Trygve Lie of Norway addresses the General
Assembly on the occasion of his formal appointment as first
Secretary-General of the United Nations, on 2 February 1946. (UN
Photo/Marcel Bolomey)
by Peter Cummins
Norway has always been regarded as one of the world’s
safest, most stable countries, extremely generous with foreign aid and
opening doors to the less fortunate in these troubled times - and a
peace-loving population. None of that will change; what changed on that
tragic day last week, was the rise of another mass murderer. In Norway?
Noway! one would think and then look for the date-line: sure enough,
Oslo.
The political motives for killing upwards of 90
people - many of them the cream of the Norwegian youth - will be debated
for months ahead, and may never be revealed.
From the 800s, right through history, Norwegians have
always had a great affinity to the sea. Fearless mariners, with a
“little help” from their Scandinavian neighbours, they became the
leading sea power from the ninth to the twelfth centuries, venturing as
far as the Faroes, Iceland and Greenland and as far south as Normandy
and Sicily. In spite of their ferocious reputation as Vikings, intent on
plunder, pillage and rape, the Norsemen who made these voyages of
discovery were, rather, peaceful traders and farmers. The feared
Vikings, on the other hand, were freebooters and pirates, invading and
plundering areas of coastal Europe.
Fast forward to the 20th century and Norway has
played a major role as a facilitator of many international conflicts,
the Oslo accords over the Palestinian issues, being a major one. Peace,
in fact is synonymous with Norway. For example, the Nobel Peace Prize,
although established by a Swede of the same name, always has the award
presentation in Oslo.
And Norway has been in the vanguard of many peace
movements, support for the United Nations and specialized agencies. The
first Secretary-General of the United Nations was Norwegian Tryvge Lie,
elected in 1946. A Norwegian, Freda Dalen, was the first female delegate
to address the United Nations General Assembly, in October,1947.
This is just the “tip of the iceberg”, to use an
appropriate clich้ for this country’s contribution to world peace.
Having spent some wonderful months touring Norway on my trusty Vespa
150cc many years ago, I had practically no money, but was treated with
utter kindness.
Now, to put this in another perspective, there is a
strange twist of fate here. Following my European tour, so long ago, I
was flying back to Australia (Tasmania). By a coincidence, the person in
the next seat asked me about my travels (travails?) and where did I
consider the safest place in the world to be? I immediately replied that
my home state of Tasmania was probably the safest, followed closely by
Norway.
He was stunned into silence and a few minutes later
passed me a copy of his newspaper, with a blazing head-line: “Deranged
farmer goes on a shooting spree in Port Arthur (southern Tasmania) : 23
dead.”
So, a madman shattered Tasmania’s tranquility and,
now some four decades later, the same has happened to Norway. Anders
Behring Breivik.
Let us just hope that, as in the case of Tasmania , the Norwegian
tragedy is a “one off” affair. But, somehow, I doubt it. There is too
much evil stalking out planet to know what’s next!
