schoutbynacht

This is a resumé of Sidsel Wold´s book from 2006 published in Norwegian by Gyldendal.

Sidsel Wold has been the correspondent for the Norwegian Broadcasting corporation (NRK) in the Middle East for many years. The NRK cherishes its neutrality, but what does a correspondent do when injustice stares her in the face and she is on a sabbatical from her job?

Maybe she writes a book about her stay in Jerusalem. She writes from up close. You can smell the streets, see the flesh from the suicide bombers, smell the smoke from the water pipes and feel the November rain; you can see the living rooms, the tea-cups and the veiled girls…

Checkpoint takes its name from the many checkpoints that break up the daily lives of Palestinians, and ensures that the different Palestinian societies remain apart. To live in Gaza, or a refugee camp on the West Bank, or in a Palestinian-controlled part of the West Bank, or in Tel Aviv with an Israeli passport – these are completely different realities.

Gaza is hell on earth – and this was 2006! The main topic there seems to be death and martyrdom, and the murderous, blind violence meted out by Israel – or shall we call it the Zionist state?

The book makes a few points very clear that are familiar to those that know Israel, briefly summarised:

• the settler invasion by the Zionists was well organised and well funded
• the will to displace the indigenous population was there from the start
• the Palestinians were ill equipped to withstand the onslaught, which essentially pitted the first world against the third world
• the campaign to squeeze the arabs has gone on relentlessly since 1948
• after the second Intifada the Wall came up, and security returned to Israel. With it, the will to make a meaningful peace with the Palestinians disappeared. They also disappeared

Wold brings a lot of nuance to our understanding of Israel, with its immigrant populations from myriad countries. It is criss-crossed by sectarian and social fault lines, but unified in its loyalty to the Israeli state. As an example, the rise of Likud is tightly linked with the rise of the political power of the Jews of Arab origin (sephardim, mizrahim) who had been held down by the Askhenazi Jews of European descent (those that spoke Yiddisch).

A few more points are worth mentioning, like the role of religion and tradition. For the Palestinians, religion and tradition often mean a patriarchical society where a womans´s destiny is to bear children and obey her husband. The theme is drearily familiar. It is hard to see how emancipation will take place in a situation where men are oppressed and locked into their roles as breadwinners and fighters. With the demise of the PLO and the rise of Hamas, the space for secular social  politics is limited.

On the Jewish side of the fence, religion also plays a central role, both as provider of identity for all Jews, and as a provider of destiny for religious settlers and the Orthodox. Both these groups seem to inhabit a universe where reason cannot penetrate.

It is often overlooked that about 1.2 million non-jews, mainly muslim arabs, carry an Israeli passport. They enjoy far more freedom than their relatives (figuratively and literally) in the West Bank and Gaza. But they are not wanted. They are not Jews, after all, and this “Nationality” is known by the state and has a huge effect on your prospects in Israel. Whether you are a Jew or not, is a question only the rabbis can decide (Wold does not state this latter fact anywhere, but Shlomo Sand has a lot to say on the issue of Israeli identity politics). And as unwanted citizens, they are discriminated against. Simply put, this is apartheid. One set of rights for me, one for the others. In this case the other is the Goy.

Sidsel Wold uses her skill and charm to connect with Jew and Palestinian, and she has the sensitivity and non-judgmental attitude which allows her to make meaningful connections with people and observations about life in Israel. And yet – her blood boils at the checkpoints.

“As I stand in line, I spot an elderly Palestinian in a green jacket and checkered keffiyeh on the other side of the road. He´s trying to move south on the West Bank. Clearly he was born long before the state of Israel saw the light of day. Two Israeli soldiers, a man and a woman, stop him. The old man gesticulates and tries to talk his way through the control post. A third soldier, sitting smoking on a concrete block with his legs crossed, looks the old man up and down.

