contexploration

Our democratic societies were founded on words of tremendous effect: Without the vocabulary of the Declaration of Independence, the American Constitution and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, it is difficult to imagine what our world would have looked like today. But note: In these documents there is no obligation to love one another, or to believe in any God. Equality before the law is not the result of emotional pleas to show loyalty. The fundamental rights enshrined in the above-mentioned texts are the result of an understanding of the limits of politics. Americans are patriots not because they are asked to be so, but because the foundation of their republic was one of the few momentous accomplishments of humanity. The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution are worthy of patriotism. To administer this legacy is the privilege of American politicians. In the business of politics, principled thinking should triumph emotion, as was done when the United States of America was born.

Continue reading "Faith in Obama" »

Posted by contexploration at 08:00 AM | Permalink

Last year, during the first Muhammad cartoons controversy, the Islamists staged an organized assault on the economies and interests of Denmark and Norway. Danish and Norwegian embassies in Iran, Syria and Lebanon were fire-bombed. Death threats were issued against the Danish artists who made the drawings and to the editors who published them. In Norway, the editor of the Christian weekly Magazinet had to live under round-the-clock police protection. Crowds armed with rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons attacked the base of Norwegian peacekeeping soldiers in Afghanistan. Consumer boycotts were organised in a series of Middle East countries. In Pakistan, offices of Danish and Norwegian businesses were vandalized. The day of the destruction of the Danish embassy in Beirut, the Secretary General of Hezbollah, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, specified the mission of the Islamists as such:

Continue reading "Giving in to Islamists didn’t save the Swedes" »

Posted by contexploration at 07:58 PM | Permalink

We were invited to the San Felipe Pueblo, Katishtya, New Mexico, where we attended the Green Corn Dance. The Pueblo of San Felipe is a Native American tribe part of the Keresan speaking people. In the town square, a group of twenty or so men stood in the centre, singing, to the beat of a gigantic pounding drum. Hundreds of dancers circled the singers, using gourd rattles to accompany the beat. Many held sprigs of evergreen. The male dancers wore white buckskin moccasins, white kilts and red body paint. The upper torso, arms and legs of the men were nude. The female dancers had black shawls, red belts and were barefooted. Dust covered the thousands of spectators who stood quietly watching the dance, in front of their houses, from balconies, rooftops and the alleys leading to the square. Their insistence on not transforming it into a tourist extravaganza – by not marketing it, and by prohibiting the use of cameras, sketching or recording equipment – made the celebration unique. Being among the few non-natives in the pueblo, my girlfriend and I might perhaps have felt a bit out of place, but there was neither any extraordinary hospitality granted us, nor a trace of hostility from anyone we talked to.

Continue reading "To be alike is to think alike" »

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One summer afternoon at St Hanshaugen in Oslo, I was sitting on a bench contemplating the sunset and life, when suddenly Erling, the furniture builder, jumped out from behind some bushes and sat down next to me. He was in an exceptionally good mood. This summer he had been out of town in his studio in Hønefoss working consistently on a log of oak, making tables and chairs for his affluent clients:

Continue reading "Stop the love hype" »

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In honour of the resilient Iraqi democrats who strive to make Iraq a peaceful, multi-ethnic country, I quote some of their words, four years after the invasion to topple Saddam Hussein.

Continue reading "In the words of Iraqi democrats" »

Posted by contexploration at 12:41 PM | Permalink

Here are some quotes from the international debate on European multiculturalism:

Continue reading "The debate on European multiculturalism: More links" »

Posted by contexploration at 01:48 PM | Permalink

The Iraqi-Norwegian couple, Inger Østenstad and Hawdan Salih Jaf, criss-crossed Iraq for a year in 2004. Their notes resulted in the book Reiser i krigens skygge (roughly translated Journeys in the shadow of the war) published in Norway in 2006. The book gives valuable insights into life in Iraq. As Hawdan Salih Jaf himself is a Kurd originally from Slemani, the authors were able to travel and get first-hand information through conversations with relatives and friends from all sects and levels of Iraqi society. As the security situation deteriorated, the people of Iraq rejoiced at the toppling of Saddam Hussein, feared the growing Islamist terrorism and were frustrated by the failure of the American reconstruction effort.

