They asked the following questions (english translations from ISSP documentation):

Suppose the government suspected that a terrorist act was about to happen. Do you think the authorities should have the right to…

• Detain people for as long as they want without putting them on trial? 2006: 53 % yes – 2011: 50 % yes
• Tap people’s telephone conversations? 2006: 85 % yes – 2011: 67 % yes
• Stop and search people in the street at random? 2006: 58 % yes – 2011: 44 % yes

This constitutes a clear drop in support for security measures that invade privacy and civil liberties, quite the opposite of what we  would expect. This supports the impression of the response that seemed to amaze international media and bloggers  (f.ex. Glenn Greenwald, Huffington Post, AFP). Virtually no cries for tightening of security, revenge or a “decisive response” as we would expect if this had happened in the United States.

Professor Anne Lise Fimreite from the University of Bergen and researcher Magnus Ranstorp at the Swedish Defense Academy attribute this to the decisive political leadership calling for openness and democracy in the days following the attack. The mantras that has been repeated over and over have been the two quotes “We will meet terror with more openness and more democracy” and “If one man can show that much hate, think of how much love we can show” from Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg and Labour MP Stine Renate Håheim respectively.

As a Norwegian myself, I do feel a sense of positive nationalistic pride in this development. Still, the numbers are quite high, and the Parliament did decide to adopt the European Data Storage Directive after intense debate. The struggle to defend civil liberties is far from a given victory.

United States’ agents have localized and killed a foreign national on foreign soil, then recovered his body. This man is accused of committing serious crimes against humanity, but no attempt was made to capture him alive and put him on trial. The president of the United States has acted as both prosecutor, judge and jury with the US Navy Seals as executioners. Despite this, President Obama freely owns up to his achievement, without even an attempt at explanation as to why the killing was necessary. Official word from the US Government is also that the mission was to kill It also seems that the aim has been to kill him, not a serious attempt to capture. And the rest of the western nations applaude. Including Norway’s prime and foreign ministers. And the people of the United States (and to a lesser degree in Europe as well) celebrate. Celebrate the killing of another human being.

I am, as most Norwegians, an opponent of the death penalty. I believe it is wrong to kill a human being, even if they have committed serious crimes, unless keeping them alive constitutes a direct and immediate threat to more lives. But even if you do believe in premeditated killing under certain circumstances, should it not be a last resort? Should it not happen only when there has been a trial, or when no other options were possible?

Osama bin Laden was an evil man. Killing him may also have been necessary, but I have problems accepting the fact that not even an attempt is made to justify the killing as necessary, and that a live capture was not even part of the mission agenda. Is this how a supposedly liberal democratic state is supposed to behave?

At the very least, I had expected a little bit of criticism from the press or even a modicum of moderation from governments that are against the death penalty.

Professor Graver, far from leaping to the defense of his profession actually defends the depiction by Fløgstad, even giving it current relevance by drawing parallels between the reinterpretation of German law to accomodate Nazism and the reinterpretation of American law under Bush to legitimize coercive interrogation techniques such as “waterboarding” or even hitting a detainee in the face or stomach.

He points to a dangerous tendency within his own profession not to take a moral stand, insist there are two sides to every issue and be servile to government. This may be done under the guise of a neutrality necessary for preserving the rule of law even under bad regimes, but it requires ignoring the original intent of the law, ripping the very foundation out from under the system in the process. There are good examples of the law profession participating in the defense against external enemies, but in defending the rule of law against perversion by internal enemies, the historical record is not very good.

His conclusions are rather radical, considering that they come from the dean of the oldest and most prestigious law faculty in Norway (my translation):

History gives us little reason to be optimistic. The state can be built by law in good weather, but law and order are insufficient – occasionally even dangerous – during a storm. But what should then protect us when it really counts, when we cannot trust lawyers and the rule of law? What we must then trust in is the anti-authoritarian impulse in the people, the very antithesis to the part in us that wants to bend to authorities and superior force, even the one with legality behind it.

It is in other words not law and justice that will save the rule of law when it is seriously threatened, but the will to rebel against law, and the will to insist on justice even against the system of justice. The ability to recognize when law and judgement is wrong and when the power of the court is oppressive and an assault on justice is the core of the wisdom that is needed.

Is this also a caution relevant to political science? Are political scientists as servile defendants of the system even when the system has been perverted to attack the very values it was designed to defend?

This might be the result of a Scandinavian (possibly harmful?) naivité about such issues, possibly brought on by a very homogenous ethnic makeup.¹ It may also be the result of a society that has been able to advance beyond a harmful focus on race. I saw an example of the opposite up close when living in Malaysia, a thoroughly race-focused country where race and religion ar important for official categorization of people. It is the story of a massive affirmative action programme that has spiralled totally out of control and become the basis for widespread discrimination in society.

