Norway has become a power player in Cuba today, and most importantly, its embassy has become a center for the arts and popular culture, sponsoring art exhibits and film festivals. Its old Vedado building has become an open house, where young artists and writers are always welcome, and its art openings are among the best attended in the city. In the Embassy’s open salons as in its back yard, the ambassador and his husband always have a warm smile and an affable comment for every person, most often young, that visits. At the same time, while other embassies have become havens for dissidents, the Norwegian has eluded a stigma that could hamper what Kjetil Klette Bohler refers to, in his questions to the ambassador, as “soft politics.”
After a thirty-five-year absence, Norway established an embassy in Cuba in 2001, only to play an increasingly important diplomatic role in the island. Its trademark has been “soft politics,” or the strengthening of bilateral ties, particularly in the fields of arts and culture. In 2013 alone, the Norwegian embassy supported more than seventy different artistic or cultural projects with a budget of approximately 150,000 USD. And that is not all. Annually, the Norwegian government invests roughly three million USD dollars in other kinds of developing projects in Cuba, ranging from the prevention of natural disasters to various human rights initiatives. Most famously, a Norwegian diplomatic team has been instrumental in a six-year process that has just culminated in a peace deal between the Colombian government and the FARC guerrilla group.
Cuba Counterpoints’ Kjetil Klette Bøhler sat with the Norwegian Ambassador to Cuba Mr. John Petter Opdahl in Havana, this past March, 2016, shortly before the end of his tenure in the island. Prior to becoming Ambassador to Cuba, Mr. Opdahl served as Cultural Counselor at the Norwegian embassy in London and held a leading position in the Cultural Affairs Section of the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In this interview, Mr. Opdahl reviews the Norwegian embassy’s work in Cuba today.
Cuba Counterpoints: Can you tell me about the work of the Norwegian Embassy in Cuba over the past decade?
Ambassador Opdahl: During the first decade of this century, diplomatic relations between Cuba and Norway were effectively frozen as a result of Norway’s criticism of human rights abuses in Cuba (particularly in regard to the arrests of seventy-five dissents in 2003). My two predecessors had difficulty establishing contact with Cuban officials during that period, but they worked thoroughly to develop some trust and access at different levels of the Cuban government. During that time, the Norwegian diplomats’ main contacts were dissidents, which reflected the Norwegian government’s own interests. In 2005, a new “Chargé d’ Affaires,” Jan Tore Holvik, changed course and established collaboration and bilateral exchanges in the areas of cinema, literature, and the arts. This opened new opportunities for collaboration with the Cuban government. Four years later, for instance, Norway’s Minister of Culture visited with his Cuban counterpart in what was Norway’s first official visit, on a ministerial level, to Cuba since 1997. Norwegian author Jostein Gaarder was part of this delegation, and he gave the Cuban editorial house Editorial Letras Cubanas permission to publish a Spanish version of his book, Sophie’s World, free of charge. After the visit, the Norwegian Minister of Culture allocated more funding to increase cultural collaboration between the two countries in the fields of music, dance, literature and theater.
CCP: What was the result of Norway’s ‘soft politics’ of exchange within the arts?
AO: The Norwegian embassy had already seen how collaboration within culture and the arts could pay off by strengthening Norway’s position and providing access to new forms of collaboration. This resulted in several new cultural and research projects in Cuba funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and initiated by the Norwegian embassy such as the ‘Ibsen project,’ among others. Then, in 2010, the Norwegian Minister of International Development, Erik Solheim, visited Cuba and established a bilateral cooperation in matters of international aid, geared, for instance, to reducing risk in natural disasters, financing Cuban health workers in Haiti, a capacity-building project in the oil sector called “Oil for Development,” and a scientific fish farming project.
CCP: What have been the main challenges and accomplishments since you began as ambassador in 2010?
