Today, May 17th, is Norway's Constitution Day. As the date of the signing of the Norwegian constitution in Eidsvoll in 1814 - it commemorates a critical milestone in Norwegian history. But it has also become a rite of spring, a festive, colorful day after a monochromatic winter. May 17th in 1945 followed just a few days after liberation, reinforcing its significance.
But Norwegian independence is a notion that is undergoing change. Whereas the framers of the original constitution wished to establish a state for people of a common ethnicity (going so far as to exclude Jews and monastic orders from Norway as a constitutional matter and making Lutheranism the official religion), Norway is rapidly evolving into something else. Economically, Norway is becoming increasingly dependent on trading partners. The population is growing more diverse, not just ethnically but in every other way.
There used to be one official language in Norway (dansk-norsk). Now there are four (bokmål, nynorsk, samisk, kven) and arguably five (if you add Norwegian Sign Language, which you should). The Norwegian state church is faced with the dilemma of abandoning dogma to be more inclusive or becoming more irrelevant for Norwegians.
The monarchy is being reformed, popular culture is becoming more cosmopolitan, and in a growing number of Norwegian companies English is the working language. Norwegian economic policy is driven by the problems and opportunities related to the currency gift from petroleum exports.
In other words, the issues that drove the need for a constitutional convention in 1814 are gone and/or irrelevant at this point. We may be right to celebrate our independence, but what we wanted independence from, and what we want to do with the independence we have, are vastly different now.
In most ways better. Norway in 1814 was poor, agricultural resources were soon to dry up, people were undereducated. We were more anxious to define the ways in which we were different from the Swedes and the Danes, and now it seems more important to find the ways in which we are the same. It took a day to travel from Oslo/Kristiania to Eidsvoll; now it takes less than an hour; and the same changes are evident in most places in Norway.
More to come...
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