The Nordic Becoming:
A Manifesto
Trust is a precious asset. Without trust we do not have a society. For without trust we do not have real faces.
By accident or by design, Norden has fostered trust more than most regions in the modern history of the world. This trust, we believe, is worth preserving.
This trust has come about, and has been reinforced, by "holding the center", by not collapsing into one extreme or another. Holding the center politically, holding the center economically, and holding the center psychologically. Norden is moderate. This moderation, we believe, is worth preserving.
Much of the globally revered Nordic values and virtues are in fact rooted in trust. Nordic ethics of care, universalism, and commitment to equality have all ensued organically from a foundation of trust. These fruits of trust, we believe, are worth preserving.
The continuity of trust has also given rise to a unique set of institutions. A capability-enhancing welfare structure; a respectable education system; a decent healthcare system accessible by all; a gentle system of criminal justice that, despite its gentleness, has the lowest rate of recidivism in the world; a powerful yet cooperative apparatus of collective bargaining; a mature political framework that is not averse to compromise...
As imperfect as these institutions may be at any given point in time, they are, we believe, worth preserving.
In this manifesto, we wish to convey the uniqueness of the path that has defined Norden. We wish to highlight the collective tendencies that have reinforced its foundation of trust and we wish to draw attention to the forces that threaten it.
In particular, we wish to advocate for a more unified Norden. A more unified Norden that, stronger and more prosperous by its unity, can preserve itself more successfully. A more unified Norden that, more resourceful by its unity, can function as a force for good, as a beacon of moderation and civility, and as a pioneer of peacemaking, in an increasingly polarised and dangerous world.
A more unified Norden that, more robust by its unity, can "hold the center" while much of the rest of the world succumbs to the lure of the extreme.
We are the Aurora Movement.
Some members of our movement come from families with deep roots in Norden; some are immigrants living in Norden. We are entrepreneurs, engineers, lawyers, academics, artists, soldiers, politicians, as well as blue-collar workers… We come from different walks of life and from different political persuasions.
Building and preserving trust, the beating heart of Norden, is our first philosophy and our last philosophy.
The Hidden History and the Invisible Future of Norden
1.
Since Feudalism did not take a deep root in the Nordic region, the brutal hierarchy that's inherent in Feudalism did not take deep root in the Nordic psyche either. In much of the rest of the world throughout the Middle Ages and Early Modern era, the Feudal lords had absolute authority over the lives of the peasants. In Norden, by contrast, peasants remained direct subjects of the king. While the institutions "in the middle", that is the nobility and the clergy, had certainly more power than the peasants, they could not sever the direct relationship between the peasants and the king.
This direct relationship between the lowest and the highest echelons of the sociopolitical hierarchy carried itself over to the modern times, giving rise to a direct relationship between the citizen and the state. This is a relationship that is beyond the meddling of the institutions "in the middle", be it the family, be it religion, be it any rendition of civil society organisations.
Sovereignty of the individual remains paramount in Norden – and it's the direct consequence of its history.
While American individualism is defined primarily against state intervention, pertaining to "negative freedom", Nordic individualism is not defined against the state. In fact the sovereignty of the Nordic individual is very much facilitated and protected by the Nordic state itself. As such, Nordic individualism pertains to "positive freedom".
Positive freedom is the freedom to be "for" things rather than "against" things. It's a rare freedom, the freedom to develop and actualise one's potentiality without the constant struggle to free oneself from tyranny.
Positive freedom permeates much of the Nordic sociocultural paradigm.
2.
Since Feudalism and its brutal hierarchy did not take deep root in Norden, the Nordic psyche did not develop the habit of extreme suspicion towards the Other. It remained relatively immune to extreme forms of Othering. For it did not need to engage in politics of suspicion frequently.
One can easily contrast this with the big neighbour to the East, Russia, whose Feudal hierarchy was indistinguishable from blatant slavery and it dominated the Russian society for a long time, well into the early 20th century. Extreme suspicion of the Other became the defining characteristic of this culture. Something that lingers on today.
In the absence of this extreme suspicion, Norden had the chance to internalise a different relationship to the Other. A less antagonistic one. A relatively safer one.
What we internalise in our history, be it our individual or our collective history, we go on to externalise later. If a society internalises a safe relationship to the Other, as such, it goes on to externalise that safety later, turning safety into a self-reinforcing cycle— a self-fulfilling prophecy, if you will.
