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Sunday, April 27, 2014

51

The foreign minister was busy defending Norway's military actions in Libya as well as his own involvement in it in what was clearly a well orchestrated interview with no surprise questions.

"Simply bombing rebel positions is not enough to ensure security for our national interests," the foreign minister explained. "We will need an additional five hundred men in order to defend our economic interests in that country, which coincidentally are one and the same as the interest of the Libyan people. Only a stable and peaceful environment can ensure prosperity for all, and as a leading peace nation we have a particular moral duty to make this happen."

The economic interests the foreign minister was talking of were of course the oil fields in which the state controlled oil company, Statoil, was heavily invested. However, this was not mentioned by a word, nor did the interviewer make any inquiry into what the foreign minister was referring to by his words. Instead, she moved on to ask him why he, and not the minister of defence, was in charge of the operations.

"The answer here, of course, comes down to the nature of our involvement in Libya," the foreign minister replied with a confident smile. "Since we are not at war, but simply helping the Libyans in their struggle to rebuild their national institutions after decades of neglect under the deposed dictatorship, our involvement can best be described as foreign aid, which falls under my department. What the Libyan people are labouring under on a daily basis is the absence of good national institutions, and the first and foremost of these is of course the institution of law and order which can only be achieved by legitimate and dispassionate force. Hence the involvement of our armed forces."

"Libya is not at war," the foreign minister continued. "It is burdened by civil unrest, and we have a duty to the world community to take our share of that burden. All of this has been laid out in detail by the UN, and we cannot simply ignore this and pretend that things will sort themselves out without our involvement. Such an approach has already been tried, with terrible consequences, and no one wants to see a repeat of that."

And again the foreign minister was referring to things without mentioning them. Neither the foreign minister nor the interviewer felt it necessary to explain that the terrible consequence referred to was a particularly bloody attack on a Statoil installation in the south of Libya where almost everyone had been killed in cold blood. Those that tried to escape were gunned down, and those that surrendered were ritually beheaded. The videos of the beheadings went viral on the Internet, and were in large part responsible for the surge in support for the foreign minister's anti-immigration party, which in turn won him a seat in the current government, and ultimately his current position as foreign minister.

Having risen to his current position on the back of the outrage that the bloody attack had caused, the man clearly felt that no further explanation was necessary. And the interviewer, presumably no big fan of the foreign minister, had even less of a desire to delve into the memories of the terrible incident.

After a few more questions about Libya where the foreign minister got the chance to repeat his objection to the word "war", re-emphasizing instead that this was all about foreign aid and nation building, the interviewer changed the subject to Lundby, which made Bjorn sit up and pay even closer attention. "Another mention of us," Bjorn thought. "We really are about to become famous!"

"Some say that the colony violates our constitution, and is in breach of basic human rights," the interviewer said with a stern face.
"Well, that is simply not true," the foreign minister replied, brushing aside the question. "Moving all asylum seekers to Lundby is a hugely popular move, with a recent pole showing more than seventy percent of eligible voters in favour of it, and it is in no way contrary to our constitution. Such a assertion is simply political nonsense."

"But what about the claim that the colony is in conflict with the indivisible sovereignty of Norway?"
"Well, first of all, Lundby is not a colony. It is as much a part of Norway as any other part. The fact that it has been turned into an asylum centre does not make it any different from any other place with special rules, such as airports, prisons, and, well, asylum centres. We have merely moved and co-located the centres already in Norway to a remote location where the inhabitants will be unable to cause stress or anxiety among ordinary Norwegians."

"And what about the claim that there is a casino up there? Isn't that in violation with Norwegian law?"
"Well, it is true that there is a casino in Lundby. Although, as far as I gather, it is hardly a place worthy of such an extravagant name. It is more like a bar where there is some gambling going on. However, the claim that this is in violation with Norwegian law does not take into account the Sami reparation act which give Sami people wide powers to regulate this kind of activities on their own land. The casino is fully owned and regulated by the Sami people, and as such completely legal."

"And the report that casino tokens are circulating as money, surely that is in violation of the recent amendment to the constitution making only Norwegian Kroners legal tender in Norway."
"But those tokens are not money," the foreign minister retorted with a big smile. "They are tokens. They have no value or use outside the asylum centre. Do you really think that anyone will accept a casino token outside of that village, far away from the casino? Of course not! The tokens are no more money than what similar tokens would be inside a closed club. They can be used inside the club, but have no value outside of it, so they are clearly not money. Only Norwegian Kroners are money in Norway."

And by this the interviewer had exhausted her questions related to Lundby and its constitutionality. She continued with a few questions regarding the centre and the claim that it was violating human rights. But here too, the foreign minister had no problem defending his position. And in the end, the whole interview seemed to Bjorn to be more like an orchestrated promotion of the foreign ministers policies than a truly critical inquiry.

Bjorn turned off the TV, impressed and a little surprised by what he had just seen. He had not expected such an open talk on Libya, and even less so on Lundby. But now that it had been aired, Bjorn got a strong feeling that the foreign minister was on the offensive, anticipating things to come, and positioning himself as best he could for some imminent storm. "He is a sly fox," Bjorn thought to himself. "This interview was no doubt carefully planned, putting him one step ahead of the rest. By answering questions before they were fully formulated by the opposition, he had effectively silenced most of his critics by making it very hard for them to come with a different interpretation of things."

The mention of more boots on the ground in Libya had left Bjorn a little worried, though. It was absolutely not a place he would like to be sent, and even the remote possibility of being sent there gave him the shivers. He had after all signed onto his three year contract with the army with the checkpoint along the Neiden to Lundby road specifically in mind, and he was at the interview lead to believe that this was indeed the only position he would ever be expected to fill. But the contract he had signed was deliberately vague on the exact scope of his duties, so he could possibly, at least in theory, be sent to Libya against his own wishes.

And with this worry lingering uncomfortably in the back of his mind, he set his alarm for the next morning, hoping that the spectre of Libya would not interfere too much with his sleep.

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