2011 Oslo/Utoeya Norway attacks

But, in the merest evolution of post-9/11 syndrome, Muslims are now the preferred victims perpetrators even in a story in which they are entirely absent.

FIXED THAT FOR YOU AND YOUR ASSHOLE BUDDIES AT THE NR, STEYN.

On the fence about Johnson's article. on one hand, i think he's right that a massive percentage of terrorists of all stripes are driven at some fundamental level by personal inadequacies but this seems like a huge sentence to bury in the middle and not explore in more detail:

It is the ideology that gives them the ostensible cause, that potentiates the poison in their bloodstream, that gives them an excuse to dramatise the resentment that they feel in the most powerful way – and to kill.

If the ideology is also a driving force - providing a framework for damaged people to legitimise grotesque violence - then the ideology is pretty damn important. The comparisons to Dunblane seem a little cheap.

isn't johnson's point that it can be any ideology? inc non-political?

Is it true, though?

Are ideologies that tell people that a catastrophe or huge injustice is going to happen to the people they identify with, and that their political rulers are actively colluding to bring it about, with radical action the only corrective, not inherently more dangerous than most others? I don't think that we can totally separate the rhetoric surrounding the idea that there's a huge conspiracy at the heart of the US government to enslave Muslim lands from 'radical Islamic terrorism' and i don't think we can separate rhetoric Beck and Wilders push, talking about Europe becoming a Caliphate, from the actions of Breivik. It might be that, at some level, people are looking for an excuse but that doesn't change the fact that there are people out there selling them ready-made ones.

plenty of blame to go around

Conspiracy theorists workin' overtime:

http://www.infowars.com/alex-jones-webster-tarpley-norway-terror-attacks-a-false-flag-staged-event/

iirc it was a national holiday

Just to clarify this: it was not a public holiday. However, it was in the period referred to as "fellesferien" ("the common holiday/vacation"), when large parts of the workforce take three weeks off during summer. Also, it is quite usual in the public sector (I'm not familiar with the central government per se) to work shorter days in summer, e.g. a schedule of half-hour shorter workdays than the nominal day in four months of the year and 15 minutes longer workdays than the nominal days in the eight remaining months.

http://static.vg.no/uploaded/image/bilderigg/2011/07/25/1311613249899_255.jpg

Quite a powerful manifestation of love, peace and democracy today at least.

http://static.vg.no/uploaded/image/bilderigg/2011/07/25/1311613249899_255.jpg

Oops already posted...

varg vikernes chimes in http://www.burzum.org/eng/library/war_in_europe01.shtml

spoiler: he shouldn't have

ew.

anti-semitic dipshit

Yikes

Having difficulty balancing the sense that it's important to know how the attacks are being seen by hard-right figures, CIF / Telegraph commenters, etc, with not wanting to actually read it.

I think Boris is trying to excuse his mates in the right-wing press for their inflammatory rhetoric, and I don't think "dude couldn't get girls so he went on a shooting spree" is a particularly great or accurate insight, nor is the 'inherent masculinity' of terrorism ("terrorists are always male, except when they aren't").

Got a bit irritated with seemingly everyone RTing that article yesterday like it was some sort of piercing insight.

Pretending that far-right maniacs aren't driven by ideology seems to be wilful disbelief, and a desperate hope that someone couldn't carry out a massacre like this out of pure cold blood, as opposed to mental illness.

yeah, to be honest boris has probably wrote that because there is a pretty thin gap between this dude's politics and the stuff you get in the tabloids/things a lot of people in his party believe.

exactly. compare what he wrote after the london bombings:

The Islamicists last week horribly and irrefutably asserted the supreme importance of <their> faith, overriding all worldly considerations, and it will take a huge effort of courage and skill to win round the many thousands of British Muslims who are in a similar state of alienation, and to make them see that their faith must be compatible with British values and with loyalty to Britain. That means disposing of the first taboo, and accepting that the problem is Islam. Islam is the problem.

Would he have been Melanie Philips' editor at the Spectator?

These guys are just getting a taste of their own medicine, they're only too willing to blame Islam itself for Islamic terrorism and now they're getting all butthurt at the idea of right wing politics being held in any way responsible for this dick

Bullies are the biggest whiners on the planet, we all know that

This Slate article seems apposite here: http://www.slate.com/id/2299967/

Pretending that far-right maniacs aren't driven by ideology seems to be wilful disbelief, and a desperate hope that someone couldn't carry out a massacre like this out of pure cold blood, as opposed to mental illness.

I didn't agree with everything Mayor BJ wrote but I disagree with you. People go on killing sprees and then leave this "reason" for the world to digest but if you accept he has an ideology then it's as if it's actually true that multi-culturalism has "caused" this or something. A person like this, as self-obsessed, intellectually bankrupt, and hungry for fame and notoriety, would find any old cause to make themselves feel important.

