Happy Birthday Norway!

Today is 'Syttende Mai,' Norway's favorite national holiday. Officially, it is Norwegian Constitution Day, but for an American like me, the celebration seems a whole lot more like the 4th of July than does the celebration of Norway's independence day on June 7. The story is complicated but fascinating, and it begins over 1000 years ago.

In 872 Harold Fairhair - whose monument stands in Haugesund, where he is buried - unified all the Norwegian provinces under his leadership, becoming the first king of the fledgling nation. Legend has it that Harold's beloved refused to marry him before he was 'king over of all Norway,' and so he vowed not to cut his hair until he had achieved that goal, hence the name Fairhair. Norway grew in size and power throughout the Viking Age, but was unified with Sweden in 1319 and then Denmark in 1376. Ravaged by the Black Death, all three countries eventually entered into the Kalmar Union in 1397 and so consolidated power under one monarch. Sweden broke out of the union in 1521, leaving Norway to endure a '400-year night' under Danish rule.

In 1812 Denmark-Norway was attacked by the British and sought protection in an alliance with Napoleon. The alliance proved unable to prevent the cession of Norway to Sweden in 1814, but Norway took this opportunity to declare its independence. On the 17th of May, 1814, Norway signed a constitution (the second oldest still in use today) and elected Crown Prince Christian Frederik King. This sparked a short-lived war between Norway and Sweden, who fought until November of that year, at which point Sweden realized its military was too weak, Norway realized it had run out money, and both countries realized that their coasts were blockaded by British and Russian forces. And so Norway and Sweden entered into a union that preserved Norway's constitution, until Norway finally gained outright independence (peacefully) on June 7, 1905.

So, there you have it. Today may not exactly be Norway's birthday, but it sure feels like it. Norwegians of all ages will be wearing their traditional 'bunad' and marching in parades, eating hot dogs and ice cream from sunup til sundown. Last year was supposed to be the first time in our 7.5 years together that we got to celebrate Syttende Mai with Anette's family in Haugesund, but our plans were foiled by my 104°F malarial fever! I've attached some pictures from Haugesund Hospital last year, where I was thrilled to have such well-dressed visitors stopping by to cheer me up.

Gratulerer med dagen, alle sammen!!!! Skulle ønske vi var hjemme nå, her er det ingen helligdag og vanlig jobb på oss...Men skal kose oss med kjøttkaker til middag og is til dessert:) Stor klem til alle kjente og kjære og ha en strålende syttende mai!!!

A Curiously Casual Handover

Great Britain was surprised this evening by Gordon Brown's sooner-than-expected resignation, delivered at a lectern hastily placed outside the front door of 10 Downing Street at about 7:30pm local time. Helicopter shots showed the magnificent Houses of Parliament and Westminster Abbey gleaming in the late sun, the Thames sparkling beneath them, and then tracked Mr. Brown's black Jaguar as he made the short drive to Buckingham Palace to formally resign and recommend that the Queen ask David Cameron to form a new government.

BBC commentators remarked on the wondrous spectacle of the peaceful transfer of power, which is immediate here - no transition period like in the US. David Cameron is now the 12th Prime Minister of the Queen's reign, but that didn't keep his silver Jaguar from getting stuck in traffic on its way to Buckingham Palace! He was stopped next to a red double-decker bus (the #91, headed for our neighborhood!) and was immediately set upon by 'commoners' who came right up to the window of the car to wave and take pictures.

I was shocked, as this would never have happened even in pre-9/11 America, because 1) we would have had a motorcade of siren-blaring cops to clear the way, and 2) the secret service would have ensured that no one got within 100 yards of the new leader. Upon reflection, especially considering that London has seen its share of terrorism, I find it charming that Britain chooses to treat its leaders just like anyone else.

As Mr. Cameron arrived at the royal palace, it was noted that the two Queen's Guards posted outside did not salute his vehicle, whereas they had saluted Mr. Brown's as it left. However, their salute on his way out after a 20-minute audience with the Queen confirmed that he had indeed been confirmed as the new PM. The official announcement was that the agreement had been reached with a 'kissing of hands,' a point that was hotly debated by the BBC. It turns out that this is simply a reference to an ancient custom, and that the Queen and Mr. Cameron did not actually kiss each other's hands.

And so dawns a new political era in Great Britain, not with a bang but a whisper.

The Black Tea Party & White Privilege

I haven't written a great deal about politics on this blog, but I am becoming more and more upset by the virulent attitudes and actions of so many white Americans towards President Obama and the government. I'll let Tim Wise's words do the talking here:

"Imagine that hundreds of black protesters were to descend upon Washington DC and Northern Virginia, just a few miles from the Capitol and White House, armed with AK-47s, assorted handguns, and ammunition. And imagine that some of these protesters —the black protesters — spoke of the need for political revolution, and possibly even armed conflict in the event that laws they didn’t like were enforced by the government? Would these protesters — these black protesters with guns — be seen as brave defenders of the Second Amendment, or would they be viewed by most whites as a danger to the republic? What if they were Arab-Americans? Because, after all, that’s what happened recently when white gun enthusiasts descended upon the nation’s capital, arms in hand, and verbally announced their readiness to make war on the country’s political leaders if the need arose.

Imagine that white members of Congress, while walking to work, were surrounded by thousands of angry black people, one of whom proceeded to spit on one of those congressmen for not voting the way the black demonstrators desired. Would the protesters be seen as merely patriotic Americans voicing their opinions, or as an angry, potentially violent, and even insurrectionary mob? After all, this is what white Tea Party protesters did recently in Washington.

In other words, imagine that even one-third of the anger and vitriol currently being hurled at President Obama, by folks who are almost exclusively white, were being aimed, instead, at a white president, by people of color. How many whites viewing the anger, the hatred, the contempt for that white president would then wax eloquent about free speech, and the glories of democracy? And how many would be calling for further crackdowns on thuggish behavior, and investigations into the radical agendas of those same people of color?

To ask any of these questions is to answer them. Protest is only seen as fundamentally American when those who have long had the luxury of seeing themselves as prototypically American engage in it. When the dangerous and dark “other” does so, however, it isn’t viewed as normal or natural, let alone patriotic. Which is why Rush Limbaugh could say, this past week, that the Tea Parties are the first time since the Civil War that ordinary, common Americans stood up for their rights: a statement that erases the normalcy and “American-ness” of blacks in the civil rights struggle, not to mention women in the fight for suffrage and equality, working people in the fight for better working conditions, and LGBT folks as they struggle to be treated as full and equal human beings.

And this, my friends, is what white privilege is all about. The ability to threaten others, to engage in violent and incendiary rhetoric without consequence, to be viewed as patriotic and normal no matter what you do, and never to be feared and despised as people of color would be, if they tried to get away with half the shit we do, on a daily basis."