The New York Times wrote about the Norway shooting and bomb attack, discussing the 1,500-page manifesto which the suspect, Anders Behring Breivik, published before the deeds.
The document appears to be available through Google, and in the foreword the author writes of planning the deeds for several years. He sent the document to "7000 patriotic Facebook friends".
Breivik cites the Finnish politician Jussi Halla-Aho, of the nationalistic "Basic Finns" party (Perussuomalaiset), on the topics of immigration and Western culture. As an example, he offers this quote from Halla-Aho: "It is because the moral and ethical values of Western man have made him helpless in the face of wickedness and immorality."
It seems that multiculturalism was a big fear for Breivik. But what it was that lead him to such terrible actions, I'm not sure if it ever can be understood. Anyway, it seems that when you are afraid of "the other", and get involved with similarly thinking people, this can lead to unimaginable actions.
But this makes one think. The Christian fundamentalistic terrorism and the Islamistic terrorism are almost like the same, they are mirror images of each other, but hating and fearing otherness. Does there remain any room for discussing the common world we live in, to appreciate the life on Earth?
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A moment of profound silence followed.
4 hours ago
2 comments:
It really is a shame. Without the wonders of "otherness," I wouldn't be half the man I am... and I probably wouldn't even want to live.
@Tinman: Indeed.
What is worrying is that it may be that events like this harden the attitudes on all sides, not helping discussion as one would like to see happen.
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