Next month I will turn 70, and I will retire in accordance with news’s practice. In this last correspondent letter, I summarize my more than 40 years in radio, TV and online. I joined news the year after Ronald Reagan became president of the United States. A few weeks before Helmut Kohl became Chancellor of West Germany. Mikhail Gorbachev became the leader of the Soviet Union in 1985. Photo: Morten Hvaal / NTB The Iron Curtain divided Europe. The Cold War was in full swing. In Moscow, geriatrics prevailed, with Leonid Brezhnev as General Secretary of the Communist Party. But just three years later, the dynamic Mikhail Gorbachev took over as head of the Kremlin. The world was never the same again. His slogans were “glasnost” and “perestroika” – openness and reconstruction. Jokes like this were told in Moscow: The astonishing changes in the Soviet Union were the start of my life as a foreign journalist. I began to learn Russian, and went to editorial meetings with the party organ Pravda under my arm. I had learned this from older colleagues. They often carried international newspapers in plain sight to show that they were well-versed in the world and mastered foreign languages. Historical changes In 1987 I went from radio to television. At the same time, a historic development began in Europe. Mikhail Gorbachev declared that the Soviet Union would no longer prevent the countries of Eastern Europe from choosing their own political path. At a meeting of the Warsaw Pact, the infamous Brezhnev Doctrine was declared dead and buried. Citizens from East Germany flee through the Iron Curtain between Hungary and Austria in 1989. Photo: VOTAVA / Ap Thus began the incredible development that led to country after country removing itself from communism and opening the hated Iron Curtain that had divided Europe for 40 years. When the Berlin Wall fell, in the autumn of 1989, it was all accomplished. Covering these events was a huge opportunity for a young reporter. Fortunately, I realized even then that this would be the highlight of my journalistic life. Because with all due respect to the wars in the Balkans, 11 September and the war on terrorism, and the ongoing war in Ukraine: The most important thing that has happened to the people of Europe in the last decades is the reunification of our continent. Socialism in the trash In 1991 I was employed as news’s first correspondent in Berlin. Germany is reunited, on 3 October 1990. Photo: GILLES LEIMDORFER / Afp Here, in the heart of Europe, history was written, so to speak, before my eyes. The two German states were reunited and everything was changing – especially for the citizens of the former East Germany. It was a time saturated with symbolism. When I drove past the former headquarters of the East German Communist Party one day, some workers were removing the party symbol from the wall. We arrived just in time to film the moment when the big S for socialism was turned down and thrown into a garbage truck. Excerpt from Dagsrevyen’s broadcast on the 25th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Europe of Peace I remember well the intense faith in the future that characterized the time after the fall of the Iron Curtain. Finally, East and West were to unite in a Europe of peace and cooperation. Many good projects were launched to create a new security architecture to replace the Cold War and the divided continent. But, as we know: The dreams from that time have never come true. For me, who was so close to developments after the fall of the Iron Curtain, today’s hostilities in Ukraine are the saddest and most tragic thing I have experienced as a journalist. The massacre in Srebrenica in 1995 shocked the whole world. Photo: DANILO KRSTANOVIC / Reuters Already in the early 1990s came the first setback – the civil war in Yugoslavia. I was in the Slovenian capital Ljubljana when Serbian forces were sent against the city to prevent Slovenia from breaking away from the federation. Europe witnessed the worst atrocities since the Second World War, with the massacres in Srebrenica being the most famous example. Arnt Stefansen in Brasília. Photo: Arnt Stefansen / news Forest rangers’ fight in Brazil For my part, I chose to leave Europe. I bet on a life as a freelance journalist in Latin America. Rainforest, social inequality, corruption, football and carnival became keywords for my deliveries to news. Rio de Janeiro became my home a lot. After sending thousands of cases home to Norway, it is difficult to highlight one. But I will make an attempt. Just over a year ago, an indigenous reserve in north-east Brazil was visited. I met the so-called forest guardians – women and men who risk their lives to prevent loggers and others from destroying the rainforest, on which indigenous people and the rest of us are so dependent. – Even if we indigenous people leave our reserves and give them to the whites, we don’t get so much as a patch of land or a job so that we can give birth to our children, says Iraci Guajajara in the Brazilian Amazon. Photo: Arnt Stefansen / news I still get a lump in my throat when I think about what the mother of one of the forest rangers said to me: “I support my son’s fight to save the rainforest, even though I know it could cost him his life.” . Much to be thankful for 17 years after I moved from Europe, it is in Rio de Janeiro that I am ending my more than 40 years of service to the company. I have lived abroad for 30 of them. I want to thank news for giving me such great opportunities in life. I would like to thank my skilled, knowledgeable and pleasant colleagues. And last but not least, I want to thank you – listeners, viewers and readers who have followed my work for more than four decades. I’ll spare you the tired phrase “it’s been quite a journey”. Instead, I would like to quote the artist Ole Paus: “It’s starting to look like a life, this here”. Arnt Stefansen together with Brazilian President Lula da Silva, whom he interviewed before the election last year. Photo: Studio PT
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Arnt Stefansen’s last correspondent letter as an news reporter – news Urix – Foreign news and documentaries
