Give Fred a Chance
USLAW Adventures in Norway
Steve Thornton
“Fred” is the Norwegian word for peace. It’s among the first few words I learned when I traveled to Norway earlier this month. US Labor Against the War was invited by the Norwegian Peace Initiative to send a labor representative, and I got the job.
First, some context: the Norway Peace Initiative is their version of our United for Peace and Justice, a broad-based coalition that opposes the war in Iraq, the NATO presence in Afghanistan (which includes Norwegian troops) and the U.S. saber-rattling against Iran. A number of Norwegian unions are part of the coalition, as are student and religious groups. As with UFPJ, there are disagreements over policy and strategy, some of which are driven by competing ideologies. My first contact with activists had come from Vegard Velle, a leader in the Red Party who had sharp analysis of American and Norwegian anti-war politics.
Norway has a king, Harald V. I walked by him the other night as he was sitting on a blanket listening to a rock group playing at a Salvation Army concert... in Oslo’s May Day Square. But Norway is governed by a parliamentary coalition of the Labor Party, the Socialist Left, and a center party. It is a country where women can get a full year's paid maternity leave, and where Finance Minister Kristen Halvorsen, a socialist, is making sure that all children have the right to pre-school services.
Peace and Health
With the combined population of Connecticut and Rhode Island, Norway is considered the world’s “most peaceful country” by the Global Peace Index, which uses 24 different factors to assess a country's level of violence and danger. Iraq, using the same calculation, is the most violent.
I visited Ulleval Hospital, the largest in Norway. Union leaders Hans Aase, a paramedic, and Else Skjaeret, a psych aide, took me to their local’s office in the facility and on a tour of the emergency room and heliport. It is true that Norwegians enjoy universal health care, but according to some Norwegian activists, the system is not as good as Michael Moore portrayed it in his documentary Sicko. There are strike (or “streik”) signs all over the office. The healthcare union is planning a limited strike in a few weeks if the hospital board does not reject the non-union x-ray company that has been trying to thwart its employees from unionizing.
Students and Peace
My first impression of the country and its politics came from 28-year old Thomas Tallaksen, the newly-elected president of the Peace Initiative. Thomas, a union member, works for Oslo University and is intermittently employed at a group home for people with developmental disabilities. He is also a conscientious objector (Norway has compulsory conscription for all males over 18). His alternative service was to counsel other COs at the University.
I met with student leaders there to talk about the U.S. peace movement and USLAW’s role in building opposition to the war. Their knowledge of U.S. and international issues was impressive; their travel experiences (Peru, Philippines) gave them a broad progressive prospective. If their party loyalties differed (Socialist Left, Red Party, Labor Party), they were united by their opposition to the Iraq war.
The Land Organization
I also made a presentation to leaders from the country’s labor federation, the Land Organization (LO), and was introduced by Christine Parker, head of the LO’s international department. My presentations in Norway began with stories about members of my union and the war’s impact on them. I urged the union activists to invite Iraqi labor leaders to Norway. LO is in the middle of nationwide contract negotiations with the country’s business group NHO. A major issue is maintaining early retirement eligibility. Playing a key role in these negotiations is Reidunn Wahl, a tireless activist who was my guide for two days
I also got to travel to the suburb of Osspal, where the electricians’ union local was having its annual meeting. EL&IT, as it is known, has had an activist past, but over the last ten years had not talked about political topics. A national LO organizer who originally came from that local told me later that my visit gave the workers an opportunity to start dealing with these issues again.
In Norway, being against the Iraq war is easy: when first elected in 2005, the Labor Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg called George Bush to announce that the 750 Norwegian troops were being pulled out. What is harder is the question of Afghanistan. Norway is part of NATO and there are significant local troops stationed there. Some activists worry that leaving now would hurt the Afghanis. Nevertheless, the Peace Initiative decided that pulling out of Afghanistan had to be one of their top three demands at this year's rally.
Yesterday and Today
I’m not a very good tourist, but I went to two places that were especially relevant to my trip. The first was the Resistance Museum, which documents Norway’s fight against the Nazi occupation during World War II. The Teachers Union played a significant part in the nonviolent resistance to occupation. When the Union opposed Nazi demands, a phony labor organization was formed in an attempt to tame the teachers. It failed. When teachers were ordered to sign loyalty pledges and teach propaganda, masses of them refused and many were jailed. Mina Off, a student activist, took me to the museum, situated in a fortress on a hill overlooking the harbor. Mina’s family originally came from Germany. She tells me that whenever they come to visit, she takes them to the Resistance Museum.
My second stop was the Nobel Peace Center. I skipped over the Al Gore section and focused on a fascinating exhibit on censorship. It was a wide-ranging piece which in part explained how U.S. troops are speaking out against the war through the use of the internet, camera phones and other technology. The U.S. government has banned 13 websites including You Tube and Facebook on military computers, and stopped some soldiers from blogging to communicate with folks back home. The exhibit quotes General William Westmoreland who defended troop censorship in Vietnam this way: “Without censorship, things can get terribly confused in the public mind.”
The same day I read those words, members of Iraq Veterans Against the War were providing powerful testimony to the world (and their commander-in-chief) about their war experiences and the challenges their families face upon their return.
Marching on the U.S. Embassy
On Saturday, March 15, the Peace Initiative held its annual demonstration against the war. It was much like any protest here. Old and young folks, anarchists and liberals, banners and drums and anti-Guantanamo protestors dressed like prisoners in a cage. We started with speeches at Parliament and then marched through the streets to the U.S. Embassy.
There I found myself to be the only scheduled speaker, which was quite an honor. I spoke about George Bush’s America, where he wages a war against workers at home and abroad. But I told the crowd that US Labor Against the War represents a different country, where workers, Iraq veterans, students and many others organize for justice and against war. I was interviewed by Norwegian television and my apprearance was picked up by the wire service. Later I was interviewed by Klassekampen (class struggle), “the daily newspaper of the left” which boasts a readership of 90,000. As Norway actually believes in freedom of speech, this paper and others are partially subsidized by the government.
Why Are We In Iraq?
On the plane back, I finally read Norman Mailer’s Armies of the Night. This “history as a novel” won the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award for its reporting on the 1967 march on the Pentagon. In it, Mailer reflects on his earlier work, Why Are We In Vietnam? He wrestled with the consequences of getting U.S. forces withdrawn from that country. As Howard Zinn (the one American besides George Bush that every Norwegian activist seems to know) has pointed out, when he and others demanded Vietnam troop withdrawal early in the war, they were met with the same arguments challenging us now, specifically that our exit would mean turmoil and death. Unfortunately, when that war did finally end -- years after Viet protestors were ignored-- the cost was 50,000 American troops and countless Vietnamese deaths.
Mailer observed that only war bureaucrats were arrogant enough to think that they could have all the answers to all the questions.
My new eight-year old friend said it best on the march to the U.S. Embassy in Oslo: My name is Martin and I don’t want war!
Read the interview with Steve in Klassekampen
View rally and march video on YouTube
