Visits by the Standing Committee on Health and Care Services of Norway’s Parliament and by our National Defence College, celebration of 40 years of imports from Norway of “shishamo”, our darling little Princess of the Sea (salmon is King), commemoration of a Norwegian national hero and internationalist along with UN refugee relief, a concert by our foremost pianist, a Symposium on Domestic Violence and much more. All of these activities, which place in a hectic five weeks, have many dimensions, some also directly related to our wish to help Japan recover and reconstruct after the Great Earthquake and Tsunami.
The visit of our Parliamentary committee, planned even before 11 March, took place from 19-23 September. Their original objective to look into Norway’s own future by seeing and learning how Japan is coping with an aging society through your innovative high-technology. Their added objective after 11 March, meeting members of the Diet and Ministry officials as well as visiting institutions, was to show solidarity into the future by coming as planned.
The same with our National Defence College that visited Tokyo from 10-13 October. Their original objective was to study the security policy situation in Asia and benefit from Japanese perspectives on an extended trip that also included India and South Korea. Their added benefit after 11 March was to learn from Japan how civilian and military sectors can and must co-operate in times of national disaster.
The top official of our Ministry of Fisheries and Coastal Development, Secretary General Jørn Krog visited Japan from 16-19 September to speak at a major Embassy fisheries seminar that also included a pool-side seafood festival celebrating our “shishamo”. He also visited Sendai, Matsushima and Ishinomaki, meeting with the Mayor and representatives of fishing co-operative. Fisheries, seafood safety and coast development are priority areas of the “Team Norway” effort to assist in Japanese recovery announced by Prime Minister Stoltenberg in his letter to former Prime Minister Kan this summer.
As part of the 6th film festival organised by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the Embassy hosted on 6 October a screening of the film “Only One Life” showing the many lives in one of Norway’s national hero Dr. Fridtjov Nansen – scientist and Polar explorer, diplomat, internationalist, Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and the UN system’s first High Commissioner for Refugees. Celebrating the 150th Anniversary of his birth and recognising his assistance to refugees after the first World War brought to mind the many evacuees, who are also in a sense refugees, caused not by war, but by natural disasters as in the case of the Great East Japan Earthquake.
“What can Music do” was the topic of a discussion between Norway’s foremost pianist Leif Ove Andsnes and the Japanese author Kazumi Saeki and a charity recital by Mr.Andsnes in the Embassy on 21 September. Mr. Andsnes, a regular visitor to Japan, wanted in this way to show his sympathy with the victims of the Great East Japan Earthquake. Music can, of course, ‘do many things for many different people. The discussion and Q&A session that followed highlighted what music can do in the aftermath of disasters, such as the one in Japan and terrorist attack in Norway to comfort, mitigate sorrow and give people hope for the future.
In that spirit, the Embassy also hosted on a special jazz concert for victims of the Tohoku disaster that have come to Tokyo and featuring the Norwegian duo Grønseth (saxophone) and Skinner (piano).
Let me mention in conclusion, the Symposium on Domestic Violence that Embassy organised in co-operation with the Hisaka Child Publishing House on 14 October. While Mr Øivind Ashjem, a specialist invited from Norway, was lecturing to an attentive audience of more than one hundred Japanese activists on “Angry Man”, the prize-winning book on domestic violence through the eyes of children and Grand Prix winning animated film at the
Hiroshima International Film Festival in Hiroshima last year, what else happened than a minor earthquake that caused some momentary concern in the Embassy’s Arctic Hall? A timely reminder in these days that children suffer not only from domestic violence by “angry men”. Children suffer from the violence of nature as well. The Great East Japan Earthquake took parents away from children and children away from parents. The plight and psycho-social needs of orphans in the wake of 11 March must not be forgotten.
Arne Walther