Norway

Norway,officially theKingdom of Norway(Norwegian:Kongeriket Norge), is a country andconstitutional monarchyinNorthern Europethat occupies the western portion of theScandinavian Peninsula.It is bordered bySweden,Finland,andRussia.The distance between the northern and southern parts of Norway is considerable compared to east-west distances. The country's extensive coastline along theNorth Atlantic Oceanis home to its famous fjords. Norway is one of the mostdeveloped countriesin the world. Like other Scandinavian countries, it contains a mixed economy featuring both a privatefree marketand a powerful government sector which partially owns many major industries and operates a comprehensivewelfare state.After retaining aneutralforeign policyfor several centuries, it was invaded byNazi GermanyduringWorld War IIand became a founding member ofNATOduring theCold War.However, it voted against entering theEuropean Union.Its current head of state isHarald V of Norway,and its current head of government is Prime MinisterJonas Gahr Støre.

[I]f you want to live like a Norwegian, buy a plane ticket. ~Jim Geraghty

Quotes

• Norway would have been better off inside theEU.
  • The Conservative Party, led by Prime MinisterErna Solberg,would have liked Norway to have full membership, quoted inThe Globe and Mail,"Norway’s deal with EU could be a model for Britain",March 17, 2016.

• For many generations, Norway, with its homely, rugged population engaged intrade,shipping,fishing,andagriculture,had stood outside the turmoil of world politics. Far off were the days when the Vikings had sallied forth to conquer or ravage a large part of the then-known world. TheHundred Years' War,theThirty Years' War,the wars ofWilliam IIIandMarlborough,theNapoleonicconvulsion, and later conflicts had left Norway―though separated fromDenmark―unmoved and unscathed. A large proportion of the people had hitherto thought ofneutralityand neutrality alone. A tiny army and a population with no desires except to live peaceably in their ownmountainousand semi-Arcticcountry now fell victims to the newGermanaggression.
  • Winston Churchill,The Second World War Volume I: The Gathering Storm(1948)

• I have to say that everybody fromDavid Cameronto half this panel say, "Wouldn't it be terrible ifwewere like Norway andSwitzerland?"Really? They're rich. They're happy. They're self governing.
  • Nigel Farage,Speaking on BBC Question Time in Lincoln,17 January 2013.

• [...] and you, my compatriots in Norway, have no grounds for complaining that we have forgotten the dear, familiar and specific character with whichGodhas endowed our land and our nation. That is so firmly entrenched in our being that it finds expression, whether we like it or not. Do not, therefore, insult us further with such [an accusation]; it hurts our feelings, and thereby proves how unfounded it is, for otherwise it would be easy to treat it with indifference.
  • Hans Gude,Reported in Frode Haverkamp.Hans Fredrik Gude: From National Romanticism to Realism in Landscape,trans. Joan Fuglesang (in Norwegian).

• We have been given an assignment as amonarchy,and we do as well as we can… We try to be as littlepopulisticas possible. We don't do anything on the spur of the moment to win an opinion poll, or short-term popularity.
  • Harald V of Norway,interview in Wenche Fuglehaug (November 21, 2005). "Norway's monarchy turns 100",Aftenposten,Aftenposten Multimedia A/S, Oslo, Norway.

• Yesterday, on the 17th of May, weNorwegianscelebrated our constitution day to mark the signing of Norway'sconstitutionin 1814. Maybe it is because we are a small country: In Norway this is an important day. All over Norwaychildrenhave paraded in their best clothes to the music of thousands of marching bands, and countless speeches have been made to remind each others, as fellow Norwegians, that freedom should never be taken for granted.
  • Andreas Heldal-Lund,Award Winner's Speech,Leipzig Human Rights Award,2003 Leipzig Human Rights Award of the European-American Citizens Committee for Human Rights and Religious Freedom in the USA, (May 18, 2003).

• TheSovietleaders have always disliked and feared theNorth Atlantic Alliance,and all that it stands for. They did their utmost to prevent it being born. You will remember that just as your distinguished Foreign MinisterMr. Langewas about to leave Oslo forWashingtonto enquire about the North Atlantic Treaty, a Note was received from the Soviet Government inviting Norway to conclude a non-aggression pact with them. Norway made her choice. She declined the Russian offer; and on the 3rd March, 1949 decided to join the Atlantic Alliance, while making it clear that she would not allow armed forces of foreign powers to be stationed in Norway so long as the country had not been attacked or threatened with attack. Thus the Soviet failed to prevent the Treaty being signed, but this did not deter them from trying to prevent the Alliance being extended or strengthened. When there was a question ofGreeceandTurkeyjoining the Alliance, the Soviet did their utmost by a mixture of blandishment and threats to prevent their doing so. Two years ago they took exactly the same line when the question of the accession of theFederal Republic of Germanywas under consideration.
  • Hastings Ismay,Speech to the Norwegian Atlantic Committee in Oslo,15 May 1956

