Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
2 appearances
Secretary General of NATO, former Norwegian PM, known for cool-headed diplomacy and response to 2011 terror attacks.
On the island
Eight records
I also listen to for instance some Norwegian bands and one of them is Madrugada and Lift Me Up which is something I turn on when I really want to relax.
A song called No Harm is perhaps the best uh song for the audience of this programme, so then I choose No Harm.
My mother married a Canadian poet in Montreal in the 1950s... he knew another Canadian poet and that was Lena Cohen and she became a friend of Lena Cohen... I actually brought my mother to a concert in Oslo, where Marianne was also there.
the main reason why I'm going to listen to this specific song, Hungry Heart, is that he was in a small town... giving a concert... one girl was then taken from the audience up to on the stage and he danced with her and that girl was my little sister Ninny and then the song was Hungry Heart when they were dancing at the stage Ninny and Bruce Springsteen.
my wife told me to choose... she told me that we should actually choose a song which is a Bob Dylan song, but it is delivered by Arne Brun and this is Make You Feel My Love.
Til UngdommenFavourite
We are going to hear Tilungdommen, and that's to the youth. It's a Norwegian song, and it's In Burg Dottland. She's going to sing it. She also sang this song actually in the cathedral when we had the commemoration a few days after the terrorist attacks in twenty eleven.
Free Nels Mandela. And it's important for me because I grew up with that song as part of the anti-apartheid movement in Norway. ... meeting Nels Mandela later in life.
This artist is a friend of mine. I have known her for many years. It's also because she is very much connected to this island, Utøya... She has played there many, many times. ... So Ingri Ulawa from up here.
In conversation
Presenter asks
2:04How do you build successful alliances with President Trump, who has been critical of NATO?
It's accepting that yes, there are differences between the thirty allies and there have been differences between NATO allies for as long as this alliance has existed, going back to the Suez crisis in 1956 or when France decided to leave the military cooperation in NATO in the 1960s or the Iraq war which also divided NATO allies. But my message to President Trump, as my message is to all the NATO allies, is that North America and Europe has to stand together, especially when we see The rise of China, which is actually shifting the global balance of power, is even more important that we stand together. And my message to the United States is also that Of course, NATO is good for Europe, but it's also good for the United States. Peace, stability in Europe adds also to the security of North America and the United States.
Presenter asks
3:07Should citizens know NATO's history?
It's not so very important that they know the history of NATO, but what is important is that they understand that peace is not something we can take for granted. Peace is something we need to protect and defend every day. And living in Brussels, it's a very stark reminder for me personally about how close war has been for such a long time. I'm living close to battlefields, like for instance Flandersfields. And to go around there and to visit the cemeteries and see all the suffering, all the killing that took place there. stark reminder of how brutal war is and there are many of that kind of battlefields around uh Brussels.
The keepsakes
The book
I think actually that would be a textbook in statistics, partly because I really want to study statistics. That was my favorite subject before I left the Central Bureau of Statistics and moved into politics in nineteen ninety. But also because actually it's extremely time consuming to to read uh textbooks in statistics. You can spend days uh just uh reading and learning and understanding. three, four pages. So if I only have one book, I think I can spend a lot of time on that. While if the alternative is a kind of novel or some other normal book, I will read it in a few days and then I don't have anything more to read. So a textbook in statistics is something that I can comfort me and give me something to do for many, many days.
The luxury
It is obvious that that has to be a pair of skis because on the Arctic Island that's the only way to move across the snow and it's also the only way to have some kind of activity. So a pair of skis would be a great luxury item for me to have on that Arctic Island.
Presenter asks
8:16Tell us more about your parents.
My father was a diplomat, but then he ended up as a minister. He worked in the trade union movement for some years and then he ended up as defence and later on a foreign minister. My mother, she was a civil servant for many years, but she also was very political and she served as a deputy minister for some years and they're both social democrats or part of the labor movement in Norway. My mother was very a very strong feminist and she was one of the first to formulate a lot of what we call modern family policy in Norway about kindergartens, parental leave. Gay marriage and all these kind of reforms that modernized Norway in the seventies and eighties. Both of them have been extremely important for me, both personally, very close to me, but of course also politically because they inspired me and I learned a lot from both of them.