It is no coincidence that, when Finland was a Grand Duchy ruled by the tsarist Russia, members of the Russian royal family would travel across Finland without bodyguards or any sort of protection, revelling in the personal safety this society provided even in the mid-19th century.
Upon visiting Finland and observing the cordial ways of the Finnish peasantry, Russian tsar Alexander I is reported to have said "It's as if they have never been enslaved!"
Having never been enslaved, Finns, Swedes, Danes, Norwegians, and the Icelanders did not internalise a slave morality. Which means they circumvented the master-slave dialectic altogether. They circumvented the extreme suspicion and the violent Othering that were embedded in the Feudal master-slave dialectic.
3.
Finland is a particularly revealing showcase for demonstrating Nordic values and virtues precisely because of its proximity, and its historical exposure, to Russia. It can offer a unique study of the clash of Nordic continuity with Feudal Othering in a way no other Nordic country can. For, the clash between these two paradigms briefly ripped Finnish society apart.
Finland was a part of Sweden for about 700 years. During this time, it absorbed and internalised Swedish institutions to the very core, adopting an unmistakably Nordic alignment. From 1809 to 1917, however, it became a semi-autonomous Grand Duchy ruled by tsarist Russia. With the Bolshevik revolution in full swing, then, Finland gained its independence in 1917.
Now it had to determine which way it wanted to go. It had to decide between a Western/Nordic orientation and an Eastern/Russian one. This tension gave rise to a bloody civil war. The forces supporting the Western/ Nordic orientation won the civil war.
This was a traumatic event with a large number of casualties for such a small country, making Finland the only Nordic country to have experienced a civil conflict in modern times. What makes it a particularly interesting event, however, is not the conflict itself but the process of reconciliation after the conflict.
For, in less than a year after the end of the Civil War, the winning side of the conflict allowed the losing side to enter the political arena and to stand for election again. In other words, instead of continuing to suppress the losing side, which is what most victors do, the victors invited the losing side to come back into the fold and to officially stand for election again.
This is unprecedented in the history of civil conflict.
Nor was this the only step in the reconciliation process. This was only the political step. In the following decades also came the economic and the cultural steps of reconciliation.
On the economic front, the ruling coalition decided to capture large swathes of the abundant forest, break them down into small pieces, and distribute these amongst the poorest members of the society who primarily belonged to the losing side of the Civil War. This redistributive policy turned a large number of poor factory workers into small land-owners overnight, preventing them from languishing in economic depravity.
Needless to say, it had a significant effect in mending the rift caused by the Civil War.
A while after the end of the World War II, then, came the final step of the reconciliation process, the cultural step. Three national archives in Finland started a comprehensive and historically unprecedented public initiative.
They sent open calls to the entire nation, inviting anyone and everyone who had any direct or indirect memory or story related to the Civil War, regardless of which side they were on, to write down their stories and to send them to the archives.
In other words, the national archives said to the citizens: send us your stories, and we make them part of the story of the nation. Send us your pain and your trauma, send us your wounds, and we make them part of the narrative of the nation. Regardless of which side you were on, let us bring your story out of the shadows. Let us collectively shine a light on the darkest moment of our history.
Tens of thousands of submissions were made to the archives, paving the way for further and further collective healing. Such project, with such aim and such scope, is, again, unprecedented in the history of civil conflict.
4.
Because of its intensity, because of its profundity, because of its exceptional wisdom and foresight, and because of its powerful illustration of how to "hold the center", we consider the reconciliation after the Finnish Civil War to be the point of departure for our movement, the Aurora Movement. We consider it to be an excellent case of Nordic continuity reasserting itself after a painful societal rift. We consider it, in other words, to be our mythopoetic guiding exemplar for the future.
In terms of practical significance for peacemaking and trust-building, there is simply no other incident in Nordic history that could rival this one. It's as if the wisdom of all great luminaries of Norden, the wisdom of Nordic history itself, culminated in the psyche of the Finnish actors who facilitated this reconciliation, bringing Finland back, step by step, from the depth of the abyss, making it possible for the country to move on and to join her four Nordic sisters in prosperity.
