Christina Swan

Haha! Unoriginal as I am, I realise that lots of people have written similar stuff to what I wrote in my last blog. See for example Ed's latest blog entry (written before mine, sigh...), or this surprisingly truthful article in the Daily Mail, by another Brit writing about Norway. Despite occasional complaints about my country, I am still patriotic enough to link to the article here for anyone interested in the weirdness of Norway, which the writer calls "Blandinavia".

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news....

Enjoy :-)

Christina

Norway's on a list. My country tops the list of the UN's list of the best countries in the world to live in. The average Norwegian is easily proud and doesn't want to share this title or the greedy secret behind it, to anybody. We do live in the world's "best country to live in". Yet I've never met people who are more bored with life and searching so much for meaning than the people I meet in Norway. We can afford to buy anything, but it doesn't guarantee satisfaction or even meaning with life. If you take Norway's oil fund (the one for future generations, to use when the oil runs out), it equals an equivalent of 300 000 kroner (approx. 30 000 pounds) per person. 300 000 kroner! That's in addition to the wages and bonuses we currently receive when we work, the holiday money and tax money that goes to pay welfare services. And what do we do with our spare time? We spend the money that we earned working... and when that's used up, or when "time's up", we go back to earning and spend the money on ourselves. Great.

Beyond Norway's millions of minutes of fame as the best country in the world to live in, when you live in Norway you realise there are other lists in function. Like: how many billions of kroner are we going to spend on Christmas presents this year (I don't even want to put the statistic up here). Who are Norway's richest and most powerful people. Who won the Top model contest. If they made a list of the happiest inhabitants in the world, how low would Norway score I wonder?

Wouldn't it be great if the lists that currently exist could be altered so that Norway topped the list over giving to countries in need. So that the amount of kroner we spend on Christmas presents still could be the same, billions of kroner, but be channeled into other Christmas presents, like mosquito nets for those who live in malarial areas. Clean water where there is none. Compensation for the environment that Norway has helped to destroy through over-using electricity and polluting the climate, leadidng to some people's experience of severe drought and the consequence: having to flee their homes in a quest to survive until the next day.

20% of the worlds' population use up 80% of the world's resources. That leaves 80% of the world's population using 20% of the world's resources. The "poorest people in the world". And the funny thing is, they are probably happier and have much more integrity than the rest of us. I reckon they deserve this integrity too.

Kirkens Nødhjelp (Norwegian Church Aid) has a campaign this Christmas: give a goat or some chickens, a vegetable garden, sports equipment, a water pump or a sewing machine as a Christmas present this year. The person in Norway you give the present to gets a postcard with a picture of a goat/a sewing machine/chickens etc (whatever you decide to give) and the money you send to Kirkens Nødhjelp goes to buying a family in the South a goat, a sewing machine, clean water, etc. What a great gift idea to those of us who have everything (which includes most of the people in the Western world, to be honest.) Gifts that change the world. See http://www.gaversomforandrerverden.no/home/default.aspx 

Have a blessed advent!

Christina