Presenter asks
12:49Why did it take so long to learn to read?
I really don't know. But I struggled a lot. I was not able to read. I was not able to write. I I actually had problems with uh speaking. I stuttered uh and uh If you saw me when I was seven, eight, nine years old, I was also a bit fat, so there was nothing with me that indicated that I should become... party leader and prime minister and Secretary General of NATO. But I had my parents who supported me. I went to something called Judo Steinerschuolen in in Oslo. They accepted that I was a bit different and suddenly I started to learn. My first book was then to read Nine Hundred Days about the siege of Leningrad and since then of course I have appreciated very much the ability to read books.
Presenter asks
21:46What are your memories of the 22 July 2011 attacks?
For the memories are very dark. It's about killing, it's about death, it's about brutality. But the paradox with the twenty second of July is that it's both the darkest day of my life, of Norway's history after the Second World War, the most violent day we have experienced since the Second World War. But it also mobilized the best things in the Norwegian society. love, solidarity and the ability to support and comfort each other. So the twenty second of July is something very bad, but it also demonstrated the best and the brightest sides of the Norwegian society. I was very close to many of them because partly I was working in the building where the first bomb exploded and then the mass shooting took place at this island Utoya. And that's an island where the Young Labour Party has had summer camps for decades. I have been there every summer since nineteen seventy four, so I in one way grew up on that island, and then I was actually going there the day after the attacks, and many of the people that were killed were friends and people I have known for many years. So it was a brutal day, but also a day where we saw the importance of standing together.
Presenter asks
23:26How do you comfort someone in a situation like that?
It is very hard, but just to be there, to hug people, to talk about those who have passed away, share good memories. And I also try to continue to contact at least some of them. So I call, meet them still and call them also before Christmas, before the twenty second of July. So I think it's important to remember that Many Norwegian, of course, twenty second of july twenty eleven is now a long time ago, but for those people who are really affected, This is something which is still very present. There's still a child missing, a brother not there, or a family member who has passed away much too early. So I think it's important to remember to show comfort, also long after the loss.
“I realized at some stage that they were um different than many others because they lived a different life. They they both worked a lot, they both traveled a lot. And also my father, he had this idea or this concept of kitchen table diplomacy, so he brought back in our flat a lot of people from all over the world. In the sixties and the seventies, people lead leading different liberation movements in South Africa from Mozambique and Angola and later on Nels Mandela came to that kitchen table and sat there and we were able as children and then later on younger people to meet all these political leaders from all around the world.”
“I was not able to read. I was not able to write. I I actually had problems with uh speaking. I stuttered uh and uh If you saw me when I was seven, eight, nine years old, I was also a bit fat, so there was nothing with me that indicated that I should become... party leader and prime minister and Secretary General of NATO.”
“For me, it will always be a paradox and something I will never be able to explain. Why in a family with three children? My bigger sister, Camila, she ends up as a medical doctor, a professor. She's now the director of the Norwegian Public Health Agency working with the COVID-19. I end up as a Prime Minister and Secretary General of NATO. And then my little sister, growing up in the same room as I did, in the same streets with the same friends, attending the same school, she ends up as a drug addict and passes away much too early.”
“But the paradox with the twenty second of July is that it's both the darkest day of my life, of Norway's history after the Second World War, the most violent day we have experienced since the Second World War. But it also mobilized the best things in the Norwegian society. love, solidarity and the ability to support and comfort each other. So the twenty second of July is something very bad, but it also demonstrated the best and the brightest sides of the Norwegian society.”
“It has actually taught me that I don't like to be isolated. I'm a very social person, both when it comes to private social life, um my wife, my family, my friends. But also when it comes to working, I like to be in the same room as the people I work with. If we are going to discuss a text or a message or whatever, of course we can do that on phone, we can do it on video conferences and so on, but it's not the same.”