– what, won´t they let you through? says the soldier and smiles mockingly. He´s enjoying himself. As always when I am upset, I put on my dark sunglasses. The female IDF soldier lights a smoke and leans into the concrete block.
– but I pass through here every day, says the Palestinian with mounting desperation
– “but I pass through here every day”, repeats the soldier and laughs out loud
– so, you´re here every day? That doesn´t mean you will get through today, you know! says the soldier teasingly. He looks at his colleagues, and they all laugh. The old man turns around slowly and starts on the long journey back.” (page 189)

This episode says it all, really. Occupation destroys the soul of the occupier. It´s about as far from the Jewish spirit as one can get.

 

Til AUF

Kanskje 25% er en passe oppslutning om et parti som Ap i 2020?

På hvilken måte skiller Ap seg fra Høyre i dag?

Det bør dere tenke på når dere møtes.

Og se “Gerhardsen” på NRK; hørte Erling Borgen på radion i går. Sterkt.

For noen år siden sa Jan P Syse “Arbeiderpartiet stjeler våre klær mens vi bader” (som igjen var et sitat fra Disraeli fra 1845), og det er en sannhet i dette; Ap har beveget seg mot Høyre og åpnet for marked og markedsmekanismer på flere samfunnsområder. EØS og NATO legger rammene for økonomisk politikk, arbeidsliv og sikkerhetspolitikk. Rommet for politikk er mindre enn før.

 For oss som husker de store idelogiske bataljene på 70- og 80-tallet virker dagens debatt litt tam og navlebeskuende.

Den gangen var det skattenivå, åpningstider, mediemangfold, NATO, Sandinistas, contras, Reagan. Arbeiderpartiet var på vikende front i alle disse spørsmålene, og er det i og for seg ennå. Nå som jernbanen blir privatisert, vil neppe Arbeiderpartiet reversere dette.

Dengang var Reiulf Steen gift med en Chilener som hadde opplevd Pinochets regime – Inés Vargas. Og dermed var virkningene av amerikanske utenrikspolitikk ved kjøkkenbordet.

All jævelskapen USA har bedrevet i sør-Amerika har vi glemt. Bortsett fra at den nye generasjonen latin-amerikanere står ved Rio Grande, da. Men men. Details metails.

Utenrikspolitikken i dag handler mest om Russland, og her har vi valget mellom nyanser av kalde krigere. Hvor står AUF? (er konflikt med Russland uungåelig?).

Internasjonal solidaritet – er det noe som hører fortiden til? I sin tid var det ett av grunneelementene i arbeiderbevegelsen. Den var internasjonal. COSATU var på sommerleir i Norge! Betalt av LO.

 Norsk politikk er preget av masse samarbeid på tvers av blokkene og masse enighet om grunnleggende spørsmål. Det er ingen som mener at arbeidsledige skal sove på gata, f.eks. Likevel – Ap har potensielt en posisjon som en form for garantist for den norske/nordiske modellen. Høyrekreftene “ there is no such thing as society” og dyrkingen av enere som Stordalen og Røkke – er en motpol til dette. Høyre representerer et annet syn på samfunnet, og har andre krefter bak seg. Og deres ideologi har vunnet fram! (og det er fordi vi er rike nå; husk hva Marx sier om basis og overbygg).

Ap er skeptiske til børsen. Høyre hyller den. Der i gården er Mammon gud – men obs obs, Høyre er også et sosialdemokratisk parti. Det er ikke en Darwinistisk jungel som er målet med samfunnsutviklingen. Mye decent folks i Høyre. De aller aller fleste. Men de er happy med at rengjøringen av togene gjøres av folk som jobber med dårlige vilkår i egne selskaper. McJobs. Den tid er forbi da det stod “NSB” på alles uniformer, enten de kjørte tog eller vasket dass.

Høyre mener den som har flaks og er god med penger og står på og har mage til å rake til seg frukten av andres arbeid – han skal få. Mer. Ap mener i bunn og grunn det samme. Svært mange mener dette! (ellers hadde SV hatt større oppslutning, ennsi Rødt).

 Og her er vi inne i menneskesyn og ideologi. Hva er et menneske? Skal vi reduseres til konsumenter og produsenter? Er det OK å utnytte andre bare det er “frivillig”? Hva slags narkotikapolitikk skal vi ha? Hva slags arbeidsliv skal vi ha? I landbruket er det 30.000 utenlandske sesongarbeidere.

