Oslo Overboard

The Norway attacks of July 22, which killed over 76 people and left Oslo paralyzed,  makes me question everything I was ever taught about freedom and democracy.  Most people kill for those ideals, but Anders Behring Breivik, the gunman behind the attacks, killed because of them.

Far-right Breivik had some scary far-right views on immigration and the Islamicization of Europe. When he couldn't get his voice heard in the political arena--he was a member of Norway's far-right Progress Party--he resorted to violence. In cold blood, he detonated bombs in Oslo, and afterwards went on a shooting spree at a Norwegian Labour Party-run youth camp, in the island of Utoeya.

Somehow, in Breivik's mind (I refuse to call him Mr. Brievik. He doesn't deserve that respect) blowing up Oslo and killing children was the proper way to respond to his fear of Muslims and of Islamicization. His attack was aimed at the Labour Party, whic currently governs Norway, and which advocates liberal immigration policies.

He killed children. Made them beg for their lives. In this moment, I don't know who to hate: Breivik, the Muslim immigrants who supposedly caused him to do this, or both?

Immigration is a sticky subject in Europe. It is not as easy to immigrate and settle in Europe as it is in the States. I immigrated to America eleven years ago, and am so thankful that it was to the Land of the Melting Pot that I came. America, unlike Europe, is more of a settler country. Whereas each European country has its own language, customs, and history, tying its people together tightly, America has been and will be shaped by immigrant influences. But after 9/11, 7/7, the 2004 murder of Theo van Gogh, and the Madrid
train bombings, immigration is an even stickier subject. The topic of Muslim immigrants, especially, is problematic.

I inherently believe that immigrants need to assimilate into the culture and customs of their host country. It isn't fair to live there and enjoy its economic and political benefits, and not adopt its social benefits as well. It seems that many Muslim immigrants in Europe have done just that--but it is the small minority (as always) who refuses that causes problems. When they don't assimilate, they scare their European neighbours with their foreign-ness, which seems threatening to the Europeans neighbours' European-ness. (Identity struggles are already so exaggerated in Europe due to the formation of the transnational EU that this case would only make identity fears worse.)

And that leads to Islamophobia, which leads to hate--because humans can't help but hate what they fear. And so, we have the social conditions which create psychos like Breivik.

So who is to blame for the crisis in Norway? Who plunged Oslo overboard into a river of blood? Is it Breivik himself, who follows a sick tradition of terrorists who take action against the government, claiming to see the government as his enemy? (Cue memories of the Unabomber, bin Laden, etc.) Is it the Norwegian government, for allowing a lax immigration policy, when already there are identity issues to deal with? Or is it the few immigrants who cling to their status quo and refuse to assimilate, alienating themselves and breeding hate and fear?

There really isn't an answer, is there? To blame anyone but Breivik is to blame the liberal democratic values upon which most societies are built. Norway's freedom and openness didn't cause the terror attacks. But there are plenty of people ready to point fingers at Breivik's ideas: saying that Islamicization is the root of these problems, and immigration needs to be scaled back, or eliminated entirely.

An Italian MEP recently supported that latter statement. As did members from the English Defence League, and the National Front in France.

I don't understand it, all this Islamicization-immigration-terror-fueled ideology that both sides spew. Frankly, I fear it and despise it.Is Breivik right--are Muslim immigrants the root of the problem? (Reason: no. Mob psychology: maybe.) Do Muslim immigrants pose such a threat to democratic society; is Islam really incompatible with democracy? Has the other side resorted to terror now as well--opposing al-Qaeda and the Taliban are far-right individuals just as ready to bomb things and kill people?

I don't know what to believe. And honestly, I pity our generation: no other generation has been caught in an ideological war as ours has been, with no solid assurances from either side. All we have witnessed are the extremes. No middle ground has been identified. It's like there is a tacit belief that no middle ground can ever be created.

Scary. As scary as the fact that a lone Norwegian killed over 76 people and made kids beg for their lives, all while believing in a made-up threat.

I really want to believe in Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg's statement that the Norwegian people will not waver from their values, that the response to Breivik's anti-democracy and anti-oppenness attacks will be more democracy and openness.

No matter what crazy people do, multiculturalism will NEVER die out. Because its death would mean the death of freedom and democracy, and as depraved as humans can be sometimes, those values will never, ever die out. Breivik and his cohorts achieved what you wanted--he made people think and scared the wits out of them--but his kind will never break humanity's faith in fundamental values. Get wrecked, Breivik.