NSP Research – Updates

The first Norwegian newspaper I saw upon arriving here had a front page photo of protestors somewhere in the Middle East burning the Norwegian flag. A small conservative Christian paper had made Norway the second country to publish the Danish cartoons depicting Prophet Mohammed as a terrorist. Islam forbids any depiction of the Prophet.

Over the weekend things got considerably more serious when a mob ransacked the Norwegian consulate in Damascus as Syrian police watched on. In Beirut, protestors set the Danish embassy alight and on Monday the Danish embassy in Tehran was also destroyed in a mob attack. No one was hurt in the Damascus attack, but the apartment upstairs belonging to a secretary from the embassy was destroyed taking with it her partner’s PhD thesis.

The news reports have proven an interesting introduction to Norwegian politicians. I watched as Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, head of a left-of-centre coalition that won a parliamentary election in September, condemned the Damascus attack. ‘He held the Syrian government responsible for failing to quell the protest and said the government will ask for compensation for damage from Syria as well as raise the matter with the United Nations because this is a violation of international law.

One news story I read said that an anti-immigration party came second in September’s election with nearly a quarter of the vote. Norway has a population of around 4.6 million, including about 160,000 Muslims mainly living in Oslo many of them in my neighbourhood.

Today I went into Fafo for my first day at “work.” The 2-minute walk there was a bit treacherous as the footpaths are covered in an icy snow following the last snowfall two weeks ago. Fafo is located in a old brick building between the central police station and a church. The building also houses a small UNDP office and a group that researches oceans.

I have a small office on the fourth floor in the attic. It belongs to a woman who is deaf and who works on issues relating to the deaf. She has a lot of interesting books. I ate lunch with the staff for free in a cafeteria on the ground floor between 12:00noon and 1:00pm. Quite a change from the American habit of eating at your desk!

After lunch Christian took me for a walk through town to orientate me. Christian is supervising my stay together with Mark Taylor. The last time I had spent any substantial time in Oslo was 1997, during the 3 weeks-long negotiations of the treaty banning antipersonnel mines and subsequent Nobel Prize ceremonies. I realized most of my bearings in Oslo from that time could be chartered from the pubs we drank in!

We picked up a Sim card for an old mobile telephone that Fafo has loaned me (Tel. +47-99-88-78-39). Back at the office I set up Skype (mis4mez), instant messangers (AOL, Yahoo), and my three email accounts (HRW, NSP, and Fafo). Finally I seem to be set up and ready to work!

It was clear and sunny as my plane landed in Oslo and everything was covered with a blanket of snow. The trainride into the city passed farms and forests covered in snow. It looked so pretty.

My cab driver from the train station dropped me off at the Salvation Army and after some momentary confusion, Kristin from the Fafo research institute took me to the apartment where I’ll be staying. The place belongs to a Norwegian currently “somewhere in India” and was Kristin using it until recently when she moved in with her boyfriend.

My jaw dropped when we entered the apartment as it has a wall of windows framing the most incredible view. From the eight floor of the building, the apartment looks west over Oslo city toward the ski jump on the horizon. From the balcony, you can see the fjiord and then ocean to the south. The botanical gardens lie on a hillside just beside the building. The apartment itself is a studio with a nice kitchen and bathroom and a dining room table looking out the windows.

After dropping my gear I went in search of supplies. The apartment is 2 minutes from Fafo’s offices in Tøyen, a neighborhood northeast of the central train station. The area is known for its immigrant population and as I found my way to the local shops I was amazed to see white people asking Africans and Asians for money! Oslo has a bit of a heroin problem as evidences by its drug addicts.

The shops featured an amazing array of ethnic foods and fresh fruit and veges. The apartment has one element for cooking and a toaster should be delivered shortly so I made a salad. I watched the news in on TV and couldn’t figure out why a rather ugly man was doing the weather until I realized I was watching the Sami news. There are about 40,000 Sami , the northern “indigenous” population of Norway, of which about 20,000 speak the language. I knew I was on the Norwegian TV when the announcer turned into a beautiful blonde woman. By 6:30pm I could no longer keep my eyes open and fell asleep. For 13 hours…