Modern ‘Vikings’ blunt Norway’s image

Press, 10 February 1983, Page 17

Modern ‘Vikings’ blunt Norway’s image

From

ROSS BROWN

in Oslo

The female student in the prestigious Oslo University library gaped when she saw a middle-aged man slitting pages out of ancient volumes. She reported it to an attendant and was told that she must be mistaken: the man was a respectable civil servant who had visited the library for years. She persisted, and an eventual police raid on the man's home disclosed piles of expensive charts stolen from historical books. And yet another scandal concerning theft shocked Norwegians. The Vikings were infamous plunderers, yet the international image of the modern Norwegian is that of a scrupulously honest and dependable citizen.

This view has suffered severe blows in recent years.

Petty theft is on the. increase, while one expose of white collar crime surpasses the other. Recently, at Oslo’s Fornebu Airport, I saw a distressed American businessman. He had embraced his briefcase on a flight across the United States, and then on to Copenhagen. In Norway, he had released his grip on the case while he phoned an acquaintance. Putting his hand down again it clutched ... nothing. Just behind Oslo's Town Hall, in a well-illuminated row of shops, one views meagre window displays. Signs slate that because of frequent window-breaking and robbery, watches, cameras, and radios have been moved inside. In 1982, theft in Norway's

capital increased by 7.6 per cent over the previous year, with car and motor-cycle theft doubling. Practically every family can tell of a cycle theft. My younger son's bike, battered and considered safe, vanished from our front yard in broad daylight last summer. Cycles disappear from tenement cellars or fifth floor landings;' cyclists who have locked the front wheel to an iron railing return to find this the only part of their property intact; many pupils refuse to bike to school because of brazen thefts. Stealing at schools is now so rife that pupils no longer hang their winter jackets — some latest fashions costing $2BO — gloves or woollen caps in the corridor but take

them into class for safekeeping.

Shoplifting is a daily occurrence in Oslo. Norway’s leading newspaper columnist, Arne Skouen, wrote recently that he witnessed one such incident. “In a street I heard the cry ‘Stop, thief!' and saw a young man running with a fur coat, pursued by a young lady in a white dress. ’ “Since being a boy scout I've dreamed of making a dramatic capture. But this was denied me.

"As I dropped into the posture of a spectator, a well-dressed young man slung himself around the legs

of the thief and both crashed to the ground.

“Now came the anticlimax. The shop-girl retrieved the fur coat and, silently, walked back to her counter. “The hero brushed his clothes and, ignored by everyone, even the thief, stood embarrassedly. And the thief, swearing a bit, sunk his hands into his pockets and slouched off.

“What did I do?” asked Skouen, experienced newsman. “Should I dash to the nearest phone-box and call the police? “But should I report him, when the tax authorities are

still searching for hundreds of millions of crowns hidden away by shipowners in tax paradises?” Skouen was referring to recent court cases concerning shipowners’ tax evasion, dating back to the “national, scandal of the century,” exposed in 1979. Aged shipping magnate, Hilmar Reksten, owner of a giant fleet of supertankers, admired and trusted by his countrymen, had salted away several fortunes in scattered tax havens and with illegal deals had netted about $225 million. Since then outrageous economic manipulations have continuously made banner headlines. At present, two big court cases are proceeding in Norway. One involves the Nordic

Children’s Fund, a private organisation that collected money monthly from 30,000 guardian parents throughout Scandinavia. This finance was then supposedly sent to children's aid projects in developing nations. However, of the s6*2 million willingly paid in by good-hearted Scandinavians, only $l.B million benefited children abroad. Three members of the organisation are now on trial for embezzling the remaining finance, buying Mercedes or property, and placing funds in Swiss banks. The other case principally concerns the deaths of 25 patients at an Old Folks Home. The manager, once respected as a “pillar of the community,” is now on trial

for allegedly administering the poison curacit intravenously to inmates. He is also appearing on another charge — theft. A few thousand crowns were missing from the purses of some victims. Meanwhile, libraries around Norway are tallying up the numbers of pages stolen from ancient books, probably by the Oslo civil servant. At his home police found a collection of 4000 books, hundreds of unopened bottles of beer and spirits from various parts of Europe, even a collection of paper-clips. Not every Norwegian pilferer has such tastes. But the time is past when locals carelessly leave expensive items lying around.