Apricot in Norway

Norway is, basically, the richest country in the world, occupying the first place (or close) in most of development indexes. It is situated in the Scandinavian chain close to Sweden and Denmark, the historical powers of these regions. It is not part of the European Union (EU) by referendum option (but, for example, it takes part in the space of free circulation of people – Schengen).

People are few and space is abundant. The older people talk little but those who are younger talk more and more. Oslo is a peaceful city, where wealth strikes you discretely as in a premonition. “Premonition” is, actually, an adequate word for Norway, rich with oil and natural gas of the North and Artic Seas that started to flow towards the “fat” budget of the Norwegian State since the 60´s. It envisioned an organization of social democratic matrix, a rigorous and discreet public control of vast riches that in so many other places of the world turned into ostentation, misery, war and death (some examples just in Africa: Niger, Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia, Sierra Leone, Coute d’Ivoire, Equatorial Guinea, Sudan and Chad). You can envision an almost philosophical anguish in people’s look (perhaps influenced by the grey climate varying from midnight’s sun to the minimum clarity of its winters), between the confident austerity and conscientious suicide. Death, Black, Trash & Other Metal, statues in Oslo, pines and endless routes sprinkled by reindeers and Sami people complete a quick image of the country. Trying to be even more imprecise, I proceed with 18 hobbies of the Norwegian:

1- To solve other peoples’ problems after having solved their own. Norway is one of the countries that most contributes towards international cooperation, frequently assuming itself as a conflict mediator (example: Sri Lanka and Cyprus) and developing a lot of investigation in this area. PRIO, for example, is an institute of international reference in the area of Peace and Conflict Studies.

2 - Death, Black, Trash & other Metal. Não só são norueguesas algumas das bandas de referência como também os noruegueses constituem, com grande probabilidade, o povo mais fanático por este género musical (“Podia-me traduzir esta letra dos Sepultura?” – perguntou-me candidamente um respeitável professor sexagenário).
2- Death, Black, Trash & other Metal. Not only are most of the bands of reference Norwegian but also the Norwegian constitute, with great probability, the most fanatic people for this particular musical genre. (Could you translate these Sepultura’s lyrics for me? – candidly asked me a respectable sexagenarian teacher).
3- To award the Nobel Peace prize, the most prestigious of prices (Norwegian Nobel Institute of Oslo)
4- To commit suicide.
5- To fish (second largest fishing fleet in Europe and great exporter) and to produce fish (including cod fish) in fish farms.
6- To die in car crashes caused by mousses.
7- To talk little (diminishing and in inversely proportional to age).
8- To have comfortable bathrooms with heated floor.
9- To eat pig’s heads (including the eyes, the best part, of course).
10- To drink wine every time the bottle costs less than 3500 kroner (nearly 40€). Directly related to this hobby is the sub-hobby of the alcohol exaggerations in ferries.

11- To build and show statues (with particular regard for the Master Viggeland).
12- To steal and recover famous paintings.
13- Trekking and cross-country skiing through the middle of the pine trees. Worth noting that those who practice cross-country skiing are usually persevering and methodical athletes who enjoy jazz and classical music while ski jumpers are usually adventurous, eccentric and, eventually, members of black metal bands.
14- To redistribute the oil’s money (they have, for example, the highest minimum wage of the world – something close to 12€/hour).
15- To read newspapers. They are the people that read more newspapers, counting with more than 80 daily newspapers (more than 230 altogether).
16- To speak English. Almost everyone speaks this language and a great part of higher education is in English. The adaptation by the teachers was difficult, but it has been successful.
17- To get a suntan. Holidays in the South and solariums.
18- To breath oxygen with flavours (I suggest apricot).

Why do it differently in Portugal?