Hvis en person vil starte en bedrift i Norge i dag kommer hen til dekket gratisbord:

• effektivt byråkrati
• tilgang på utdannet arbeidskraft
• veier og annen infrastruktur
• rettsapparat og lovverk som beskytter virksomheten

Alt dette er gode som er betalt av fellesskapet. Det må vi ha en økt bevissthet om! Det finnes ingen self-made man, det er bullshit. BULL-SHIT. Dette vet selvsagt både Ap og Høyre; dette er kjernen i sosialdemokratiet, dealen mellom kapital og arbeider; et skattenivå alle kan leve med, fellesgoder som gir et lavt konfliktnivå: kapitalen slipper å leie private sikkerhetsvakter.

Og så er det klart at identitetsdimensjonen har vært undervurdert. Folk stemmer Frp selv om Frp vil rasere arbeidslivet, fordi Frp forsvarer «det norske». Arbeidere stemmer tilsynelatende mot sitt eget beste. Fordi det norske er viktigere enn alt annet? Eller fordi de føler seg så trygge i arbeidslivet takket være LO at de kan gamble på det, og stemme “identitet”? Hvem vet. Hvem vet…

For å vinne må man ha en visjon som er god. Smak litt på det. Visjonen var klar på 50-tallet: forsvare arbeidsfolk og bygge landet. Man kan ikke sitte på tinget av gammel vane.

Ved valget nå, og i 2017, hadde ikke Ap noen visjon. De fortjente ikke bedre. 2017-valget var en disaster med Støres aksjer, hans vanvittige portrett, og det aldeles håpløse «stø kurs» eller hva det var. Forglemmelig. Glemt.

2019 med skolemat er historie. Hva er storyen i 2021?

Forslag. Ap som garantisten for den nordiske modellen. Forsvarer av det kollektive. Den nordiske modellen. Det må vi ha en økt bevissthet om! 

Men igjen – for å fortjene å styre, må man ha en visjon. Man kan ikke sitte på tinget av gammel vane.

Bøhler skriver her: jeg er enig i noe, men det defensivt i noen grad – det er preget av FrPs retorikk.

https://www.dagbladet.no/kultur/hvordan-kan-vi-vinne-tilbake-velgerne/71613910? 

 

This will be a very short review of the book that I came across in an article about growing up as a black person and the soap “Lifebuoy” which features in the lives of many blacks: Rian Malan has sex with a black lady who smells of this soap.

Rian Malan grew up in South Africa as a member of a branch of a famous Afrikaner family; he is related to DF Malan who institutionalised apartheid while he was prime minister 1948-1954. But Rian is not racist – in his own words, “he loved blacks”. But did they love him back? In a sense, that is what this book is about: will his love for blacks protect him against their rage and retribution? The answer is “no”, or possibly “maybe”. What is certain, is that some blacks (close friends) do love him. The book is very personal – and rightly so. Racism is nothing if not personal.

Rian leaves SA as the time approaches when he will be conscripted in the army, and returns some 8 years later in the late 80s in the dying days of apartheid. He then works as a journalist, and the book contains a number of stories from his journalist days – stories of dying, to a large extent, against the backdrop of the increasing terror of the apartheid regime, Steven Biko´s death, the ascent of ANC and eventual release of Mandela.

And yes, N´kosi sikelele Africa is such a beautiful song.

I saw Cry Freedom with friends – or acquaintances – in Manchester in about 1987, and walked out in the street completely dazed. The rest of the company were unfazed, and we went to a burger place.

The standout stories to me are the ones about the early settler days and the limitless violence and racism of the whites: and on the other side, the story of how the Zulus live and their own violence.

Rian makes it extremely clear how the issue of race permeated every corner of everyone´s lives – and no doubt it still does.

ANC, COSATU – in the summers they came to Norway for political training and had close ties with trade unions in Norway; some of the funding undoubtedly went towards weapons. I remember talking to a guy attending such a summer school on the street of Oslo ages ago. Before apartheid fell.

