On Friday, July 22, 2011, Norway was shaken and with it the whole world. Two terrorist acts, carried out by the same person, became the worst attack on Norway since World War II. The first was a car bomb explosion at a government office which killed eight people and critically wounded many. The second was more drastic. A man, in the colours of a policeman, opened fire on innocent campers attending a youth camp of the Norwegian Labour Party on the island of Utoya. He killed more than 70 and scarred many more for life. The toll has reached 93 and an equal number are undergoing treatment. Both attacks were brewed within the country by a well-educated, financially sound 32-year-old Norwegian, Anders Benring Breivik, from the majority community in Norway.
Fear Of The ‘Other’To say that Anders Behring Breivik is a loner, i.e. his case can be seen as a rare exception, is to trivialise the issue and ignore the dangers it portends for society. For too long governments the world over have ignored, sidelined or rubbished reports of the growing presence of organisations that view immigration and assimilation of cultures, religions and race as a threat to the existing majority community in a country.
Though the initial suspicion in Oslo was that the attacks had links to a jihadist bombing plot last year or the prosecution of an Iraqi terrorist, it was soon realised that the terror had not come from foreign shores. This was the same mistake the US authorities made when they assumed that the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing was the work of a group from outside the country. Only later did they realise a US Army veteran had blown up the truck in an act of revenge for the 1993 Waco Siege in which 76 people died, including David Koresh, leader of Branch Davidians, a Christian cult group.
This hatred towards the ‘other’ (as Edward W Said explains in his 1978 book ‘Orientalism’) cannot be seen in isolation and finds parallels in other places in Europe and the United States. A ‘right-wing Christian fundamentalist’, Breivik in an interview in which he asks and answers his own questions describes his ideology as “cultural conservatism, or a nationalist/conservative orientation known as the Vienna school of thought. As a political movement, I would describe it as a national resistance movement, an indigenous rights movement or even a right-revolutionary movement”.
Right-WingersPeople like Breivik are misled into believing that if things go on the way they are, with continuing immigration mainly from the Muslim-dominated parts of Africa and West Asia, it will lead to a clash of civilisations. They are indoctrinated to see it as is their job to ‘rescue’, ‘protect’ or even ‘cleanse’ their country. In his 1,500-page manifesto ‘2083: A European Declaration of Independence’ Breivik mentions that his aim is to save “European Christendom” and help it prevail against the “Marxist-Islamic alliance and the certain Islamic takeover of Europe to completely annihilate European Christendom”.
Bourgeois, Redneck PoliticsThe economic slowdown and high levels of immigration have fuelled an anxiety among the majority population and given more room and acceptability to right wing forums and parties that have come to the front since the eighties. Even mainstream parties are going populist.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel declared in October 2010 that “multiculturalism has failed, utterly failed” and this is the prod the Christian Social Union was waiting for to up the ante against immigration from West Asia. British Prime Minister David Cameron echoed Merkel’s views in February. In France it seems that despite Front National leader Marine Le Pen lacing her comments with scorn for Muslims her public ratings are soaring, threatening to unseat President Nicolas Sarkozy in the 2012 election. In the Netherlands the Party of Freedom won 15 percent of the vote share in 2010. Its leader Greet Wilder compares the Quran to ‘Mein Kampf’ and says, “I don’t hate Muslims. I hate Islam.” In Sweden and Denmark right-wingers are quick to attribute any and every problem the countries face to Muslims. In the US rabid-mouthed vitriol-spewing Republicans are getting shriller in their anti-Muslim rants and Christian pastors like Terry Jones, who proposed to burn the Quran on the anniversary of 9/11, are bolder – and stupider – than ever before.
These politicians provide grist for the fundamentalists’ mill. A common thread in all these cases is the growing Islamophobia (which peaked after 9/11, 7/7 and the Madrid bombings). But what is unfortunate is that just as European leaders have not done their part, Muslim rulers and leaders around the world have not done substantially enough to denounce the violence perpetrated by jihadists.
Camouflaged Easy TargetsThe Fat Men and Little Boys can be used as political deterrents and for sabre-rattling between hostile nations. The unfortunate fact is that more casualties are caused by small-scale high-impact attacks by ‘loners’, sleeper cells and little known fringe groups around the world, which thrive because of a lack of effective surveillance.
A trait of these individuals/groups is that they do not show on the radar (suspect list or surveillance category) of the authorities as they do not come under the government classification of ‘suspects’.
Another trait of many people used by extremist groups, either through direct recruitment or through indoctrination, is that most of them are young, educated, from reasonably well-to-do backgrounds. More often than not indoctrination happens through local influence groups (like religious institutions or community-based organisations) or through the Internet (websites, chat rooms and networking sites) as in the case of Breivik. The Internet provides fundamentalists the manna that changes the world view of gullible people like Breivik. A fact, which many fail to see, is that most of the arguments and conclusions are based on specious arguments and discussions.
Shiver Down The SpineTimothy J McVeigh, the 1995 Oklahoma City bomber whose act of lunacy claimed the lives of 168 people, commented thus on his deed, “Isn’t it kind of scary that one man could wreak this kind of hell?” McVeigh’s reflection of his work should send a shiver down the spine of every law enforcement officer. Imagine the many McVeighs and Breiviks who can be or are misguided. If July 22 has a message it is that no longer can any country afford to be naïve. While focusing on the trouble from outside it cannot ignore the rumbles from within.
(This article was published in The New Indian Express
http://expressbuzz.com/school/right-wing-terror%E2%80%93-an-inconvenient-truth/310786.html)