AO: Despite Norway being a small country with historically weak relations with Cuba, we have now become one of the European embassies with the strongest profile and position on the island. We have been able to maintain ties of cooperation with the government, while also maintaining contact with Cuban human rights defenders, as well as collaborating with Cubans who are working within the system to promote democratization and change. In short, we have been able to both support democratic voices working for change and collaborate with the Cuban government by financing prestigious bilateral projects within the fields of international aid, development and culture. In particular, the Norwegian embassy has established itself as a powerful player within the Cuban culture and arts scene. For example, since 2014 we have given 50,000 USD annually to Cuban film productions. This program has been a major success.
As a result, Norway has a strong presence in Cuba, though it is probably weaker than it was in 2012-2013. Part of this is because we have always focused on a twofold agenda. We want to work with what we consider to be the productive aspects of the Cuban state in terms of welfare, education, environment and culture. At the same time, we continue to press for democratic reforms and therefore provide support to alternative pro-democracy movements.
Due to fertile collaborative projects and the ability of the embassy’s cultural programs to provide relevant financial support to a large number of Cuban artists, some Cuban artists have established stronger relationships with Norwegian cultural programs than with their own Ministry of Cultural Affairs. This has led the Cuban Cultural Ministry to hamper some of the cultural work done by the Norwegian embassy, and they have forced some Cuban cultural institutions to shut down collaborative projects.
CCP: How have other European embassies responded to the growing stature of the Norwegian embassy since 2013? Has this influenced their work?
AO: Some European embassies have adopted aspects of the Norwegian model of cooperation with the emerging Cuban civil society. But there are some important difference between Norway’s approach and the position of other European countries. We have had more funds for cooperation than other countries, and there is an almost absent Norwegian business sector—which in a way has given us more freedom.
CCP: What is the importance of the Norwegian embassy in Havana for Norwegian politics?
AO: In 2010, the Norwegian Foreign Ministry decided to upgrade the Norwegian embassy in Havana to become its headquarters for the Caribbean and Central America region. We have increased the staff at the embassy and moved it to a more central location in the Vedado neighborhood.
The work of Norwegian embassy in Cuba was particularly important to Norway’s leftist government (2005-2013). That was coalition government, made up of the Labor Party, the Socialist Party and the Center Party, and had an interest in strengthening collaboration between Cuba and Norway, and in improving Norway’s presence in Latin America generally. This interest was reflected in the creation of a new research program for Latin America administrated by the Norwegian National Research Council, with a total budget of approximately twenty-five million USD. But since the 2013 election of the right-wing government in Norway, and due to the present refugee crisis in Europe, there has been less interest in Latin America.
CCP: What are the most important changes happening in Cuba today?
AO: The most important change in Cuba is that the State no longer has a monopoly over the media. Better access to the internet, the use of social media, and the distribution of entertainment and information through USB flash drives like el paquete and la vista have become more important in shaping people’s opinions and discourses than the state-run newspapers and TV—at least in the Havana region. In particular, popular music has become an important medium of communication. At the same time, inequality and class differences are increasing. Cuba is about to become more segregated.
CCP: What do you see as the Cuban perception of the Nordic model of social democracy?
AO: Despite shared basic values in terms of free education and health services, and the emphasis on equality at all levels, the Cuban government is uncomfortable with the Norwegian social democratic model because it would require a transition to participatory democracy, as well as governmental transparency and accountability.
CCP: What kind of political future do you think that the Cuban people envision?
AO: Even though many Cubans are tired of their paternalistic state and might envision some kind of change, it is my impression that most are satisfied with the Cuban welfare system and take pride in their strong health and educational sectors. Of course, there is a lack of resources and problems with carrying out many of these services, but in my view, the principle of the Cuban welfare state has substantial support. Americans don’t understand that Cuba actually views the U.S. as a developing country when it comes to health services and education. Cubans don’t want to adopt the American model wholesale. They envision a more democratic and open society, but one that does not abandon the welfare model developed after the revolution. They take pride in many of the revolutionary principles when it comes to social welfare and equality.
CCP: Our mostly North American readers will like to know this. Thank you very much, Mister Ambassador.
AO: Thank you.
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Cover image: Norway’s Ambassador (left) at an Embassy opening in 2014. Photo provided by Mr. Opdahl.
Photos of the Embassy’s exterior by Elix Colón.