Twenty years ago

Guess this is one of those “Where were you when…”-evenings. Even though when it`s suddenly 20 years ago many living today won`t have any rememberence about it. The question is of course “Where was you when the Berlinwall went down?”
I must have been at home, i do remember it. But thinking back at it i also think where i would have been if it happened today. And how much instant information i would have gotten about the event. Then we still really only had one channel who aired news. And the norwegian broadcasting did not change their entire program for the evening just because a wall went down. I don`t think we had CNN at home, and certaintly not the Internet. That would still take some years before i knew about. We were long away from 24 hour information coverage.
Today i would have followed the event on several TV stations who would have given coverage direct, mostly i would have been here by my Mac looking at blogs, i would have used MSN, following twitter, maybe searching for more background information other places. It`s on evenings like this one understand how much have changed. Secondly i think off all the people i have been so lucky to get to know just because the wall fell down, or more was choped down really… People who would have continued to live behind this iron curtain if it had not been teared down. All those i know, that lived or lives in the countries behind this curtain are in my thoughts today. And i am happy that i know you.
It`s still strange in a way for me to be in eastern europe. I don`t think there are walls, but i guess there are some mental maps that is a bit difficult to erase. How the world are build up. But when i meet people those mental maps disappear everytime.

I was in Berlin the summer of 1990, and choped off my bits of the wall. They are the ones on the pictures. Well, the colorful one i bought, so i guess it is atleast from somewhere near the wall…. But the others i know was there, and they where hard to chop off. But i`m glad i did it. To have a bit of the Berlinwall in my room so not only symbolizes, but phycially shows how walls between people can fall down. Even though it sometimes might look black.

There are still walls, even in Europe. We have not a unified Europe before everyone living here can move freely between borders without applying for visas and stand in queues to get in. Even though much has been done, it`s a shame that we twenty years later still have these visa-walls, but this time build up from the west. And in the world at large it is of course even more and bigger walls still being build. But still – today it`s right to remember those days, not just in Berlin but also what happened in the other Eastern european countries in the weeks to follow in 1989.

And if music can make us remember what we left behind, Sting might have managed it best –

I look

There is a very famous norwegian poem called “Jeg ser” – “I see” – by Sigbjørn Obstfelder, written in 1893. Kinds of sums up my feelings lately. Roughly translated it goes something like this -

I look at the white sky
I look at the blue-grey clouds
I look at the blood-red sun

So this is the world
So this is the home of the planets

A raindrop!

I look at the tall buildings
I look at thousend windows
I look at the distant church spears

So this is earth
So this is home of mankind

The grey-blue cloudes gather. The sun disappeared

I look at the well-dressed gents
I look at the smiling ladies
I look at the tepid horses.

How the greyblue cloudes became heavy

I look, i look…
I must have come to the wrong planet
It`s so strange here.

Dog on the run

Well, this ended up being a somewhat different evening than expected. One of brothers friends, or should i say ex-friend now perhabs.. decided that it was a good idea to release the dog from its chain and let him run free in the garten. Then he went inside. The dog naturally took this as an invitation to run free all over town, and we ended up looking for him for a couple of hours. My feet hurts… Oh, did i say that this guy was drunk… Grrrrr…

Anyway, he turned up eventually. We called the police, and they had gotten a report of a dog similar to ours. So now he is safely back home, looking like nothing has happened, and expecting to be fed.

Weekly notebook diary 2010

Today i actually bought a notebook calender for 2010. That is record early, and might be a sign that i am starting to get ready for a new year. Me and new years seldom arrive at the same time.
Im not sure why i buy these notebooks calender anyway, since i never really use them. It might be symbollic, or some faint hope that i in the new year will be more systematic in what i do. One can always hope.

And it`s monday, so i have a headache. That is unpractial, since i need to finish something tonight.

My elbow

When i woke up saterday morning it felt like someone has sewed in a small pillow in my left elbow. It`s sore, but don´t hurt. Unless i lean it towards the table or something. Then it is not being very cooperative. A bit unpractical, but i adjust and hope it will go away by itself. This is not the time to have one less hand to use.

Election is over

Election is over, and it`s time for some afterthoughts. Lot`s can be said about low voter participation, and the result in itself. I read a small article in Dagbladet, though, that was kind of interesting.
Also in Norway there is election observers from other countries. They havn`t reported any big irregularities, but interesting enough they have pointed to some episodes that if they had happened in their own countries they woulod have thought about it as someone trying to cheat. There is mostly disreppancies between votes registered and votes actually casted. We get the benefit of the doubt, and most probably it is a result of carelessness. A bit worrying anyway, might be a sign that we take some things for granted. That small irregularities don´t matter. One day, and added up, they might.

The article can be read here in norwegian.