Last week, I had the opportunity to go back to Romania, more concretely to Bucharest, through my involvement in an European network of researchers in the area of Prospective/Foresight. The meeting was quite interesting, allowing the exchange of different national experiences, the exploration of common work possibilities and contributing for the conceptual, methodological, and empirical “densification” of the discipline. The usual thing in these European networks (when they go well, of course).
I had been in Romania 12 years ago, involved in an European project of implementation of a Business Innovation Centre in Timisoara, in the west of the country.
At the time, the image I retained both of Timisoara and of the rest of the country was quite greyish (in spite of recognizing the richness of its landscape), of a castrating poverty, of detachment, contrasting with the cultural and historical dimensions of these places. They were accounts of an Orwellian dictatorship, communist and populist, which managed and conditioned everything, spearheaded by Nicolae Ceausescu and his wife Elena.
The cars and buses fell apart, except for the limousines of dealers (of people, drugs, arms, etc.) that beneficiated a lot with the conflicts associated to the desegregation of Yugoslavia.
Today, if in Bucharest, we can still find signals of the anachronic dictatorship of Ceausescu and comrades (though similar signal also still exist, for example, in Berlin), not much is left of that Romania of 1994.
There are still a few Dacia but the company has been, meanwhile, bought by Renault. There are loads of BMW and similar cars. The multinationals are present all over the country and have become landmarks of the capital’s image. The center of Bucharest can be perfectly mistaken by any other European capital. Deloitte Offices, young executives of dark suits, design coffees and bars, restaurants of every colours and forms, Irish pubs… The Ibis Hotel has rooms, on special offer, at 99€/night (in 1994 to cross Timisoara in a falling apart taxi , in roads full of potholes cost something like 4 escudos in the exchange rate of the time).

The traffic is chaotic. At night, I watch BBC and Chelsea TV in my hotel room. Everything is transformed, everything is built. Roads, motorways, apartments, skyscrapers. Distribution is also on a high with the presence of great European networks like Lidl and Carrefour.

There are also Portuguese. Lena Construções is, for example, in charge of the motorway connection works between the airport and the city. Coindu (upholsteries) is also present in Romania, like Mota-Engil, Infosistema (information systems consultancy) and, of course, BCP (just to give some examples). The bathroom of my hotel was equipped with ‘Valadares’ Ceramic.
There are clear signs that some Portuguese groups (essentially linked to construction) understood that they can replicate in the East the experience accumulated in Portugal. Romania is only an example that is still just starting.
Therefore the doubts I have in relation to those who defend that it is this time that Portuguese capital, given the possible profitability reduction of the sectors linked to the “soil” (construction and similar) and to distribution, would finally start to look with more attention towards industries and services linked to knowledge.
At the end of the day, let’s be frank, why do it differently in Portugal if we can earn so much more money doing the same in any other place?

A per capita country and the Lebanon war (with Europe in between)

Time for holidays, of unpretentious readings (how I miss the Summer of the “Da Vinci Code”…) and of futilities to relax. Parties with sardines or vodka, with foam or salami. Going south, to the coast, towards a heat that is attenuated by the sea.

Escaping the everyday buzz to try and understand it better. Everything is in pre-epoch in Portugal. Everything is ok. Those who can, go to the hotel. Those who sort of can, rent a place and share the costs with family and friends. Those who almost can’t, try to enjoy a couple of escapes to the beach. Those who cannot, either pretend they can or stay at home.

We are important people and that allows us to go on holidays in a relaxed manner. We are important, not only because we are one of the four better football squads of the world, but also because our C-130 travels, “at UN’s request”, between Italy and Beirut. And it is the only one. The national logic and the journalistic presentation of these two “important things” is more or less the same. One like the other let us at ease with ourselves.

On the one hand, we are good at doing what we like, that is, to play football (and everything associated to it: from Super Bock to cafe chit chat). All this despite us being a small country, make notice therefore that, in per capita terms, we clearly were the world champions.

On the other hand, we do per capita our very meaningful part, in helping the international effort to respond to the conflict in Lebanon. I repeat, our C-130 travels, “at UN’s request”, between Italy and Beirut to transport humanitarian aid. And it is the only one. Drawn in jealousy super-powers. It is on these little details that great nations define themselves!

Strangely, nobody seems ask why the hell is our C-130 the only one doing this work. But this does not matter. What matters is that it is the only one and it is Portuguese and that Portugal, in spite of being a small country, leads the aerial humanitarian effort to help the victims of the bombardments. That really puts me at ease. What else could we have done? It already had been our Minister of Foreign Affairs (MFA) who had asked for a special meeting of the MFA of the EU about this subject and now we had our plane that just keeps landing in Beirut filled with humanitarian aid.

