The Norwegian horror

The story line coming out of the Norwegian attacks is that the perpetrator, Anders Behring Breivik, was oriented to the political right. National police chief Sveinung Sponheim stated that the suspected gunman’s Internet postings “suggest that he has some political traits directed toward the right, and anti-Muslim views, but whether that was a motivation for the actual act remains to be seen.” There is also talk about links to Christian fundamentalism.

We’ll see. But what is shocking about this is the killing of at least 80 young Norwegians. As one analyst noted, “The tactics and actuality of these attacks would be quite striking if carried out by a domestic far-right actor — trying to kill Norway’s PM is one thing and not surprising from any extremist elements, but killing average citizens in this manner is very, very unusual indeed for far-right/supremacists, and certainly for ones in Europe.”

Indeed. Killing people, and especially young people, of one’s own racial/ethnic group is not at all what one expects from someone who is motivated by ethnic nationalism.  This is the case despite the fact that the victims were attending a youth camp for the center-left Labor Party. Such young people are simply not appropriate targets; their killing will not be seen by the vast majority of Europeans as legitimate. There is a natural revulsion against the killing of the young, particularly of one’s own ethnic group.

The bottom line is that if the right-wing connection turns out to be correct, this action will certainly not help the cause of those seeking to reclaim Europe for its traditional peoples.