I may be wrong, but my impression as an outsider is still that focus on the concept of race appears to bring more harm than good. The problem in the US is as I understand it that large groups have low income, low social mobility, language problems, high unemployment et cetera, not that the members of these groups have a different skin tone. Language holds power, and official contributions to keeping racial divisions an active part of the language may be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Am I just an naively idealistic Scandinavian with an unrealistic view of the world?

1. The CIA World Factbook lists the 2007 estimate as: Norwegian 94.4% (includes Sami, about 60,000), other European 3.6%, other 2%

It all started with a petition by thirty-four academic staff members from NTNU and the regional college HiST recommending an academic and cultural boycot of Israel and Israeli universities. Interestingly enough, at least two of the petitioners have jewish backgrounds themselves. Although I am sympathetic to the cause, I think the idea of academic and cultural isolation is more likely to be counterproductive to the larger goal of improving conditions for Palestinians. My opinion is however beside the matter. For reference, the total number of academic staff at NTNU is about 2700, of which 34 doesn’t seem like an alarming number. This also mobilized a counter-petition by other members of the staff.

Next, three professors at NTNU organized a seminar series about the Israel-Palestine conflict with the endorsement of the university Rector Trond Digernes. They invited international speakers like Stephen Walt, Moshe Zuckermann and Illian Pape in addittion to various Norwegian speakers. They instantly came under attack by “friends of Israel” that critizised them for a biased selection of speakers, accusing them of being inspired by hatred of Israel and jews.

This was eventually picked up by Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz. That’s when the ball really started rolling. The usual freak anonymous hate-calls and blog flaming is to be expected. But After the Ha’aretz article, NTNU actually received an official letter from the Israeli ambassador accusing NTNU of “Israel-bashing”. For diplomats to interfere with university seminars, especially with such language, seems rather unusual to me.

Today was the big day when the board was to decide on the issue of the boycott. The Rector had recommended against it, the Minister of Education had warned that it was probably in violation of the law-protected academic freedom, and the board voted unanimously against boycott. The rector didn’t even want to put the proposal on the agenda, but board members felt that it had to be given due consideration. They gave it so and rejected it. As everybody expected to. In the meantime, Israel-supporters have whipped up a frenzy calling NTNU and Norway all manner of bad things. This non-issue of 34 academics forwarding a political opinion with no substantial support was blown completely out of proportion. And it was all topped by the most ridiculous article by Haaretz today.

I don’t think Haaretz was actually there to see the meeting, and their intelligence in general is horrendously bad.

First: They cite Professor Alsberg of NTNU as a board member. He is a professor, but he is not a member of the board. Secondly, they claim the issue was scrapped from the agenda. It was not. It was opened for debate and rejected.

But most importantly: Alsberg claims that the boycott was prevented due to media attention and outside pressure. The leader of the Anti-Semitism center in Oslo even claims it was all due to Alsberg and his counter-petition. They are both very wrong. As a former board member of NTNU myself, I would have been shocked if this proposal went through even if it had been done in secrecy. Trust me when I say that getting a majority of the votes on the board was never even close to being a reality. I know the students were against it. The chairwoman of the board has clearly said she was against. The rector recommended to the board it was dropped, and from what I know of the other members, I doubt more than a couple of them seriously considered voting in favour. Outside pressure was perfectly superfluous.

This was a political expression by 34 out of 2700 academic staff. Nothing more. Although a majority probably supports taking a stand against Israeli human rights offences, there is no substantial support for a boycott. The “friends of Israel” have however once again done a good job of alienating even more of those interested in working for true dialogue.

I recommend the words of Professor Ann Rudinow Sætnan, one of the original petitioners, a Jew herself  and certainly no anti-semite, to learn how far from the truth this media hyped image of NTNU and the general sentiments of Norwegians towards Israel is from the truth:

There are many categories of people being discriminated against, some even to the ultimate point of mass killings. At the moment, Jews are not among them. At the moment I belong only to privileged categories. But if I “tolerate so complacently” the outrages being perpetrated against others, then sooner or later I will find myself assigned to some category singled out for similar treatment. That is the lesson I take from the Holocaust, and that is why I cannot stand by silently as Israel bombs Gaza to pieces, or for that matter starves Gaza slowly. Nor can I accept that my standpoint is anti-Semitic or anti-Zionist or even anti-Israeli. I am critical of current Israeli policies, yes. In my view, those policies will prove suicidal. In my view, it would be better for Israel, for the Zionist vision, and for Jews (remembering here that I do NOT equate these three!) if Israel were to withdraw from the West Bank and Gaza, pull out the settlements or leave them to their own devices, and work on developing good neighborly relations with a viable Palestinian state.

The basic human right of religious freedom dictates that we should recognize each individual’s right to their religious practices (within reason). If same sex marriage should in any way be a infringement on that right, allowing it would have to restrict the practices of a church or other religious organization. It does not. The state will still recognize heterosexual marriage just as before.

What would constitute infringement on religious freedom would be if states decided not to recognize marriages conducted by accepted religious organizations just because they were between two people of the same sex. As long as one religious organization recognizes such practice, so should the government.