It's not about whether he's mentally ill or carried the killings out "in cold blood", it's just he's not legitimately a political criminal or a terrorist. His "cause" is fabricated by himself. Nobody supports him, and it's just a wild series of "look at the sheeple" rantings. He has zero charisma. It's the same as the 7/7 bombers, these guys are just charisma-free oddballs looking to give their lives some meaning, not a "warning sign" of political violence to come or something.

So do you think if he hadn't been involved in the far-right he would have gone on a killing spree for some other reason? That seems like a huge thing to assume.

His cause isn't fabricated by himself, it's fabricated by a large number of influential political / media / online figures.

I thought Paxman's interview of the EDL guy (whatever he calls himself) on Newsnight could have been better. Interesting though, when finally he could admit that the only aspect of the killer's manifesto he didn't agree with was the killing bit. Paxman only picked up at the end that the guy was threatening that 'someone' (EDL member??) might be 'driven' to do the same in the UK. Pretty despicable IMO.

Paxo barely got a word in, but the EDL did a good job of making himself look like a ranting swivel-eyed nutjob.

What, this fine upstanding citizen?

'Any old cause' can't be true. This guy obviously needed there to be a community of fellow believers not just to randomly pluck his ideas from, but also to draw a sense of validation. The ideas themselves have to be (just) coherent enough to be compelling and to hold together a community of believers.

So do you think if he hadn't been involved in the far-right he would have gone on a killing spree for some other reason? That seems like a huge thing to assume

well to flip that, seems a lot to assume somebody can shoot a bunch of kids point blank based on rationally interpreting a political ideology? i don't think it's a major assumption to say the guy had ego problems, he speaks in the manifesto about the need for him and any followers to go to tanning salons and wear make-up for the photos that accompany their manifesto. he listened to the theme tune from lord of the rings during the shootings, plus publishing a 1500 page manifesto and his videos etc.

i think there's a huge sense of someone who wanted to be seen as important or a political mastermind or something.

he's not part of some vast movement of solidarity, there may be accomplices but he did shoot all those people alone, just him. he did write his own 1500 page "manifesto". i think it's fair enough to treat him largely as someone with their own wild interpretation of the world around him, i bet if you read the entire manifesto it's full of crazy shit about who is and isn't to blame for multiculturalism etc.

i mean why do we give him political credibility? cos he says he did this for political reasons? can someone ever murder 68 people in cold blood and have any political credibility? there are people who share his horrible views who don't murder children in cold blood.

that is to say "fellow" anti-islamic political types aren't necessarily people who support what this guy did...not by any stretch.

The events are not imaginable without his personal craziness, but also not without the existence of a network of radical xenophobes. People who would say the most important contemporary world-historical issue is a clash of civilisations etc, even if they don't explicitly condone terrorism.

do you not think, given other people have carried out similar acts for a wide variety of reasons, that the cause is invalidated? i don't see how the existence of far-right extremists can be seen to explain his actions, not least since such an act is rare, perhaps even unique in european history.

People flip and do crazy stuff for all sorts of reasons, if not usually on this scale. But having a grand narrative of grievances and cheerleaders egging you on and legitimising it have got to make the flipping out more likely.

yeah but that surely only backs up the idea it's just latching onto a viewpoint, rather than flipping out due to frustration at holding that viewpoint, which implies a rationality which just isn't there imo.

The only thing more dangerous than a lunatic is a lunatic with a cause. The paranoid echo-chamber of far-right politics feeds and focusses the violent resentment of people like this. Some people are saying the extremity of this action makes it a one-off but there's a sliding scale.

well to flip that, seems a lot to assume somebody can shoot a bunch of kids point blank based on rationally interpreting a political ideology?

I don't think you can "rationally" interpret an ideology as extreme as something that's essentially reheated Nazism, but it's not a stretch to believe that some pretty hateful stuff in mainstream media (in Britain and elsewhere) contributed to any feelings of resentment that eventually led to this. I'm not directly attributing any of this to Melanie Phillips or whoever obviously, but I don't think columnists like this really pay much attention to how that sort of overheated rhetoric might be interpreted - that's getting into Palin/Giffords territory.

The paranoid echo-chamber of far-right politics

Or any other type of extreme "politics". Or any other extreme views. I just think an act like this comes after so many years of warped personal development that it's v hard to really attribute it to a political cause. I mean, there is so much out there in the media or in the world that you could latch onto if you had violent tendencies or the sort of personal issues that lead you to a violent spree like this.

The Slate piece is OTM - guilt-by-association cuts both ways. If a right-wing writer has consistently had the decency not to conflate ordinary muslims with jihadis then I'll extend them the same courtesy on this occasion. Struggling to find one though.

LocalGarda - I agree, it's not just the right though it seems to be dominant. The conspiracy theorist left isn't really extreme left in the traditional sense.

