In the fall and winter of 1989, a man dreams a dream. In which he is shown really incredible things. Typical dream, right? But perhaps he was not the only one who dreamed/dreams about something similar, because the dreams and minds of people he cares about and the “destiny of the world” happen to coincide, are quite similar, in solidarity, in common. The fact that absolutely everything we know, think, imagine or dream is more or less vividly dreamed / we dream more. Coincidentally, in this case we are dealing with a person who, as a rule, does not remember any night dreams. This time about the first dream, which he does not forget.

The man is 47 years old, his name is Bjarne Normann, he is from Norway. Who, being Scandinavian/Norwegian (that is, from that race that no longer resembles the Viking ancestors at all, but have long been peace-loving and humanistic Scandinavians, modest and disciplined, purposeful, and at the same time lovers of action, physical activity, movement, i.e. “obligatory” great amateur athletes), he decides to do something with, because of or for the sake of his dream. So in February 1990, he began a solo transcontinental march. It was not the first time. Between 1966-68 he crossed the world perpedes apostolorum from Norway to Thailand; and in 1978, after exchanging letters with UN Secretary-General Kurt Waldheim, he marched across Europe from Bergen to Rome in a march dedicated to the “fraternization” of Israelis with Arabs. Now, at the beginning of 1990, the man set out on another journey on foot, which meant pilgrimage, that is, repentance and mission at the same time. Essence and content: the “simple” fact of telling your dream. Start from Munich, end point: Mount Sinai. Because in a dream he saw Moses, the prophet of the same Holy Mountain, talking with a rabbi, with a Christian priest, with another Muslim, with Yasser Arafat and Golda Meir. So, the Norwegian behaved like the poor disciples who fell asleep during Christ’s dialogue with Moses and Elijah on Tabor, but noticed the famous miracle of the “change of face”. And he realized that the only way to establish peace in Asia Minor could rely on the reconciliation of the three main religions of the region, starting with the elimination of the discord between Jews, Christians and Muslims, all regional leaders should negotiate, shake hands, and start a great peace once and for all , ultimate, incredible peace. It was a message the Norwegian wanted to share personally with the relevant regional leaders.

With a backpack on his back, sleeping everywhere in a campaign bag, on the go, under the open sky, this man with an anonymous attitude and behavior crosses his country, then Germany, Austria and Yugoslavia in three months, then makes two on Monday on the route Timisoara-Lugozh- Deva–Alba–Sibiu–Vilca–Pitesti to be more than a month late in Bucharest. The successive slowing down of his march, decided by the strong impression made by simple people and complex local events.

I don’t know if other journalists, reporters, commentators will meet him, or if any of the many new newspapers or radio stations will notice him. In turn, I think I met him at the “Kilometer 0 of democracy”, that is, somewhere between “Inter” and “Architecture”, where groups still held on in the name of Golaniada, horribly destroyed by miners, securitists and Fesenists from Bucharest people returning, protest, discuss. It is true that this man told me his story and his delay through Romania, and he even showed me his documents, because I summarized his vision and his surrealist project in Justice for July. But, as I said, after 1990 (a year of frenzied militancy for a new, illusory and failed democracy), we forgot all about this story (especially since so many other stories came crashing down on us). Until I saw the movie a year or two ago Oslo. A film released at the very beginning of the summer of 2021, which has been shown repeatedly on HBO, and which tells the very story of the Arab-Israeli peace that was dreamed of, desired, negotiated and attempted diplomatically in 1992-95.

In short, in 1989, Norway’s march to the Far Middle East saw leaders gathered around a common prophet of three major religions, who talked/negotiated and decided to end the wars and enmity in the East, which is so close to Europe (indeed, the whole world ), concluding a lasting peace between the Jews and all Arabs. I don’t know if in 1990 a Norwegian pilgrim arrived and was received in an audience by the most important political people responsible for the situation/problem/drama in the Middle East. There is no doubt that in 1992, completely independent of the ineffective official negotiations that took place in the USA and in conditions of complete secrecy, a secret “negotiation channel” was opened in Norway between Jews and Palestinians on the same issue. And which in almost two years reaches a detailed agreement and acceptable compromises, to some extent honorable, but effective, between the two sides. To be careful, the whole story unfolded in a mansion somewhere near Oslo and ended in August 1993, a month later that year everyone sees Yitzhak Rabin, Yasser Arafat and Bill Clinton shaking hands in front of the White House. The great peace treaty, expected and deserved by all mankind, had to be initialed. It is interesting or not, coincidence or just a figurative metaphor, but we have to admit that the dream of marching 90s Bjarne N. came true. Ancient Moses even became a television (because today he is not a bigger, stronger and more authoritative and universal prophet, like a screen full of commandments and news?). The chief rabbi was actually called Rabin, the Muslim was not a priest because Muslims don’t have one, but Arafat already looked like one hajj, elected or anointed by his own people as providential, accepted by most international forums. And as a Christian…who could be less Catholic, more liberal/libertarian Protestant, or more “true” orthodox than Bill Clinton?

Returning to the facts, anyone remembers that in 1995, Israeli Prime Minister Rabin was assassinated by a Jewish fundamentalist. The team of negotiator Shimon Peres hesitates, Arafat is convinced that peace itself was killed in the murder, soon the nationalist and intolerant party of Benjamin Netanyahu came to power in Israel. A politician who gave a more than firm yes/no to Yitzhak Rabin’s cry that a modern country cannot be built on a 3,000-year-old Book (accusing him of blasphemy and treason), a politician whose brother was assassinated during the firefight caused by the release of Israeli hostages from an African airport, could only believe in the law of retaliation. The Norwegian agreement and the international treaty signed in Washington end up in the dustbin, and a solid and inevitable peace is crossed off the agenda. Video Oslo, directed by American Bartlett Sher and released in 2021, is a flawless documentary reconstruction. It focuses on the facts and dialogues of political actors in the Nordic negotiations. He does not remember anything about the little Norwegian visionary who marched through Europe in 1990 to tell all the countries of the eastern Mediterranean about the dream, announcing and accelerating the epochal scene of the historic reconciliation of September 1993.

Perhaps he himself took no part in the whole real, massive history of the Act, carried out in great secrecy in Norway a little later. As I said, great ideas, ideals, hopes and intentions are very common, they, like the Holy Spirit, float on absolutely any waters. The humble peregrine falcon was a dedicated but ordinary traveler, as ordinary as all modern climbers, he climbed the main peaks of every continent, celebrating a heroic deed only for himself, for 2-3 months of thrills and excitement for his own families, for memories a handful of more or less transitory, temporary relatives and friends. – Read the entire article and comment on Contributors.ro