Continue reading "Debriefing the citizens of the republic of fear" »

Posted by contexploration at 05:05 PM | Permalink

At last, it looks like the debate on multiculturalism in Europe is gaining momentum. A series of articles in different journals and newspapers attempt to highlight the watering out of vital principles of liberal democracy. The European version of multiculturalism has up until now taken the form of parallel monoculturalisms, through the creation of immigrant ghettos within every state itself.

Continue reading "Debate on European multiculturalism is gaining momentum" »

Posted by contexploration at 10:00 AM | Permalink

A few years back the discussion in the Norwegian public sphere was all about the Norwegian State Church. Should it accept homosexual priests? Many young Christians invested a considerable amount of energy in lobbying for this cause. Finally the Church made a U-turn. Homosexual priests and female bishops are now hailed as one of the milestones in the liberalisation of the Norwegian “People’s Church”. Today, Islam is in the spotlight. Last summer, a series of hate crimes in Oslo against gays sparked a debate. The perpetrators were Muslim youth. Later that fall, the Op-Ed editor of Norway’s leading daily, Knut Olav Åmås, challenged Norwegian politicians and members of the Muslim community to come forward with success stories about young, Muslim homosexuals. This call went unanswered. On the contrary, a young Muslim man chose to write an anonymous letter to the editor in Aftenposten describing his tortured life as both Muslim and gay: “I’m afraid this story might not have a happy ending.” The letter drew responses from some Muslim, Norwegian politicians, but the attempt to bring forth more tolerant views on homosexuality had failed.

Continue reading "Adjusting religion is a religion in itself" »

Posted by contexploration at 12:12 PM | Permalink

The Norwegian equivalent of September 11th – the double theft of Edvard Munch’s “The Scream” and “Madonna” – has been reversed. Two years ago the paintings were stolen from the Munch Museum in Oslo in broad daylight. Two armed men broke into the museum, ran away with the paintings and jumped into a waiting car. On Thursday, police in Norway recovered the paintings.

Continue reading "Scream-for-sex deal sparks anger" »

Posted by contexploration at 08:47 PM | Permalink

Europe’s model of multiculturalism is a model of Europe itself. Every European nation has had a violent birth. Even the establishment of the new nation states of the Balkans in the 1990s did not occur peacefully. The organisation of Europe has traditionally been multicultural, but it has been a mosaic of parallel cultures, not a continent of intermingled diversity. The borders in Europe are not randomly drawn, but were actual security barriers erected to prevent slaughter after centuries of horrific wars.

Continue reading "The origins of European multiculturalism" »

Posted by contexploration at 08:00 AM | Permalink

Congratulations on another week of excellent activity! We have managed to create mayhem in Mumbai, Baghdad, Beirut, Haifa and Mogadishu. Thank you to all those who took part. I know many of us may have perished during this working week, but congratulations to them as well! They helped raise the number of dead and thus contributed to even higher levels of mourning. There can never be enough blood and guts flowing in the streets of the world. But even though the number of dead and dismembered have increased steadily lately, there is still room for improvement. Take my advice to heart. Maybe we can boost the efficiency of our organization? There is no need for any pause in our activity now that we are on such a nice roll.

Continue reading "Humanity – Lovers of death and destruction" »

Posted by contexploration at 08:00 AM | Permalink

The mullahs who hold power in Iran claim to know the will of God, and demand that all citizens must follow the “law of God,” which in Iran’s case refers to Islamic law based on the Koran. If the Islamic clergy are unsure of what position God would take on a certain matter, the question is resolved by the Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Khamenei. If you take the ayatollah’s word for it when he says that he knows best what God wants, then this way of deciding law is a perfectly reasonable way of organizing society. If not, then the Ayatollah is a liar, and Iran is, in fact, a dictatorship.

