Minister of International Development Hilde F. Johnson

Words at the memorial service in Oslo City Hall

16 January, 2005

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Your Majesties,
Your Royal Highnesses,
Excellencies,
Dear friends,

This is a time we will all remember. The greatest natural disaster in living memory has taken 165 000 lives. Millions have lost their loved ones, had their lives brutally shattered. In Indonesia, in Sri Lanka, In Thailand, in Burma, in the Maldives, in Somalia. Many here in Norway have also been affected. Many will be marked by grief and sorrow for a long time to come. Many will need our help and support in the years ahead.

This disaster was different. It has awakened us here in Norway. It has made a deeper impression than previous disasters. It has shown us that the world is no longer out there, far away, different. The world is here. It is a community, one world where we are all vulnerable, dependent on each other, for better and for worse. A world where we need each other.

In the midst of the tragedy, many Norwegian survivors experienced that those who had lost everything were also concerned about them. Those who were directly affected shared what little they had. Many lives were saved because of the help and compassion of the local people. I want to thank them for this.

“We can’t have compassion for a statistic,” someone said recently. I believe it was Odd Børretzen. That’s just the way it is. We hear about tragedies, about thousands here and millions there – we watch it on the television news, read about in the papers. But we don’t really let it get to us, we don’t pause for more than a brief moment or two. Usually.

It hasn’t been like that now. This time the statistics have become individuals with names – many individuals. Young, old, fair, dark, Asian, European. The grief, the tears, the pain have been brought home to us in a format we can comprehend and feel. We realise that this concerns all of us. We realise this now with our heads and our hearts.

This has resulted in an unparallelled engagement and a tremendous desire to give. Many have also offered their services in the relief effort. In the midst of this grief and pain, we must take time to rejoice that so many want to help. We will also do what we can as a nation to help. Not just now, but also in the long term. Helping hands and resources are needed to rebuild what has been destroyed. We will be part of this.

But those who have lost their loved ones are now left alone with their naked grief. At the loss of a mother, a father, a child, a beloved partner, a friend. They are gone. Jan Magnus Bruheim captures this pain in the poem “A sudden farewell”. He could have been writing about the tsunami.

“Så står eg att åleine…
Eit snøgt sekund
Som vart eit alltid
Ein augneblink
Som vart eit ævleg no.
Eg står og ser –
Ser etter deg.
Og eg har stått der sidan.”

Then I am left alone
A split second
That became forever
A moment
That became an eternal now
I stand there looking –
Looking for you
And I have been standing there ever since.

There’s an empty place in your heart. It’s a heavy burden to bear. But as it is put in Håvamål (a poem in the Poetic Edda), “once you know your friend’s sorrow, it becomes your own.”

Our friend’s sorrow is never quite our own. We can never relieve those left behind of their despair, no matter how much we wish we could. It is a burden that must be borne.

But we can help, each in our own way. We can ease the burden of those in sorrow. We can continue where the local people left off, by showing solidarity and compassion, by helping those in grief, both here in Norway and in the countries that have been most severely affected. We can be a close friend, a good neighbour, a classmate, a colleague – who listens, who consoles, who remembers. And we can continue to be when this disaster becomes overshadowed by other events.

As one of the survivors said: “My life as it was is over. Now I have to build a new one.”

This is not done in a week, a month, a year. Grief is a long process. Therefore the most important thing is that we don’t forget. That we give a helping hand when it is needed – both now and later. And that we also help others who are afflicted by pain and sorrow, both here in Norway and elsewhere. Halldis Moren Vesaas encourages us to do so in her poem “Words for a trying time”:

“Det heiter ikkje eg, - no lenger.
Heretter heiter det: vi.
Eig du lykka så er ho ikkje lenger berre di….

Alt du kan løfta av børa til bror din,
må du ta på deg.
Det er mange ikring deg som frys,
Ver du eit bål, strål varme ifrå deg!

Hender finn hender, herd stør herd,
barm slår varmt imot barm.
Det hjelper da litt, nokre få forfrosne,
at du er varm!”

It is not “I” - anymore.
From now on, it is “we”.
If you possess happiness, it is no longer yours alone…

You must bear as much of your brother’s burden
as you are able to.
Many around you are cold,
Be a fire, give them warmth!

Hands seek hands, shoulder supports shoulder,
Bosom beats warmly against bosom.
It does help a little, a few of the frozen,
That you are warm.