Terrorist attacks in Oslo
Posted 23rd July 2011 at 12:05 by Feodor Augustus
Updated 25th July 2011 at 13:10 by Feodor Augustus
Updated 25th July 2011 at 13:10 by Feodor Augustus
With horror and dismay we watched yesterday as news broke about two terrorist attacks in Oslo. The first was a bomb blast in Regjeringskvartalet, the government quarter of the city, in which there have been seven confirmed deaths and many more injured. The second, a mass shooting on the island of Utøya, where the AUF (the youth wing of the Norwegian Labour Party) was holding a summer camp for 500 or so of its members, and in which reports now suggest more than eighty young socialists were killed, alongside many more who were injured.
The perpetrator has been identified as one Andres Behring Breivik, an 'ethnic Norwegian' Christian conservative with ties to two far right organisations - the Progress Party and the Norwegian Defence League - and who owned and operated a small farming company, Breivik Geofarm, which would have given him access to the kind of artificial fertilisers needed to create explosive devices.
Internet postings by Breivik, where he railed against 'further Islamization', 'multiculturalism' and 'kulturmarxisme', show him to have been quite typical of the far right milieu. And a Twitter account created last week under Breivik's name contains one post. This states: 'One person with a belief is equal to the force of 100 000 who have only interests.'
Disguised as a police officer Breivik, who was earlier spotted in a van at the scene of the Regjeringskvartalet blast, boarded a ferry to Utøya island. Then, calling the gathered youngsters towards him under the pretence of providing information about the earlier explosion, he opened fire indiscriminately murdering anyone whom he could find. Some time elapsed before the police arrived and arrested him, and by then a number of terrified youngsters had tried to swim, in close to freezing waters, to the mainland. At its shortest distance the island is about one-third of a mile from the mainland, and it is thought some of those that tried to escape in this way lost their lives in the process.
An aerial picture has emerged which appears to show Breivik standing amidst a mass of bodies.
This obviously politically inspired act of far right terrorism was, in something of a tragic (perhaps even tragicomic) irony given Breivik's politics, at first reported by the media as an act of Islamic terrorism. This line of reporting seemed not to pay any kind of attention to the choice of targets, particularly that of the second attack, and continued for some time after Breivik was identified as a conservative nationalist with ties to white supremacist organisations.
Indeed the front page of today's Sun (23rd July, 2011) read: '"Al-Qaeda" Massacre: Norway's 9/11'. Reporting such as this is in many ways a depressing reminder of the kind of popular media bigotry that fans the flames of individuals like Breivik; although to be fair, yesterday it was quite difficult to tell whether the media's bungling of this story was borne more from stupidity or malice.
It still remains to be seen whether this well orchestrated attack was part of a larger conspiracy in which other persons or groups of a similar political persuasion to Breivik were involved, and it would be a real failing of the Norwegian authorities if the 'lone wolf' theory was used as a fait accompli to quickly draw a line under this without further serious investigation.
In the meantime, however, all we can do is offer our most profound sympathy for and express firm solidarity with all those that have been affected by this most heinous act of political cowardice.
In the previously linked internet postings Breivik suggests: 'It essential that many people [understand] that today's political "main game" ... no longer deals with socialism vs. capitalism but rather Nationalism (cultural conservatism) Vs. internationalism (kulturmarxisme / multiculturalism).'
In response, I say: Og Internasjonalen, skal få sin folkevår!
('The Internationale, will be the human race'. Correction, thanks to Chris, see comment below: 'The Internationale, shall have it's people's spring'.)
(My apologies if my Norwegian is a little off; I took it, with a little guesswork, from here.)
Update: it appears that Breivik had strong admiration for, if not links with, the English Defence League. Click, click and click. While the media seem now to have rebranded the attack from the initial charge of 'terrorism' to that of 'extremism', and leading EDL member Chris Howard has suggested these attacks are an example of how to 'fight back'.
I would also like to note that this entry would not have been possible without the fine investigative work of Rev Left users in this thread. They were more than a few steps ahead of the corporate media; and moreover, it reflects poorly on myself that I did not acknowledge this when I first posted this piece. This correction therefore stands as my apology for that particular oversight.
The perpetrator has been identified as one Andres Behring Breivik, an 'ethnic Norwegian' Christian conservative with ties to two far right organisations - the Progress Party and the Norwegian Defence League - and who owned and operated a small farming company, Breivik Geofarm, which would have given him access to the kind of artificial fertilisers needed to create explosive devices.
Internet postings by Breivik, where he railed against 'further Islamization', 'multiculturalism' and 'kulturmarxisme', show him to have been quite typical of the far right milieu. And a Twitter account created last week under Breivik's name contains one post. This states: 'One person with a belief is equal to the force of 100 000 who have only interests.'
Disguised as a police officer Breivik, who was earlier spotted in a van at the scene of the Regjeringskvartalet blast, boarded a ferry to Utøya island. Then, calling the gathered youngsters towards him under the pretence of providing information about the earlier explosion, he opened fire indiscriminately murdering anyone whom he could find. Some time elapsed before the police arrived and arrested him, and by then a number of terrified youngsters had tried to swim, in close to freezing waters, to the mainland. At its shortest distance the island is about one-third of a mile from the mainland, and it is thought some of those that tried to escape in this way lost their lives in the process.
An aerial picture has emerged which appears to show Breivik standing amidst a mass of bodies.
This obviously politically inspired act of far right terrorism was, in something of a tragic (perhaps even tragicomic) irony given Breivik's politics, at first reported by the media as an act of Islamic terrorism. This line of reporting seemed not to pay any kind of attention to the choice of targets, particularly that of the second attack, and continued for some time after Breivik was identified as a conservative nationalist with ties to white supremacist organisations.
Indeed the front page of today's Sun (23rd July, 2011) read: '"Al-Qaeda" Massacre: Norway's 9/11'. Reporting such as this is in many ways a depressing reminder of the kind of popular media bigotry that fans the flames of individuals like Breivik; although to be fair, yesterday it was quite difficult to tell whether the media's bungling of this story was borne more from stupidity or malice.
It still remains to be seen whether this well orchestrated attack was part of a larger conspiracy in which other persons or groups of a similar political persuasion to Breivik were involved, and it would be a real failing of the Norwegian authorities if the 'lone wolf' theory was used as a fait accompli to quickly draw a line under this without further serious investigation.
In the meantime, however, all we can do is offer our most profound sympathy for and express firm solidarity with all those that have been affected by this most heinous act of political cowardice.
In the previously linked internet postings Breivik suggests: 'It essential that many people [understand] that today's political "main game" ... no longer deals with socialism vs. capitalism but rather Nationalism (cultural conservatism) Vs. internationalism (kulturmarxisme / multiculturalism).'
In response, I say: Og Internasjonalen, skal få sin folkevår!
('
(My apologies if my Norwegian is a little off; I took it, with a little guesswork, from here.)
Update: it appears that Breivik had strong admiration for, if not links with, the English Defence League. Click, click and click. While the media seem now to have rebranded the attack from the initial charge of 'terrorism' to that of 'extremism', and leading EDL member Chris Howard has suggested these attacks are an example of how to 'fight back'.
I would also like to note that this entry would not have been possible without the fine investigative work of Rev Left users in this thread. They were more than a few steps ahead of the corporate media; and moreover, it reflects poorly on myself that I did not acknowledge this when I first posted this piece. This correction therefore stands as my apology for that particular oversight.
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Good entry!
"Og internasjonalen, skal få sin folkevår" translates into something like "And the internationale, shall have it's people's spring".Posted 24th July 2011 at 01:35 by Chris 
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