To Rian Malan, there seems to be a paradox in his relationship with blacks. I don´t really see one. In some contexts he will be white and white only, regardless of how good or bad a person he is. That is the way it is bound to be when you are looking back at centuries of white-on-black oppression and violence. He could get killed for his white skin when the black man rises, it´s a simple as that.

Read it.

So we went to Sicily, flying to Catania in early July to pick up our rented 9-seater and head down the Autostrada to Fontane Bianche, just south of Siracusa. It was hot the first two days, then settled around 30C, which is OK.

We weren´t the first tourists on the island. But a great many of the tourists were Italian.

But first – the food. “Marvellous” might be a good word to describe it, almost regardless of where you go. The high point was high in the hills at “Trattoria da Luciana” in San Piero Patti. Exciting road, but well worth it. Almost a religious experience for me – the food, I mean.

It turned out Siracusa was once an important city in the Greek empire. It is where Archimedes used to live, and there is a museum there in his honour. In one of the photos below you see the Ionic (or Doric, but certainly not Corinthian!) columns from about 500 BC incorporated into the Duomo of Siracusa.

 

The white car above is a Fiat 500 Giardiniera, which you can watch here on Youtube.

We also went to Taormina. When you enter the place from the North side, which is what you should do, make sure you park in the large multi-storey just below the city (Lumbi); going further only ensures nail-biting and waiting in narrow alleys, before you head back to the multi-storey car park…

(view from the Greek amphitheatre; Etna is hiding there somewhere)

The thing with Taormina is it deserves a bit of your time, even if it´s rather packed with tourists. It´s possible to climb to the top of the hills and find an old castle or monastery, and there is an intriguing cable car going down to the sea. Is it there to take people up or down? We never found out.

If you are on the South-East coast, you should make the effort to see Ragusa, though, situated in what seems a remote valley, it has a quiet charm that is worth trying out. Less convinced about Mudica, and its famed chocolate….

Sicily reminded me of Crete. What´s new is ugly, what´s old is beautiful. In Crete, the old is really ancient, just dusty piles of rubble from Minoan times; or Venetian and lovely. In Sicily, the old is either Greek ruins; or Baroque and lovely.

The driving style is maddening in both places, but you get used to it. Just shake your head in disbelief and be prepared for anything, and you´re fine. Apart from Palermo, which is rumoured to be beyond belief – we didn´t go there, though.

What about the Mafia? You never see any traces of it, but nor do you see beggars. There could be a connection there – and you keep asking yourself if the shop you´re in is paying the “pizzo”(protection). Not a nice feeling.

We never really got to see Etna. Or the Eolian (windy) islands. So maybe we should go back one day?

By Bert Stiles, 1952

“It was summer and there was war all over the world. There was war in Normandy and Italy and plenty of war in Russia. The war was going on in the islands and in the sky over Japan. The only war I knew about personally was the air war from England.”

I had never heard of this book until it was mentioned in a discussion on Facebook about war books; the spur for the discussion was a mother, a friend of mine, despairing at her son’s wish to join the armed forces, and his fascination with war.

I have read many books about the air war in Europe (Clostermann ) – but I had never heard of Bert Stiles. He joined the air war in Europe in April of 1944 flying B17 Flying Fortresses in the day-time bombing of France, Holland and Germany, and completed his tour of duty on bombers. He then transferred to fighters and was killed in a P51 Mustang in the late autumn of 1944.

This book is a first-hand narrative and as such has similarities with many others. The intensity of battle, the loss of friends, the poetry of flying, the peacefulness of the English countryside on days off. The feeling of brotherhood with other airmen, also with those of the enemy. This book has very little, if any, machismo, and all the more sadness and wonderment at the utility and futility of it all. Women also have a prominent place – not as warriors, but as objects of love and lust, and the book has a very frank and clear-eyed chapter about wartime prostitution – “Piccadilly Commandoes”. Stiles also sketches his relationships with “dames” he has known, and devotes several short chapters to a “Doll  Named August”. One wonders if she ever read the memoir, which was published by his mother, by the way.