Continue reading "Four writers on Iran" »

Posted by contexploration at 08:00 AM | Permalink

THIRD BLAIR SPEECH Tony Blair has delivered the third in his series of speeches on the international situation. In this speech, Blair lays out his hopes of defining common, universal values for an interdependent world. In approaching this he briefly examines the question of effective multilateral institutions. The problem is that multilateral cooperation can only get you so far if you do not accept the idea of supranationality (for example in the form of delicate use of majority voting as developed in the European Union). This is the essential question of redefining democracy in an interdependent world.

Continue reading "Weekly roundup, May 29th 2006" »

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RELIGION AND POSTMODERNISM: French philosopher Andre Glucksmann writes: “Civilised discourse analyses and defines scientific truths, historic truths and matters of fact relating to knowledge, not to faith. And it does this irrespective of race or confession. We may believe these facts are profane or undignified, yet they remain distinct from religious truths. Our planet is not in the grips of a clash of civilisations or cultures. It is the battleground of a decisive struggle between two ways of thinking."

Continue reading "Weekly roundup, April 3rd 2006" »

Posted by contexploration at 10:04 PM | Permalink

The Norwegian underworld has an obsession with Edvard Munch (1863-1944). Not only because his art works are expensive and incredibly easy to snatch from low security art institutions, but also because certain key figures in the criminal circuit have a personal dedication to the artist. Some of them have studied Munch and his art for years. This gives their undertakings a certain mythological flare. Recently, the Madonna and a version of The Scream were stolen from the Munch Museum in broad daylight. Two armed men broke into the museum and ran away with the paintings. A theory that has been put forward in the media is that the two men acted on orders from another criminal, the man behind the March 2004 NOKAS break-in: The commando-style robbery of a NOKAS cash service center in Stavanger resulted in a dozen men getting away with nearly 70 million kroner (€ 7 million/$ 8.5 million), leaving one police officer dead. The Norwegian police speculates that the man behind the planning of the robbery later might have paid for the theft of the two Munch paintings to divert resources from the police hunt and secure possession of a wild card to reduce his sentence if he ever got caught, which he eventually was. But today the paintings are still missing, and the NOKAS men are all in prison.

Continue reading "Edvard Munch Mania" »

Posted by contexploration at 10:15 PM | Permalink

SWEDISH NEUTRALITY: Foreign Minister Laila Freivalds finally resigned Tuesday over the closure of the Web site of Sverigedemokraterna, a right-wing nationalist party that published caricatures of Muhammad. The Swedish Foreign Ministry and security police contacted the Internet hosting company Levonline and urged them to close down the site in an unbelievable infringement of free speech typical of a Swedish public that too often prefers phoney consensus to healthy disparity. This mentality is perfectly expressed in Göran Rosenberg’s flawed analysis of the cartoons controversy.

Continue reading "Weekly roundup, March 27th 2006" »

Posted by contexploration at 04:19 PM | Permalink

HEZBOLLAH: In a recent speech in Beirut, Hezbollah's Secretary General Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah gave his version of the cause of the cartoon controversy: “If a Muslim had executed the Fatwa against Salman Rushdie [who wrote the ‘Satanic Verses’] then none of those insolent people would have dared to debase Prophet Mohammed - not in Denmark, neither in Norway nor France. If we now forgive, as we did after Salman Rushdie wrote the Satanic Verses, God only knows what they will do later.”

Continue reading "Weekly roundup, March 20th 2006" »

Posted by contexploration at 02:48 PM | Permalink

DEMOCRACY: Jürgen Habermas wants the European Union to move away from the principle of unanimity that defines the structure and restricts the type of decisions made by majority votes. In this speech [in German] published in Der Standard, he suggests that the European countries in favour of more supranationality ought to hold referendums to decide if their peoples want to move forward and establish a more democratic and “core” union with pan-European presidential elections and a European Foreign Minister.

In Part I of Habermas' speech he mostly deals with the state of the public, digital sphere. What is "relevant" and "trustworthy" information on the Net? These questions are part of an essential discussion on Europe's future that is now starting to take place. See also this speech by Rowan Williams that was linked to last week. “[The Internet] provides an environment in which enraged people can gather at cause-centered Web sites and make themselves even angrier” David Ignatius wrote in the Washington Post a while back.