Norwegian sociologist and peace activist Johan Galtung makes a distinction between negative peace and positive peace. Negative peace is simply the absence of conflict between the parties concerned. Positive peace, on the other hand, entails active engagement in building constructive relationships between the parties.
We argue that the reconciliation after the Finnish civil war embodies positive peace par excellence and also a positive mode of trust building. For just like peace, trust can be negative or positive. While negative trust might indicate a mere absence of suspicion or antagonism, positive trust, we argue, entails actively investing good will in the Other and inspiring them to live up to the ideal of trustworthiness. Positive trust entails an authentic reciprocity of goodwill and cordiality.
This is our point of departure. This desire to build and to maintain trust is our first and last philosophy. We do not have Romantic atavistic fantasies.
By embracing Nordic continuity, our aim is not to build a "Nordic empire", but to build a community of trust.
We are the Aurora Movement.
Threats, Trials and Tribulations
1.
We do not wish to define Norden in terms of negative relationality, by positioning it "against" something. Nordic continuity is an authentic mode of being in the world – an authentic mode of being, and becoming, that doesn't need an enemy in order to define itself. Steeped in non-coercive positive freedom, it's a mode of being and becoming that is more likely to position itself "for" things rather than "against" things.
Nevertheless, there is no guarantee that this fortuitous continuity will continue forever. While it has survived a rift as violent as the Finnish Civil War, there is no guarantee that it will survive every other rift in its path.
There is no guarantee that it will survive every threat to its existence.
Even if we do not wish to define it in negative terms, therefore, we cannot overlook the threats it faces today and tomorrow.
2.
Some threats, some immediate existential threats, are quite explicit. The ever belligerent neighbour to the East, Russia, is a permanent source of threat to the safety of Norden and to the safety of Europe as a whole.
This will remain the case regardless of who runs Russia.
A more unified Norden, we believe, can bolster Nordic security against this permanent threat in two ways:
Firstly, it can turn Norden itself into a formidable defensive force – independently from NATO and independently from the whims of American politics.
Secondly, even within the parameters of NATO membership, closer ties amongst the Nordics is prudent. For a "Nordic block" within NATO can in fact function as a moderating force, rendering NATO a little more peace-oriented and, as such, allaying some of the paranoia in the Russian psyche.
A unified Norden can therefore "hold the center" even within NATO, guaranteeing its own security while at the same time creating more stability in the entire region.
3.
Not all threats are as explicit, however. We believe the global hegemony of the American culture, or some elements of the American culture, is another threat to Nordic continuity even though it's an implicit threat.
For historical reasons beyond the scope of this manifesto, modern American politics has become (or perhaps has always been) a politics of suspicion, permanently locked in a mentality of Othering. American psyche appears to take collective enjoyment (jouissance) in keeping and reproducing societal divides rather than mending them.
This is hardly a recipe for a society of trust.
The global hegemony of the American culture, then, has meant that American problems are projected onto the rest of the world, as if they were global problems, and American solutions are touted as the right solutions to those problems problems that the rest of the world, especially the rest of the developed world, may not even have to begin with.
We would like to "decolonise" Norden from this hegemonic influence. We would like to decolonise Norden even from the notions of decolonisation that may come from the United States.
We admit that, as one of the longest continuously running democracies in modern history, United States has been a fascinating experiment. We admit that there is still boundless beauty and boundless creativity in the American society. American problems, however, are not our problems, and American solutions are not our solutions. In fact importing American solutions might result in creating the very problems those solutions purport to resolve.
A unified Norden, we argue, will be large enough to constitute a robust civilisational and cultural block in its own respect. Not only can it de-Americanise itself with more confidence. It can perhaps inspire the United States itself to become more Nordic.
A unified Norden will be a super soft power.
In the early 20th century, adopting its famous "Third Way", Norden circumvented the Hobbesian cruelty of the extreme Right and the Rousseauian resentment of the extreme Left. Norden held the center. In the 21st century, in order to reinforce its historical continuity, Norden should act as one, taking the individual glimmers of each Nordic nation and merging them into one strong Nordic light.
4.
Just as projecting American problems and solutions to the rest of the world is misguided and narcissistic, projecting Nordic trust to the rest of the world is naïve and equally narcissistic. While building and preserving trust is our first philosophy and our last philosophy, we are not naive. We do not advocate blind trust.
