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).

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).