It is true that, once again, the EU was completely incapable of taking a common stance that someone understands. It is also true that the international intervention plan in this conflict seems to be peacefully (to give Israel more time to do its “work”) prepared by the USA, by talking to those that matter. And, in Europe, it is France and the United Kingdom that matters (and, in a second level, Germany and Italy). The EU does not have armed forces prepared to die by the orders of the President of the Commission of of the European Parliament or of the Council. In Foreign Policy and Defence, the EU could be a vision or a Project, but it is not (I do not know if it must be) a reality.

As I have said before, us Portuguese, are at ease because we have already done what we could. Nowadays we are in the need of holidays, of pink magazines, of “Da Vinci Code” sequels, of open-air discos and pretty people. Pretty people like those who appeared on Beirut’s photography, the Paris of the Middle East, once again bombarded on a daily basis. Many of those pretty people should already have gone out of the city and the country (at least pretty people with appropriated nationality, that is, not Lebanese, and/or with enough money).
In Lebanon and Israel, the war became once again an everyday affair, occulting, among other tragedies, the Iraqi (only a man with the charisma of Fidel Castro managed to rival media-wise with an Israeli-Arab war; and, even so, only if the intensity of bombardments and the clarity of the mutilated bodies’ images is not enough).
I try to read something about what happens.
I knew there was an UN resolution to disarm Hezbollah and that, if something is certain, is that Hezbollah was not disarmed (thousands of missiles moved in lorries usually do not result from a well succeeded disarmament). It is true that the fact that Hezbollah, supported by Syria and a pro-nuclear Iran (remember?), violating the international line that separates (separated?) Israel from Lebanon, attacking Israeli soldiers and kidnapping two of them is not exactly an act of peace.

It is true that the non-recognition of the state of Israel state by Hezbollah, by Hamas and the successive declarations of Iranian representatives are not exactly an act of approximation to Israel, a small country in permanent state of war and fighting for survival.

It is true that Israel’s response is brutal, perhaps disproportional (but disproportional to what?, the two soldiers’ life or to the existence of a nation?). It is true that the news and the images that arrive to us are extreme.
I do not really know where to find guidance from. I will just stay here. Reading, Talking and trying to understand a bit better. Good holidays.

China and Oil

China: after the end of Civil War, the formal constitution of Mao Tsé-tung’s Democratic Republic of China occurred in 1949. Shortly afterwards, in South-east Asia, the collision between Chinese and north-American interests leads up to the internationalization of the Korean War (immediately, and despite the high number of casualties, contention worked, the Korean War remained a war of regional proportions). Mao Tsé-tung’s China then began the “Cultural Revolution” which ended up dying with its creator in 1976. From then onwards the Chinese way solidifies (already initiated, though probably unconsciously, by the Sino-American Shanghai communication in 1972, marking the conciliation of interests between China and USA, in regards to the soviet giant) in direction towards a pragmatic model of incorporation of “market” in socialism, and making China, in the present day, an undeniable actor in a reflection about world’s evolution in the XXI century.Oil: it is undeniable that “black gold” has been proving itself worthy of the comparison with the precious metal. In 1973, the agreement involving the limitation of production and the rise of the price of the oil barrel (triggered by a critique of Israel’s expansionism and to the rules of international commerce) was initiated by OPEP and led to an economic crisis of great proportions in the economies of the western powers (with the USA at the forefront). Already before (1970), the USA had achieved the maximum of its oil production (peak oil), which is classified by some authors [1] as the most important economic event of the last fifty years: north-American supremacy in terms of the international oil market (obtained through production in American soil) was about to end. – something that became dramatically clear, as I referred, three years later. But oil was also craftily used by the USA (specially by Reagan from 1981 onwards) during the “arms race”, not only when trying to deny access to some important equipments for oil exploration to the soviets by, for example, supporting regional conflicts that were stressful for the USSR such as Afghanistan and instilling Saudi Arabia to sell oil (a lot of it and at cheap prices) so that it would make more difficult for the USSR to finance the arms race through oil revenues. Finally, in 1987 the USSR reached its peak oil (not long before the brutal fall of Soviet economy which preceded the dismantlement of the empire). Today oil is the centre of attentions once again, not just due to speculation about the reasons of USA’s intervention in Iraq but also in consequence of the increasing consensus surrounding the true question of global peak oil being “when is it going to take place?” and not “is it going to happen?”.China and oil: it is almost common sense to look at China, a country that does not produce oil, like a certain strategic and economic power of the new century. It is also common sense that the reach of global peak oil will have serious consequences at economic and social levels – just think about industrial dependence on crude. It is also not a common thought the one that China’s high rates of economic and urbanization/industrialization growth can prove themselves unsustainable, with the oil barrel costing, for example, 80 dollars. In this case, the very solidity of the imaginative Chinese model would be questioned, with grave consequences not just for China but also, understandably, to the whole global economy.