We take it as a given that different cultures have different relationships to trust. There are high trust societies and there are low trust societies in the world. This is a fact. The question, then, is what happens when trust and mistrust come into contact? What happens when a culture of high trust and a culture of low trust mingle?
This is especially pertinent to the issue of immigration and it poses a difficult paradox for Norden.
The paradox of trust, we propose, is somewhat similar to the paradox of tolerance: In a tolerant society, if we tolerate the intolerant, the intolerant will eventually come to prominence, dominating and eliminating the tolerant. Tolerance, as such, will die as a consequence of tolerance.
Following a similar logic, trust can also die as a consequence of trust. Even in a high trust society, if trust is met consistently with exploitation and abuse, it will eventually break down.
On the other hand, if we begin with suspicion, if we begin with distrusting the Other, we do not have a society of trust to begin with.
How Norden resolves this paradox, we believe, is profoundly consequential for its continuity in the 21 century— and beyond.
5.
A foolproof logical solution to this paradox can be the subject of a philosophical treatise. What we, the Aurora Movement, offer is not a logical solution. At least not in this manifesto.
What we offer here is the mere acknowledgement that, to have a society of trust, we should be able to extend the trust optimistically, even a bit naïvely, to the Other while at the same time setting boundaries for who can join our society. We need both. We need to regenerate the trust and to protect it at the same time. If this is a paradox, then we should learn to live with it and to endure its tension.
Our priority, however, should be the trust itself rather than setting boundaries around ourselves. Of course we need to set boundaries. Of course we need to protect our borders, physically and metaphorically. But this should not be the source of our collective enjoyment. It should be something we do out of necessity not something we do out of visceral enjoyment.
In other words, we must keep drawing our collective enjoyment from being "for" something rather than being "against" something.
A unified Norden, we argue, makes this easier. Once every Nordic nation recognises herself and her own foundation of trust in other Nordic nations, that foundation multiplies, gaining a new strength that would not have emerged in isolation.
The common foundation of trust, strengthened this way, will in turn make it easier to be "for" things rather than "against". For it will re-affirm the authentic Nordic mode of being in the world. It will re-affirm that authentic mode of being, and becoming, that does not require an enemy to make sense of itself.
At the same time, when it comes to the necessity of setting boundaries, a unified Norden is in a stronger position to provide common border protection.
6.
Another source of constant trial and tribulation is the economic challenge. Needless to say, a more prosperous economy, supporting a more robust welfare structure, is better equipped to foster societal trust for it can take better care of the poor and the downtrodden.
Closer ties amongst the Nordics can contribute to their economic prosperity in a variety of ways one of which is what economists have termed "agglomeration". When different industries cluster together in a specific geographic area, the interaction and the pooling of resources and the spillover of knowledge between them can give rise to certain emergent advantages, certain positive externalities, that would not have emerged in isolation.
Agglomeration, in other words, can lead to a burst of creativity and innovation which has obvious ramifications for the competitiveness of a given entrepreneurial ecosystem.
By unifying some of their existing entrepreneurial infrastructures, and by facilitating agglomeration between them, Nordic countries could create a common entrepreneurial ecosystem capable of rivalling any other in the world. Not only could this provide a competitive boost to their economies, individually and collectively. It could also become a source of attracting talent from the rest of the world, perhaps reversing the trend of Nordic brain drain.
Furthermore, on the economic front, an internal Nordic market can be beneficial. While not terribly large, such internal market would still be much larger than any individual Nordic economy. As such, it could be capable of supporting more domestic industries that may not be export oriented.
With regards to exports, which is the main driver of most small economies, there are some benefits to unification as well, for as one unified block, the Nordics will have greater heft in consolidating their export industries-and also in their powers of negotiation with the rest of the world.
These unified powers of negotiation can help the Nordics better protect their interests in many places, both near and far including the Arctic region.
Finally, in matters of public policy, unified powers of negotiation could also safeguard Nordic institutions against rampant neoliberalisation-whether this comes from the US or the EU. While we support the EU as a grand project, and while we would like Norden to be a block within existing EU frameworks, EU policies may not always align with longstanding Nordic values. Some areas of contention are excessive austerity measures, a drive to marketise that which should not be marketised, and attempts to undermine labour organisations.
Not only is a unified Norden in a better position to defend its own institutions. It's also in a better position to promote moderation within the EU and beyond.
Conclusion