to assume an informal, unthreatening posture, he and other diplomats said.Norwegians say they have been propelled in their peace efforts by a heritageof Lutheran missionary work and socialist idealism. But Norwegians also get something more than satisfaction out of their deeds. "We gain some access," said Mr. Petersen, explaining that Norway's place at so many negotiating tables elevates its relevance and usefulness to larger countries with which it trades. Norway recently got the ears of European countries to which it exports seafood, he said, because Norway had privileged insight into elections in Africa that those countries wanted to monitor. "You can put it this way," Mr. Petersen said. "We talked about Zimbabwe and fish." Norway also gains a source of pride and a mission and identity all its own. After Jan Egeland helped forge the 1993 Olso accords, he wrote a book that compared Norway and the United States. Its title was "Impotent Superpower, Potent Small State." Mr. Helgesen, in a speech in Jakarta earlier this year, noted that Norway "cannot be the fire brigade" for the world. "But," he added, "we can be a kind of social worker." The association with peace-making, Ms. Matlary said, "makes Norway interesting.""Our reputation," she said, | |||||||||||||||
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Questions? Contact Kari Heistad or at 617-965-3871 | |||||||||||||||
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