• The Northmen are often said to have burst out of their coastal settlements in what is nowSweden,Norway, andDenmarkat the end of the eighth century. The most famous account of their arrival into theChristian realmsof the west comes fromBritain.In 793 warriors appeared off the coast ofNorthumbria,leaped from their ships, and robbed the island ofLindisfarne,desecrating the monastery and murdering its brothers. This ferocious raid sent shock waves rippling out fromBritain.When the news reachedCharlemagne’s court inAachen,Alcuin of Yorkwrote to the king of Northumbria, deploring the fact that “the church of St Cuthbert is spattered with the blood of thepriestsofGod,stripped of all its furnishing, exposed to the plundering of pagans.” He suggested to the king that he and hisnoblemenmight mend their ways, starting by adopting moreChristianhaircuts and clothing styles. But it was too late for any of that. The Northmen had announced themselves as a major power in the western world. The next year, 794, raiders appeared on the other side of theBritish Isles,in theHebrides.In 799 Vikings raided the monastery ofSaint-Philibert at Noirmoutier,just to the south of the river Loire. Sixty years later Viking raids would be a painful feature of life not only in theNorthandIrish Seasbut as far away asLisbon,Seville,andnorth Africa,as Northmen tangled withAnglo-Saxons,Irish,Umayyads,andFranks.In 860 a band of Viking-descended warriors from what is now northwestRussiaeven sailed toConstantinoplevia the riverDnieperand theBlack Sea,and laid the city under siege. Although exposed only to a tiny part of this, the chronicler of Noirmoutier wrote what could have been an epigram for the entire age: “The number of ships grows, the endless stream of Vikings never ceases to increase... the Vikings conquer everything in their path and nothing resists them.”
  • Dan Jones,Powers and Thrones: A New History of the Middle Ages(2021).

• Americans reflexively believe that 'HadGermanyoccupiedtheUnited States,nearly all of us would have joined anarmed resistanceto theNazis.That's what I thought, too, when I was 16. But that reflects a hopelessly naive view, both of what the world looked like to most people after the Nazis had conqueredAustria,Poland,Czechoslovakia,Holland,Belgium,Luxembourg,Denmark,Norway andFrance,and of what it actually meant to take up arms against an occupying power'.
  • Charles Kaiser,"What Americans forget about French resistance"(7 May 2015),Cable News Network,Atlanta, Georgia.

• We talk about the people who came to Russia with an intention either to work or to visit relatives. They had not declared that their real purpose of the visit was to flee to Norway.This means that they had deliberately providedfalse informationabout the purpose of their visit to Russia. This is why we do not want to take these people back.
  • Russian Foreign MinisterSergei Lavrovon deported refugees from Norway travelling to Russia, quoted onThe Nordic Page,"Russia Will Not Accept Deported Refugees from Norway",January 26, 2016.

• TheEuropean Unionand many of its countries, which used to take initiatives in theUnited Nationsforpeaceful settlements of conflict,are now one of the most important war assets of theU.S./NATO front.Many countries have also been drawn into complicity in breakinginternational lawthroughU.S./U.K./NATO warsinAfghanistan,Iraq,Libya,and so on.
  • Mairead MaguireinThe Disturbing Expansion of the Military-Industrial Complex,Common Dreams,(14 October 2014)

• If there is anyone who still wonders why this war is being fought, let him look to Norway. If there is anyone who has any delusions that this war could have been averted, let him look to Norway; and if there is anyone who doubts thedemocraticwill to win, again I say, let him look to Norway.
  • Franklin D. Roosevelt,"Look to Norway"speech (1942), reported in American Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO (1976).The American Federationist,Page 24, v.48-49 1941-1942.

• We have a high standard of living.… In Norway, we've tripled our income since 1970. In the rest ofwestern Europe,income has merely doubled.
  • Jens Stoltenberg,interview in Torgrim Eggen (2001). "At the Top: An interview with Jens Stoltenberg",Scanorama.

• Surely even the most vehement of ideologues couldn't find anything wrong with Norway?
  • Catherine Webb,The First Fifteen Lives of Harry August(2014), Chapter 63

Harald V of Norway, Garden party in the Palace Park: welcoming speech (September 1, 2016)

Harald V of Norway,Garden party in the Palace Park: welcoming speech[1](September 1, 2016)

• So what is Norway?
  Norway is highmountainsand deepfjords.It is wide open spaces and rocky coastlines. It isislandsand archipelagos. It is lush farmland and rolling moors.
  Thesealaps Norway’s shores in the north, west and south.
  Norway is midnightsunand polar night. It is harsh winters and mild winters. It is hot summers and cold summers.
  Norway is a long and sparsely populated country.
  But above all, Norway is itspeople.
• Norwegianscome fromNorth Norway,Central Norway,Southern Norway– and all of the other regions. Norwegians haveimmigratedfromAfghanistan,PakistanandPoland,fromSweden,SomaliaandSyria.My grandparents came here fromDenmarkandEngland110 years ago.
• Norwegians believe inGod,Allah,theUniverseandnothing.
• Norway is you. Norway is us.
• My greatest hope for Norway is that we will be able to take care of one another. That we will continue to build this country – on a foundation oftrust,fellowship and generosity of spirit. That we will feel that we are – despite our differences – one people. That Norway is one.

Attributed

• Norway did not even have arevolutionat the time the rest of Europe was busy figuring outhuman rightsand stuff, because we were busy fighting over how tospellit.
  • Erik Naggum,comp.lang.lisp

• [...] and you, my compatriots in Norway, have no grounds for complaining that we have forgotten the dear, familiar and specific character with which God has endowed our land and our nation. That is so firmly entrenched in our being that it finds expression, whether we like it or not. Do not, therefore, insult us further with such [an accusation]; it hurts our feelings, and thereby proves how unfounded it is, for otherwise it would be easy to treat it with indifference.
  • Hans Gude,reported in Frode Haverkamp.Hans Fredrik Gude: From National Romanticism to Realism in Landscape,trans. Joan Fuglesang (in Norwegian).

• Norway, too, has noble wild prospects; and Lapland is remarkable for prodigious noble wild prospects. But, Sir, let me tell you, the noblest prospect which aScotchmanever sees, is the high road that leads him to England!
  • Samuel Johnson,reported inJames Boswell,Life of Johnson(1791), July 6, 1763, p. 120 (Vol. 1)

External links

Wikibooks

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