Continue reading "Weekly roundup, March 13th 2006" »

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CARTOONS: Monday there was an InterCity debate at Kafé Stenersen about the Norwegian Government’s handling of the cartoons controversy. In the panel was Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre, Carl I. Hagen, the leader of Fremskrittspartiet (the right wing Populist Party), Torbjørn Røe Isaksen, the leader of the youth organization of the Conservatives and Olav Dag Hauge, the head of the inter-religious delegation sent by the Norwegian Government to meet the cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi in Quatar after the controversy broke out. Present in the audience was also Vebjørn Selbekk, the editor of the small Christian weekly Magazinet that printed the cartoons in Norway in the first place.

Continue reading "Hope and disillusion at Kafé Stenersen" »

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THE MEDIA: I want to draw attention to the assessments of Rowan Williams in his speech delivered at Lambeth Palace this fall. Williams is the Archbishop of Canterbury. The speech demonstrates that it is possible even for spiritual leaders to present a coherent media critique.

Continue reading "Weekly roundup, March 6th 2006" »

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On Friday London's mayor Ken Livingstone was suspended from office by The Adjudication Panel for England. His offence was comparing a Jewish journalist to a concentration camp guard. Read Jonathan Freedland’s comment on this case from The Guardian [May 2005].

Continue reading "Weekly roundup, February 27th 2006" »

Posted by contexploration at 06:30 AM | Permalink

In Part II of The Pope’s Encyclical letter, he separates the duties of the State from the duties of the Church:

“The just ordering of society and the State is a central responsibility of politics. […] Fundamental to Christianity is the distinction between what belongs to Caesar and what belongs to God, in other words, the distinction between Church and State. Love - caritas - will always prove necessary, even in the most just society. There is no ordering of the State so just that it can eliminate the need for a service of love. Whoever wants to eliminate love is preparing to eliminate man as such. There will always be suffering which cries out for consolation and help. There will always be loneliness. There will always be situations of material need where help in the form of concrete love of neighbour is indispensable.”

Continue reading "Justice, poverty and squatters" »

Posted by contexploration at 09:59 PM | Permalink

"The World Changed, But the Left Stayed the Same": Cristovam Buarque has an insightful conversation with Fernando Henrique Cardoso (president of Brazil from 1995-2003). In it, they discuss the limits and possibilities of the Left – from a Brazilian perspective. What can be accomplished today? Today, the ones who suffer the most at “those human beings who don’t even serve to be exploited; they are the ‘marginalized’. They are not even an army of reserve.”

Continue reading "Weekly roundup, February 20th 2006" »

Posted by contexploration at 12:55 AM | Permalink

Every day for the last two weeks I have seen the Norwegian and Danish flags being burned by angry mobs in cities all over the world. There have been death threats to the satirical artists, to the editors who published the drawings, and to citizens of Denmark and Norway who happen to set foot in countries with a frantic strain of violent religion. Some of these people live under round-the-clock police protection. The embassies in Damascus and Beirut have been torched and destroyed. Crowds armed with rocket-propelled grenades and automatic weapons attacked the base of Norwegian peacekeeping soldiers in Afghanistan.

Continue reading "Please don’t eliminate the source of my oppression" »

Posted by contexploration at 03:31 PM | Permalink

NATIONALISM: In Eurozine.com, Jens-Martin Eriksen and Frederik Stjernfelt has an interview with Mihajlo Markovic and Vasilije Krestic about the 1986 “Memorandum”, by many considered a program for Serbian Nationalism in the prelude to the Croatian and Bosnian Wars. Markovic was at that time a leftwing Marxist, while Krestic was a rightwing nationalist. How could two such opposing worldviews unite in the notorious 1986 “Memorandum”?

Continue reading "Weekly roundup, February 12th 2006" »

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Kwame Anthony Appiah's 'Cosmopolitanism' - Kwame Anthony Appiah has written this essay explaining his understanding of “Cosmopolitanism”. He writes that the cultural pessimists' claim that cultural imperialism “structures the consciousnesses” of those outside the West is a theory that treats people “as blank slates on which global capitalism's moving finger writes its message, leaving behind another cultural automaton as it moves on”.

Continue reading "Weekly roundup, February 6th 2006" »

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