VIII. TO BJØRNSTJERNE BJØRNSON

Bjørnstjerne Bjørnson:

 

IT was a great pleasure to receive a letter from you; but it would have been a still greater pleasure if the letter had treated of a matter in which I could feel that I might join you. But such is not the case. To the proposal in regard to the flag in its most vital essence I must object and I will briefly show why.

In the first place I think that the protest against the union sign should have been made at the time it was proposed to put the sign there or else not at all. Now the sign has grown to be a fact and hence it must stay. For you cannot eradicate the consciousness of union from our minds; what satisfaction can it be, then, to take the sign from the flag? That it should be a sign of dependency I cannot at all understand. The Swedish flag bears the same mark. That shows that we are not more dependent on the Swedes than they are on us. For that matter, I do not have any great liking for symbols. Symbols are not in keeping with the times any longer, except in Norway. Up there the people are so very busy with symbols and theories and ideas that practical progress can make no advance. And there is something enervating in occupying one’s mind with unproductive problems.

But the main reason why I am not satisfied that such a proposal was made is that I think it is a sin against our people to make burning questions of those that are not so. More than one burning question at a time can never seriously come to the front among a people; if there are more; then they naturally detract from each other in interest. Now we have with us a single question which ought to be a burning one, but which — I am sorry to say — does not seem to be so. We have with us not more than a single matter for which I think it worth while to fight; and that is the introduction of a modernized popular education. This matter includes all other matters; and if it is not carried through, then we may easily let all the others rest. It is quite unessential for our politicians to give society more liberties so long as they do not provide individuals with liberty. It is said that Norway is a free and independent state, but I do not value much this liberty and independence so long as I know that the individuals are neither free nor independent. And they are surely not so with us. There do not exist in the whole country of Norway twenty-five free and independent personalities. It is impossible for such ones to exist. I have tried to acquaint myself with our educational matters — with school courses, with schedules, with educational topics, etc. It is revolting to see how the educational hours, particularly in the lower grades of the public school, are taken up with the old Jewish mythology and legendary history and with the medieval distortion of a moral teaching, which in its original form undoubtedly was the purest that has ever been preached. Here is the field where we, one and all, should claim that a “pure flag” be displayed. Let the union sign remain, but take the monkhood sign out of the minds; take out the sign of prejudice, narrow-mindedness, wrong-headed notions, dependence, and the belief in groundless authority, — so that individuals may come to sail under their own flag. The one they are now sailing under is neither pure, nor their own. But this is a practical matter, and it is hard for such matters to attract interest to themselves with us in Norway. Our whole educational system has not yet enabled us to reach that far. For this reason also our politics still appear as if we were under a constituent assembly. We are still engaged in discussing principles. Other countries have long ago arrived at clearness concerning principles, and the struggle concerns the practical applications of them. When with us a new task turns up it is not faced with assurance and presence of mind, but with bewilderment. It is our popular education which has brought us to a point where the Norwegian people are thus confused. It appeared clearly in the flag matter, and that on both sides. The seamen, undoubtedly, had the clearest view, after all; and that is natural, for their occupation carries with it a freer development of the personality. But when mountain peasants from the remotest valleys express, in addresses, their need of ridding the flag of the union sign, then it cannot possibly be anything but the merest humbug; for where there is no need of setting free one’s own personality there can much less be any need of setting free such an abstract thing as a society symbol.

I must limit myself to these few suggestions of my view in this matter. I am entirely unable to agree therein; nor can I agree with you, when you say in your letter that we poets are preferably called to forward this affair. I do not think it is our task to take charge of the state’s liberty and independence, but certainly to awaken into liberty and independence the individual, and as many as possible. Politics is not, so far as I can see, the most important business of our people; and perhaps it already holds a greater sway with us than is desirable in view of the necessity for personal emancipation. Norway is both sufficiently free and independent, but much is lacking to enable us to say the same with regard to the Norwegian man and the Norwegian woman.

With our best regards to you and yours,

HENRIK IBSEN