Opinions This is a debate post. The post expresses the writer’s views.
Such protection has been announced for a long time. “It is important that both visitors and Bergen residents in the future can experience that the wonderful Bergenhus fortress has a free location, and is given its rightful and advanced place in Bergen’s cityscape,” says national antiquarian Hanna Geiran.
The fact that things have now speeded up is linked to the plans that Bergen Havn As has launched on the same proprietary brands. Since the municipality’s ambitious visions of urban renewal are forcing freight and cruise traffic away from Dokken, the harbor board wants to move all cruise calls to Skolten. Building a new quay front of 440 meters will require half a million cubic meters of stone as filling material. The National Antiquities Authority’s concern about the impact on the fortress is to the highest degree justified.
Bergenhus is something far more than one of several important historical monuments. In fact, this is the heartland of the Norwegian state itself. It was with the royal court at Holmen as his main base that Håkon Håkonsson put an end to just over a hundred years (1130-1240) of harrowing civil strife in Norway, and established himself as one of Europe’s most powerful princes.
It was here that his son Magnus Lagabøte pushed forward the ground-breaking legislative work that laid the foundation for a coherent Norwegian rule of law. Most people will have realized that this year we are celebrating the 750th anniversary of the Landsloven, unique in an international context.
That a place like Bergenhus is treated with reverence, and that emphasis is placed on highlighting the fortress’s unique location, should be a matter of course for those who govern this city. One would think that the natural reflex would be to give up wholeheartedly on Geiran’s concern for Bergen’s finest qualities. To drown the immediate surroundings of this unique memorial in concrete?
To further degrade the attraction by the fact that the purpose of the measure is to facilitate the arrival of unformed battleships in the invasion fleet of vulgar tourism? No, thank you!
Right, then?
But no. In Bergen completely different instincts prevail. In the shopkeepers’ souls, also in politics, the reptilian brain kicks in. Finance Council Eivind Nævdal-Bolstad (H) has no doubts. “We cannot get into a situation where national conservation interests prevent necessary measures in Bergen to be a port city.”
The mentality is as classic and typical as it is discouraging. Why must Bergen’s rulers always appear so provincial? In Oslo, Bergenhus fortress has its counterpart, Akershus. Does anyone believe that a similar development project, with such a purpose, could be launched – with the slightest hope of being realized – just under the walls of that fortress? And that an Oslo city council, even based in the Conservative Party, had done something other than shoot down such arrogance?
There is a simple one and effective way to end this discussion – namely by discontinuing Bergen as a cruise destination. Nothing should be easier to implement. Hardly any business has less to do than the cruise industry. Name a single good argument, which is about something other than petty cash, in favor of Bergen making arrangements for cruise tourism. “Then they will just go elsewhere”. Yes, good luck on your journey.
Bergen municipality can spill as much valuable land current as it can bear, without it greenwashing a patch of these shipboards. It cannot be denied that each and every cruise ship is its own sailing climate disaster, as well as being one of the most visible expressions of the purposeless and reckless overconsumption that is about to plunge the planet into the abyss.
Transporting a wealth-constipated middle class around the world’s oceans, with no other aim and meaning than that the passengers will be able to take a few selfies in attractive port cities, is a deeply immoral activity. And of course the facilitators in the ports are just as guilty as the shipping companies. Consequently, if the Bergen authorities put an end to this mischief, it will be a victory for decency.
In addition, there will be a victory for political credibility, perhaps the most sought-after scarce commodity of our time. For several decades, we have been bombarded with big words about sustainability and green transition, a vocabulary that almost the entire political elite has adopted. The fact that ever-larger cruise ships tower over the quaysides, as terrifying examples of the exact opposite, is the most visible proof that the fine sayings are nonsense.
Perhaps the biggest threat to democracy is the tendency of politics to speak with two tongues: idealistic platitudes out of one corner of the mouth, and cynical profit talk out of the other. It is a practice that erodes trust and builds contempt.
How cheap is Bergen Willing to sell? The tourism magnets of the future will be the places that make themselves precious, rejecting the harmful mass tourism.
The consuming will to degrade the city’s character is intolerable. Every time Bergen refuses to play along with the national antique, the city loses a strand of its soul. In the long run, the city cannot afford to sell off the heirloom silver, in this case by giving the hitchhiking in Bergenhus fortress to the benefit of the sale of lucky trolls along Bryggen.
Taking care of itself as a city of tradition is the smartest thing Bergen can do.