Todays work

1. A journalists calls. An IOGT-man is dead, they want to have our logo in the death notice.
2. We think a bit to much. Many older members don`t like our new logo. Maybe the most prudent thing would be to use our old.
3. Hm. Where did we put our old logo.
4. After much searching i find it, but…
5. Only in a format that i can`t read on my PC.
6. I open my Mac and see it. Yep it`s the one!
7. I get a mail from the journalist who have gotten hold of our new, or almost new logo. The one with the moon for those who knows it. I tell him not to use it and
8. Sends him our old.
9. He asks for a black and white. Problem. I search and search but can`t fint any black and white version.
10. The journalist sends me another mail – “Thanks for making this a priority. We have a death notice to print soon.” I sense he is beginning to loose patient.
11. I go back to my Mac and make a black and white version. Good, it works. And sends it.
12. The journalist calls. You can tell he is working with death notices. He is very careful in his voice. He wonders why we can`t use our logo. I try to explain. Some of our older members don`t like it.
13. It turns out that he has gotten this new logo from the funeral agency. I guess this means that they actually wants this logo used. That puts it in a different light.
14. I tell him that this one isnt our newest logo though, since we changed it just before summer.
15. I send him our newest logo, or all versions of it.
16. He calls again wondering which one we want to use. I tell him. He again wonders why we won`t use our logo. I try to explain again. He seems amused. But now our new logo will have its debut in a death notice.

And this was my day. Not sure if anyone will stop drinking because of this. How is yours?

A new pencil

I have a new pencil – not a pen – a pencil. Where the tip still is sharp and the body without bitemarks. I have the bad habit of biting on them. I have also bought an eraser and a ruler. It`s like first day at school or something.
Even though i write with a pen 95% of the time, well most of the time i write on a keyboard actually…, there is still something special about holding a pencil in your hand. It both feels and smells differently. Pens don`t smell.
I also have a red Moleskin notebook, plain without lines. I`m going to use that to gather some of the notes from the method and statistic course that i`m still following. A good feeling.
An empty notebook, a new pen without bitemarks, a white and clean eraser and a ruler that isn`t broken. Lot`s of possibilities.

Ends, beginnings?

I`ve been in an ending-modus for some time now. It might be the congresses – new plans, new boards. The end of a period. Maybe it`s the nearing end of summer. Maybe it`s something else.
Anyway – i`m still there. Looking for some new beginnings, or something that is like it has been. Some things are. But at the moment it`s kind of like we`ve exited a train, and now new trains are driving off in different directions, but i`m still at the platform. Purgatory is for the undecided.

Visa or not visa

For me Visa is a creditcard. Some seldom time i have had to get a visa to travel to a country. But for me it has not been a hindrance, maybe even just the fun of having another stamp in my passport. As a norwegian it is my right by birth to travel wherever i want, when i want. And if some countries don`t want me to travel to them, i probably wouldn`t want to be there either. In two days i`m going to Albania – a former very isolated country. They need visa to go to Norway, i just need to buy a ticket.

One of the positive results of european integration is that there are fewer and fewer countries that need a visa to travel in our part of the world. But with that it gets even more strange that someone should be on the outside. And the symbolic of this outsideness get`s even stronger.

Yesterday the european commision recommended opening up for for Serbia, Macedonia and Montenegro. Good, but Bosnia and Albania still isn`t found ready for this status, and have to wait. Probably until sometime in 2010. It`s a bad political signal, it is even bad political handicraft.

Politics should be to create oppurtunities. I might accept some of the technical arguments, also that bosnian politicans doesn`t give impression of being the best of the bunch. But still – if european integration should have any real meaning you shouldnt give the impression that someone isn`t welcomed into the club. Historical and other contexts need to be taken into account when such a decision is taken. There it is a stated goal for the EU to integrate Western Balkan. Then the countries in the area needs to be taken in together, not apart.
If not Europe makes the same mistake it has also done earlier – beliving that treating all countries formally equal will give the same result in every country. It doesn´t since the different countries in Balkan do have different starting points, and the same policy might give different reactions and resuts in each country. Like in Bosnia where bosnian croats and serbs actually can have dual citizenship with Croatia and Serbia, and getting visa that way. Sometimes neutrality means to take the strongest side.
In worse case it might only raise resentment towards the rest of Europe, and give raise to nationalistic politicans who prosper ecactlly on such feelings. It`s a bad circle of events.

Having to go through the process of getting a visa to visit someone or to go to a meeting, seems to me today to be one of the strongest symbol of being on the outside. It´s not just a question of the “big” issues like opening up for stronger economic development. It`s what ordinary people needs to go through to do something we think is a birth-given right.

A petition with the support from among others the Green parlimentarian in the european parliament Daniel Cohn-Bandit says it best – “The visa policy for the successor states of the former Yugoslavia risks to create two classes of citizens in South Eastern Europe, based on ethnicity.” And is this the kind of Europe we want? I hope not. The EU has had several setbacks recently. This threathens to be another if one doesn`t manage to integrate the balkan countries in a decent way.

Ironic this happens on the same day that on the other end of europe, the icelandic parliament has voted in favour of applying for EU-membership. It seems that they won`t have the same problems.
In spite of this i stand by me prediction that Bosnia will be a member of the EU before Norway, though… Some can, but don´t want to. Some want to but can`t. Europe today.