Bert Stiles is a very sensitive soul, and a writing soul. He brings his typewriter with him to England, that is clear from the inventory of the room he shares with his pilot Sam (“are you cold?” – “no, I’m Sam”). He never mentions the act of writing in his memoir , so we are left to work out for ourselves that he must have used his resting time to write, maybe after interrogations, after chow, before drinking and sleeping and “being woked” for the next show. From Wikipedia we can learn that before he became a co-pilot, he was already a writer. He writes very well, too!

Stiles devotes space to reflect on the people who will be killed by the bombs he drops, and it’s clear that his feelings are conflicted; his vision for the future is one in which all humans will come together in the one element that they have in common, their humanity.

“Maybe boundary lines have their uses, and tariffs and visas and all the other barriers built up by men on the ground, but the air flows smoothly over all of them and from 20,000 it is pretty hard to see them or any very good reasons for them”.

A final word – by the time Stiles joined the air war over Europe, the Luftwaffe was largely a spent force. His odds of survival were thus much higher than if he had joined in 1943. The fact he flew many sorties before spotting the first fighters underscores this point. Flak (anti-aircraft guns) were a great danger though, and was probably what killed him in the end.

So I finally finished my copy of Jens Munk by Thorkild Hansen. It´s been sitting in our cabin for many years and I have been reading it on and off. It´s been taking its time not because it´s a bad book, on the contrary: it´s a great book. And that’s one reason why I wanted to write this little blog post. The book came out in 1965 and it also published in English – at least I think so!

Thorkild Hansen has written a gripping biography of Jens Munk. He uses the device of introducing a narrator in the book, “the chronicler”, who represents the author himself. This allows him to write sentences like “at this point the chronicler imagines.. since sources are missing” and so on; a nice literary touch. Hansen creates a dramatic tension which runs through the entire book – the conflict between the noble families in Denmark and Munk himself, with the King Christian IV on the sideline. The King is the arbiter of power, but his room for manoeuvring is limited by the constraints of the nobility. Jens Munk has inherited his father´s conflict with the latter group, and this keeps blocking him from achieving the status in society which his actions should have gained for him. He plays a central role in many significant military and commercial events of his time, and travels from “Bahia de todos los Santos” in Brazil (Salvador) to the White Sea and to Hudson bay.

The book itself is book-ended by the voyage to Hudson bay, starting with the scene in June 1620, Pentecost, when Jens writes his testament, finishing with the words “Hermed All verden god Nat og min Sjæl i Guds Haand” (with this good night to all the world and my soul in the hand of God). Of his crew of 64, 2 are left alive next to himself. Scurvy has killed the rest at their winter camp at the mouth of the Churchill river, in the southern part of Hudson bay. The three manage to float the smallest of the vessels, “Lamprenen”, and sail it to Bergen on the west coast of Norway, at that time part of the kingdom of Denmark-Norway. A feat reminiscent of Shackleton´s crossing of the South Atlantic from Elephant Island to the South Georgia Island (another great book  – “Endurance”).

The Hudson bay voyage is Munk´s main legacy, but Thorkild Hansen manages to spin a vivid and colourful story all along Munk´s lifeline, in the process giving light and sound and smell to Denmark and the many other places Munk visited in this lifetime. Scathing irony is reserved for the King and the nobility; sympathy goes to the common man who lives, dreams, suffers and dies.

Looking back, it´s literally incredible what travel was possible in those days, though the cost in terms of human life was enormous. It´s also obvious that the limited equipment meant that sea travel almost exclusively took place in the summer half of the year.

Finally, the ship “Scoubynacht” figures in this book, and that gave birth to the name of this blog.

I Heggelikroken på Kolsås, der turstien begynner, der gartneriet i sin tid stod, går en bro over bekken.

Vi ser den og undres over hva en slik vakker bro gjør akkurat her? Den leder fra en gruslagt plass inn på en velholdt plen i en privat hage, og er bygget med gamle jernbanesviller og et vakkert smijernsrekkverk. Broen er svært dekorativ, javel, men inviterer til en trafikk som det verken er grunnlag for eller ønske om! Den er en slags bro til ingensteds – har jeg tenkt.

