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Arne O. Holm comments
On the Border With Russia, Even Grasping at Straws Can Matter
Comment: Perhaps I am clutching at straws. But at a time when American security policy is conducted through social media, and Russia continues its attacks on Ukraine, even a straw may be worth holding on to.
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This is a comment written by a member of the editorial staff. All views expressed are the writer's own.
In literature, straws are described as the last thing one clutches at when one is about to drown. The final desperate hope.
At the moment, conditions for growth are poor for straws, but within a short space of time the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs has given us a couple of straws.
That deserves both attention and praise.
An agreement that has made it possible for residents on both sides of the border between Norway and Russia to cross the border without a visa. The mayor wanted to abolish this.
“Our relations with Pechenga and Russia are over,” was his reasoning.
The relationship with Russia has changed before, and will change again.
The response from State Secretary Eivind Vad Petterson (Labor) was, in that regard, discouraging. The Ministry of Foreign Affairs had no plans to terminate the agreement.
“Our relationship with Russia has changed before, and it will change again.”
Not long ago, the Norwegian Barents Secretariat, which administers public funds for use in people-to-people cooperation in the north, was declared an “undesirable organisation” by Russian authorities. That complicated an already challenging situation.
Even though there is scarcely any such cooperation between Norway and Russia, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs leaves the door open to continued cooperation through its recent letter of assignment to the Barents Secretariat.
Quite rightly, the head of the secretariat, Kenneth Stålsett, believes this will be a very demanding task, particularly because the secretariat has been labelled an ‘undesirable organisation’.
‘We must prevent putting people in any kind of unconscious or conscious danger, regardless of whether the individual or the organisation itself are willing to take that risk. This is not something we compromise on,’ Kenneth Stålsett told High North News the other day.
He is, of course, absolutely right about that.
He stresses to High North News the importance of ‘supporting Russian civil society and maintaining Norwegian expertise on Russia’.
"It is important that we help ensure that Russian civil society can be maintained until a possible new and different situation in Russia", he said, adding that the ministry will maintain close dialogue on this with the Barents Secretariat.
"The cooperation we have with Russia, and with the FSB in particular, is in fact very good", she told the newspaper.
The FSB is the Russian security service.
It underlines the strength of democracy in the face of a dictatorship.
The chief of police called the meetings a useful arena, while adding that it is often difficult to get through to the "decision-makers in the capital" - that is, Oslo - with an understanding of the situation faced in Finnmark, close to the Russian border.
Each in their own way, the state secretary and the chief of police describe a soft diplomacy in the shadow of an arena that is largely about military strength and allocations through the defence budget.
They deserve praise for that.
Not least because in this way they underscore the strength of democracy, even when faced with a warlike dictatorship.
