CounterPunch Exclusives

CounterPunch Exclusives

Row Vikings Row: Norwegians Pull Together

Photograph Source: MichaelEmilio – CC BY 4.0

Norway stunned football royalty Brazil in the World Cup. Instead of dancing, posing or pounding their chests, every player sat down on the pitch and rowed in synchrony with their fans in the stands. “The Vikings took in their sails, put out their oars and rowed ashore before battle. So it fits perfectly with the national team—we’re going into battle,” said Ole Frøystad, “Mr. Row, Row” who invented the gesture. The nation of 5.6 million used the Viking gesture of rowing together to celebrate in what seemed the perfect image. “Everyone is rowing in the same direction to carry their team to the ultimate destination – victory,” declared an official FIFA explanation.

What makes a nation celebrate victory without showing off—or respond to defeat by rowing together instead of sulking?

“I think that the whole nation is rowing together, and with that, I mean that we are having a great party here and in Oslo and in all the other big and small cities all the way through Norway,” the Norwegian coach said after the victory over Brazil.

The habit of rowing together begins young. At my granddaughter’s primary school, there was a “friendship bench” in the playground. A child with no one to play with sits there. Other children know they are expected to walk over and invite the child into the game. No teacher gives an order. The institution itself nudges children toward inclusion.

The friendship bench is a small institution that teaches children to think about someone other than themselves. Norway’s sovereign wealth fund applies the same principle to a nation: it asks today’s voters to think about tomorrow’s........

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