In the case of this guy quite possibly (xps to ronan) but I think the constant background of grievance can give what would otherwise be just angry young men the reinforcement to become killers. I think you'd do all sorts of stuff you wouldn't normally if you knew your peer group (real or virtual) backed you up. It's why abu hamza and that ilk specifically targeted detached young men and isolated them from normal outside influence, it skews their moral foundations.

i pretty much agree with ronan, in the sense that if it wasn't far-right ideology driving him it would have just been something else; and once any political ideology veers into "extreme" territory, it inevitably becomes hateful by its very nature.

disagree that this sort of person needs a network or a number of voices supporting him - maybe he did in this case, i haven't read any of his rantings yet, but more often than not it's the lone wolf aspect that spree shooters get off on right? and as we know, whatever lunatic belief system you latch on to (cf jared loughner's obsession with currency, iirc) the internet will provide you with backup.

there's enough to criticise far right rhetoric for on rational, political grounds without throwing some dodgy blame game for insanity in there as a distraction.

But unlike most spree shootings the targets and expressed motive were political - that can't be brushed aside. I'm really suspicious of the "huh, loonies, who know what they're thinking?" argument.

He may be a loony but if you consistently point at a Muslim/socialist/liberal across the road and say to the loony "that guy's out to get you" then I'd say he's a darn sight more likely to go over there and do something crazy.

jared loughner was, for whatever its worth, way off the deep end in a way this guy doesnt seem to be--i mean loughner was incoherent on a syntactical level, not just in a "crazy political philosophy" way

i don't think it's a major assumption to say the guy had ego problems, he speaks in the manifesto about the need for him and any followers to go to tanning salons and wear make-up for the photos that accompany their manifesto.

It is rather obvious he has big thoughts about himself. One example is his past in the Progress Party. Apparently he was never on a meeting except for the small local Western Oslo suburban branch he was a leader of. He was never in the board of the Oslo branch, and surely never centrally. Other members of the Progress Party hardly knew who he was at all. Yet, he seems to believe he is the one person responsible for the increase in votes that the Progress Party have gotten over the past ten years (hopefully ended this year). Surely sees himself as a more important figure than he is.

"do you not think, given other people have carried out similar acts for a wide variety of reasons, that the cause is invalidated? i don't see how the existence of far-right extremists can be seen to explain his actions, not least since such an act is rare, perhaps even unique in european history.

― LocalGarda, Tuesday, July 26, 2011 12:37 PM (53 minutes ago) Bookmark"

To the extent that his ideas were interchangeable with some other set, then yeah it does make them less relevant. otoh I think there are fairly strong reasons why it was more likely to be this than, say, animal rights. Basically because some right-wingers dishonestly link intl. terrorism to domestic issues surrounding immigration - which allows antipathy to muslims to serve as the basis for a whole 'clash of civilisations' worldview also applied to mundanely domestic issues.

i defo agree there's intrinsic factors in this actual viewpoint but it's a chicken/egg debate and i think it's more a case of that sort of view suiting someone who is resentful and angry or has personal problems, rather than prompting the person into violence. i feel like in 2011 there might be a few extreme viewpoints most likely to appeal to someone who is planning a spree, but historically there have probably always been paranoias or whatever for people to seize upon to justify or aggrandise murder.

this is what i mean when i say i think it could potentially be any cause, i guess tho in saying this it allows for there to be some worth in examining what the given areas where hatred festers are or what they say about a society.

really though someone disgruntled will find some "other" to blame, it's not that indicative of the times is it? only in a sort of simple way, ie there weren't muslims in norway x many years ago...

That fuckin' moron at The Washington Post, as all these morons do when backed into a corner, decided to double down today: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/post/evil-in-norway/2011/03/29/gIQAtsydVI_blog.html

That the suspect here is a blond Norwegian does not support the proposition that we can rest easy with regard to the panoply of threats we face or that homeland security, intelligence and traditional military can be pruned back. To the contrary, the world remains very dangerous because very bad people will do horrendous things. There are many more jihadists than blond Norwegians out to kill Americans, and we should keep our eye on the systemic and far more potent threats that stem from an ideological war with the West.

In our own debates about national security, conservatives argue that national security spending is deserving of a higher priority than other expenditures. The defense budget is not numbers on a balance sheet as some of those on the left and right insist. Cutting defense spending is not the same as cutting domestic spending. That light rail project can wait, or states can do it, or we can decide it’s a boondoggle not worth doing even if we had the money. But national security is solely a federal function, and it can’t be put off.

There are lone-wolf domestic terrorists, and there are organized jihadists. Bombs go off near our embassies. There is no shortage of threats. There is no shortage of evil. Democratic governments have many demands on tax dollars, but none is more important than defending the lives and security of our citizenry.

"I am in blood
Stepp'd in so far that, should I wade no more,
Returning were as tedious as go o'er."

I'm not sure how much some people understand what 'ideology' means. Ideology does not have to be rational or self aware, nor is it value neutral. Like culture, people don't have ideology; it has them. Obviously a pacifist would be much less likely to do this than a fascist, and an aversion to violence can be a part of ideology. Fascism is an ideology that sees a redemptive or purifying element in violence. Ideology has everything to do with the actions this crazy person took, the scale of his actions (an old fashioned 'propaganda of the deed' anarchist might just have killed a political leader) and his choice of targets.