[1] See, for example, HEINBERG, Richard – Smoking Gun: The CIA’s Interest in Peak Oil. In CAMPBELL, C.J.; HILL, Staball, comp. – “ASPO Newsletter No 33 – September 2003”, pp.7-8 (disponível em http://www.cge.uevora.pt/energia/Newsletter33.doc).

Who are you?

It is not easy to talk about civilizations nowadays. I mean, it isn’t, above all, politically correct to do so. Ever since Samuel Huntington published, in the summer of 1993, the famous article in which he associated the word “clash” with civilizations that the discussion around these millenary entities has been violent. The international political environment (Afghanistan, Israel/Palestine, Iraq, 11th September, North Korea, etc) has not, obviously, been blind to the referred enthusiasm.
Using this reading grid as a possible alternative to face the critiques directed towards an analysis based purely on the nation-state, I propose a brief look on the civilization’s optic of the western “proponent-regulator”.
Looking at the world, it seems clear that the so called Western Civilization does not form a coherent whole or an indistinctive one, since it can be, for example, between Europeans and north-Americans and between Catholics and Protestants. It is relatively close to the Jewish (with a very relevant power not only in Israel but also in the USA, in the United Kingdom and in the Netherlands) and to the orthodox (these divided between Greek and Slavic). As it happens in most of religions, Catholics too could be divided between progressive and integrators, while it is also important to notice the growing importance of Evangelicals in countries like Brazil and the USA.

The West “manages” its relation with the orthodox fundamentalists through security (i.e. NATO’s enlargement), through political and economic integration (i.e. EU) and of Investment (i.e. boom of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) fluxes in the 90’s). It is also the FDI that brings the Western and Confucians world closer together with a global perception that the Chinese sleeping giant is waking up very quickly (we will see if international reserves of hydrocarbon will allow it). The same happens between Hindu India and the West (i.e. the importance of FDI in India in watering down the tensions with Pakistan), between Japan and the West (with the central difference being that Japan shares with the West the big decisions of global economic and finance regulation) and between Latin America and the West (the ALCA is only one of the attempts).
Africa, however, seems to continue to be forgotten about, being important however to accompany the emergence of some countries as significant oil producers (West Africa) and the geopolitical role held by African countries of Islamic civilization (like Libya, Egypt and Sudan). This last civilization, in the centre of the more recent geopolitical hurricane, is profoundly divided. Some examples: Shiites vs. Sunnis; Arabs vs. Turks vs. Malays vs. Persians. Turkey, which takes part in NATO and is a candidate to enter the EU. Indonesia is an ally of the USA (the same with Morocco, Egypt and Saudi Arabia – though the relation between this state, where the holy places of Islam are, and the USA have been deteriorating a lot since 9/11). Pakistan is a partner (though “a slippery one”). Iraq is, at the moment, under the control of USA forces. Nonetheless, it seems undeniable that the question “Who are you?” substituted “on which side are you?”, traditionally linked to profoundly ideological conflicts like the Spanish Civil War, the Cold War or even the Second World War. The problem is that “Who are you?” suffers from a rigidity and therefore of flammability which is way more evident. …
[2] See Boniface, Pascal: “Guerras do Amanhã”, Editorial Inquérito, 2003; Huntington, Samuel P. [et al.]: “O Choque das Civilizações – O debate sobre a tese de Samuel P. Huntington”, Gradiva, 1999; Huntington, Samuel P.: “O Choque das Civilizações e a Mudança na Ordem Mundial”, Gradiva, 1999.