If you have been in Norway, you probably have the impression that this is a terrific country! Words like “marvellous”, “amazing” and “astounding” pops up in your head as you see the incredible landscape, or as you taste the great food. The people are nice, and it is easy to feel at home here. But what is really going on under the surface? Is Norway really the great country, as it appears to be?
I am Jill McGraw. I came to Norway three years ago, to study landscaping. Over the years I have developed a sense of superficiality among the people of Norway. What looks like a perfect country, is now revealing it self to me, by showing it’s darker side. I have searched high and low to find out exactly what is wrong, and to find out what Norwegians really should be described as.
”It is typical Norwegian to be good”, says Gro Harlem Brundtland, a central Norwegian politician, during the Olympic games in 1994. Is it really? Or was it all just a lie? Every Norwegian was very proud after this statement, to say the least, and they probably still are. But what have they actually done to earn this label? All the Norwegian people reading this would probably like to answer that. Let me put it like this; first person to answer my question gets an award! Even more Norwegians would assumedly like to answer now, right? So let me be honest here. Norwegians are a bit covetous. I mean, they complain about absolutely everything from gas money to expensive alcohol. As if the world did not have bigger issues to consume their minds with! This is despite the fact that we are talking about the wealthiest country in the world. So if your grey brain cells function as well as they should, it will not be difficult to understand just how wealthy this country is. They pump up several tons of black gold from their part of the continental base, right? That is where the big money lies, and not with the average Joe, or Ola Nordmann, as the Norwegian like to call him. He can’t do anything else but accept his share of this mind-blowing goldmine.