I dag snakket jeg med broens opphavsmann. Da hans datter var liten, for mer enn 40 år siden, bygget han den første broen for at hun lettere skulle kunne være sammen med gartnerens hjertesyke datter. Den opprinnelige broen var noe enklere, men fylte sin rolle. Den hjertesyke jenta døde på operasjonsbordet da hun var omlag 12 år gammel.

En ny bro ble bygget noe senere; kanskje et flott smijernsrekkverk dukket opp hos en skraphandler og sådde frøet til nyskapningen.

For den som kjenner dens historie står den der som et minnesmerke over gammelt vennskap .

Potato holiday in Norway – off to Stockholm with ABUK, the “Asker and Bærum Youth Winds” – with the odd musician from Oslo, and even Italy. ABUK offers young adults aged 13-18 the possibility to play at a more advanced level than that afforded by the school bands that are their main affiliation. (cont below photos)

 

We travelled by train and stayed at the Zinkensdamm. This is a hostel of sorts located in a quiet part of Södermalm. No frills, no thrills, but well run and cheap. Perfect for us, and the nearest McFlurry was less than ten minutes away!

I really enjoyed Skansen and the ABBA museum, for similar reasons: nostalgia, and down to earth Swedishness. ABBA has been part of my life since I was about 8 or 9, when “Mamma Mia” came out. “Knowing me Knowing you” was the soundtrack to my visits to Tromsø and the Kroken downhill slope with its lift that was forever breaking down and its poorly maintained “pistes”. The interviews with Annifrid and Agneta stood out. One self-possessed and sure of herself, the other much less so. I went back and looked at the photos. You can see it all the way. “Arrival”, “The Album” – I bought them myself, and “Fernando” on 45rpm, played it to bits. Last night I hooked the Mac to my old hifi and turned up the volume on Knowing me – knowing you from Spotify. Listen to the bass line – and not just on this one.

Stockholm. Clean, tranquil, uncrowded, polite, cool, efficient, expensive. Imposing buildings, boulevards and squares. Not so cozy; not like Copenhagen, no, not at all. Here it made sense to hum “Baker Street” by Gerry Rafferty.

The kids. They´re musicians. They don´t have fancy handbags and fancy clothes. And they are probably not the coolest kids in school. But they act like most kids – except as a group they are incredibly easy to manage. And then they have an ace up their sleeve. They unpack their instruments, a particular, focused light comes on in their eyes, and they become an orchestra. Gets me every time.

 

Så var det loppis igjen. Sist jeg skrev om det var i 2013 (les!)

Man kan virkelig si MYE om et loppemarked. La meg begynne med et sitat fra en middelaldrende svartkledd kvinne: “Vi er veldig glad i loppemarked. Jeg kommer hit hver gang, og bruker 2-3 tusen. Jeg får ikke så mye for de pengene på Storsenteret, og jeg har seks barn”.

Det er interessant å se hvor godt en gjeng rutinerte – og hyggelige – korpsforeldre kan jobbe sammen med et minimum av instrukser fra sentralt hold. Det er som en maurtue. Hvert enkelt individ internaliserer sin vesle del av det store hele, og utfører de handlinger som skal til for å nå det felles målet. Subtile signaler fra dronningen styrer det hele på et ubevisst nivå. Og i helgen nådde vi et nytt maksimum av maurtue-het.

Har det hele forandret seg på 10 år? Nei, ikke egentlig. Det var en jevnere etnisk fordeling denne gangen, og litt mindre pruting jevnt over. Det er litt færre platinablondiner som henger på armen til muskuløse menn med kort hår, litt lenger mellom de som virkelig MÅ på loppemarked. Og de samme gjengangerne og de som har loppis som en del av livsstilen, og som kanskje ikke har det så enkelt på alle vis.

Prisnivået har steget svært lite på ti år, og fortjenesten er omtrent som den gangen. Vi har ikke blitt så rike at loppis er irrelevant, men senger og madrasser, som gikk før, de blir liggende.

Vi ses snart.