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Empathy is the bridge that opens up to the other side
PETROFILM.COM EUROPE
Information and Interpretation
from a European Perspective
Información e Interpretación
desde una perspectiva Europea
EUROPE-USA
A TRANS-ATLANTIC PARTNERSHIP
UNA COLABORACIÓN TRANSATLÁNTICA
EMPATHY RESPECT DIGNITY
EMPATÍA RESPETO DIGNIDAD
Harald Dahle-Sladek
Founder and Editor-in-chief
Fundador y editor en jefe
To contact the Editor-in-chief with questions, comments and inquiries about lectures or consultations, please e-mail us at haroldsworld@petrofilm.com
Oslo, Norway
歐洲分析與解釋
אמפתיה כבוד כבוד
ניתוח, מידע עם פרספקטיבה אירופית
تجزیه و تحلیل ، اطلاعات از یک چشم انداز اروپایی
АНАЛИЗ ИНФОРМАЦИИ С ПЕРСПЕКТИВЫ
ИЗ ЕВРОПЫ
דיאלוג עכשיו ДИАЛОГСЕЙЧАС
DIALOGUENOW
Institute for Empathetic Dialogue formation
and Conflict Resolution, Oslo Norway.
Instituto para la formación del Diálogo Empático y Resolución de Conflictos, Oslo Noruega
عزت احترام به همدلی یکپارچه سازی
The Foreign Ministry Tehran
Creating dialogue and common ground
with the Islamic republic of Iran 1998-2022.
ایجاد گفت و گو و زمینه مشترک با ایران 1998-2022
Updates from
Washington, D.C.
Denmark
Danske Bank Pleads Guilty to Fraud on U.S. Banks in a Multi-Billion Dollar Scheme to Access the U.S. Financial System.
Largest Bank in Denmark Agrees to Forfeit $2 Billion.
Danske Bank A/S (Danske Bank), a global financial institution headquartered in Denmark, pleaded guilty today and agreed to forfeit $2 billion to resolve the United States’ investigation into Danske Bank’s fraud on U.S. banks.
According to court documents, Danske Bank defrauded U.S. banks regarding Danske Bank Estonia’s customers and anti-money laundering controls to facilitate access to the U.S. financial system for Danske Bank Estonia’s high-risk customers, who resided outside of Estonia – including in Russia. The Justice Department will credit nearly $850 million in payments that Danske Bank makes to resolve related parallel investigations by other domestic and foreign authorities. Continues further down.
Switzerland
Glencore International AG
Entered Guilty Pleas to Foreign Bribery and Market Manipulation Schemes. Swiss-Based Firm Agrees to Pay Over $1.1 Billion
Glencore International A.G. (Glencore) and Glencore Ltd., both part of a multi-national commodity trading and mining firm headquartered in Switzerland, each pleaded guilty today and agreed to pay over $1.1 billion to resolve the government’s investigations into violations of the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) and a commodity price manipulation scheme.
Luxembourg
haroldsw
Your Excellency Alireza Yousefi,
My answer to His Excellency’s question if I can clarify my point of view. This is my answer to him.
In the winter of 1998, a group of Iranian businessmen, scientists and lawyers arrived in Oslo for a meeting with Global Geo Services (GGS). GGS had the contract with MJF, NASSIR Bonyad and NIOC to shoot seismic along the coast and on the beaches of Iran from Hendijan to the Oman Sea.
I advised GGS’s management, owner Kjell Finstad and CEO Trond Christoffersen, that I should make a short video presentation and show it on the forthcoming meeting with the Iranian guests.
Although I had never set my foot in Iran, I made a fifteen minute presentation to make the Iranian delegation understand, that we have understood that they came from a high culture. In the video I portrayed NIOC and MJF. A dialogue had been created, the guests were happy, and a good relation was solidly established.
In January 2000 I arrived late in the night in Bushehr by car from Nassir Bonyad’s house in Hendijan. My documentation work onboard six seismic vessels as well as documenting seismic shootings on the beaches in Transition Zone 1 at Hendijan was completed.
During the following weeks in Dubai, it dawned on me, that the Persian Carpet 2000 Seismic project (PC2000) was in fact so complex that the leaders at GGS were “flying blind”. It was my opinion that they did not possess enough and proper information regarding the other side – Iran - . Continuing on this thought, I was of the opinion that we did not know what the Iranians were thinking; we did not have the information we needed to fly on a mutual beneficial path, so to say.
It was at that time, that I contacted Mr. Rezvani – Deputy Head of Mission – at the Iranian Embassy in Oslo and explained this view to him. I asked him to consider opening up towards people in Tehran in order for me to listen to what the people there had to say. Also, seen in the context of the l increasing international isolationism on the Islamic republic, I thought that creating dialogue and common ground was the best way to go forward.
“And the rest”, the say, “is history”. In Tehran I created the “Vision of Iran” filmed dialogue project; printed “Vision of Iran” yellow cards and went to every meeting that the Islamic Guidance Center proposed. Empathy, respect, and human dignity was my approach to the people that I met.
Now I want to talk about something else.
When one gives a label to something, call it by a name, define it and speak of it in the context of that name, one has also limited that object, person, and theme down to that name and at the same time excluded other points of view.
The times in which we are living, is beset with “understanding, and defining”. Read: “Limiting and making things often less than they are”. In the midst of a super technological revolution – in the Global “fishbowl” culture that we represent, limitation of the consciousness is proportionate to self-inflicted arrogance. Meaning, the more we try to understand, the less we understand. The more we define, the more we argue towards the contrary to these definitions that many so eagerly cling to.
One of these definitions is “Journalist”. In a letter dated 9.9.21 to Mojtaba Nadali I laid out my point of view.
Some words from Harald Dahle,
We live in a time where “labeling” – the art of classification within a culture – has been developed into a predominant phenomenon. This phenomenon lays behind commercial, social, and political decisions and is responsible for economic growth, social order, and unrest, decision making in politics, judicial thinking, peace, harmony, or war.
I write. Then I am labeled “a journalist”. Now, everybody is happy, because now they can relate to something they understand; the label fits into their perception of something known, safe and limited.
I make animations and visual displays. Then I am an animator. People can view the result and understand what they watch.
I am a businessman. I worked for two American companies. Helped a ship that was on the drawing board get a ten year production contract. Promoted other companies and their services and made television documentary about Europe’s space industries.
I worked in a private heart clinic analyzing the heart rhythm in a 24-Hour monitoring device; performed hearing and cycling tests on students applying to be air traffic controllers and other things like working with the doctor on lithium cardiac pacemakers.
“But,” say people, “you cannot do all these things; you either do one or the other.” Give the people one label, and they will be at ease; give them two, three or God help us all, four or five, and they are lost behind the Moon. It does not fit into pre-defined “labeling” of “you are either this, or that, but you cannot be both at the same time.”
Albert Einstein got a job as a technical expert – class III at the Federal Office for Intellectual Property in Bern, colloquially known as the patent office. But, then he was also the greatest scientist in our time. According to the unwritten law of “ labeling” that should not have been possible. One is either a patent expert, but one cannot be the greatest of all modern scientists at the same time. Mutter the people!
Arriving on planet Iran. Never ever did I hear so much incoherent rubbish as when people in general describe this ancient planet. In a time when electronic reality is overlapping day-to-day reality – in a time when people are at three places at the same time, - in a time when thoughts – if there are any – are hovering over the surface of reality like an UFO over a Belgian radar station – in a time when perception of reality is limited to a label on a jar filled with cucumbers, in such a time it is time again to open the mind and follow in the steps of visionary William Knox D’Arcy.
First hard work: the pipes into the deep ground followed by success. There is no other way. The people of planet Iran demand it. I ask my Iranian friends, please do not put too much importance on the label “journalist”.
Respectfully,
Harald
Mojtaba: Thank you Harald . What's the most suitable label then ?
Me: Why not, Harald the peace maker?
A comment to my letter: I am Harald. Labeling me does not make me greater, but smaller. But, in the real world, I am more a researcher on the academic side, than a “journalist”. Which can be anything from chain-smoking Whiskey drinking storyteller to a Washington Post league first class writer. And anything in between.
---
I want to talk about something else, my article. One does not argue with monuments carved in Granite on barren fields. One does not argue with granite. One either reads what is there, or one walks on.
PUBLISHED AFRTICLE
Monuments Carved in Granite on Barren Fields.
By Harald Dahle-Sladek
When one talks about Life, it is pertinent to ask, what life does one mean? The entire life, or just selected parts of it? The parts that we like and prefer and leave the rest not to be mentioned? The people who will walk a mile with me, but say “no thank you” to carry my burden and walk another mile? The ones who never invited me for a cup of tea, but proclaim seriously that I am a “friend”? The ones who admire their own achievements highly, but never had time to visit me once. What life are they adhering to? The one in parts, or the one in totality?
A warning sign for our time.
I want to be seen in totality; I do not want that my life be selectively butchered and twisted into something it is not. My articles are monuments in stone in a barren landscape devoid of humanism. They are there to warn and to encourage, but not to be neglected.
In today’s vain world, where it has become so increasingly popular to talk IN a mobile phone, instead of empathizing WITH and showing human DIGNITY; where one is accustomed to appreciating media hype, political lies, lack of responsibilities leading to mass starvations and mass death; in such a world and coldness between people, the abnormal has become the trend, and sadly this is what we adhere to.
In such an inter human setting, the message is clear, why bother to respect the other person right in front of ourselves. It is so much easier to babble because the spoken word carries no longer any commitment, it is free, it does not cost anything to say this or the other. Life is easy when one is free not to engage in another person’s life-and-death experiences, when it is so much more convenient to look at a movie.
People who ignore monuments carved out in granite on barren fields are confirming themselves to the believes of death and destruction. We who write and warn have the humanistic right to say this. It is our task in life. Not to be kind to death and destruction, but to admire and encourage Life.
We expect the same from others as we expect from ourselves. And if “the other” fail, we must go forward alone, and warn. That is our destiny.
Best regards,
Harald Dahle
Luxembourg
haroldsw