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April 20, 2012 8:33 pm
Norway’s tears
It has been a harrowing week for Norway, which on Monday opened the trial against the country’s worst killer since the second world war. But reopening the wounds from July 22 may be a price worth paying for the lessons learnt.
The first is a reminder – one that too many countries need – of the civilising effect of a fair and open judicial process. In the courtroom, Anders Behring Breivik has been diminished. The concreteness of the proceedings and the scrutiny of prosecutors and judges have transformed an abstract horror into a mere man. There is less to fear.
Second, it is clear with the benefit of hindsight that it was a mistake to ban the broadcasting of Mr Breivik’s testimony. It was legitimate to worry that the unrepentant political terrorist, given access to a global media stage, would use the pulpit he had bought with murder to inspire others to follow him. The Oslo district court relaxed a ban on some broadcasts but did not extend this to examination of the accused.
But seeing Mr Breivik speak links his mediocrity more strongly with his ideas. Here is not a leader of men, and the more this is exposed, the lesser will be the attraction his ideas can exert on otherwise impressionable minds.
There are also lessons to draw from the content of the proceedings. Mr Breivik, a rabid Islamophobe, has had no compunction about using al-Qaeda terrorists as “methodological role models”. That vividly underlines how extremism has the same violent logic, no matter what ideological or religious garb it dons. We ignore at our peril that political bloodshed can come from any direction.
Mr Breivik’s violence did, however, come from a particular place: the Islamophobic extreme right. It is important to separate the first premise of his “justification”, that Muslim immigration is harming Europe, from his second, that only violence can bring attention to this concern. A significant number of Europeans believe the former, and in certain cases this extends to some of Mr Breivik’s wildest ideas, such as those about Islamic “demographic warfare” against non-Muslims.
It is important to listen to these peoples’ arguments more carefully than has sometimes been the case, and painstakingly seek to demolish them, in the hope that logical engagement can sway people from extremism and violence.
Politics that insists on categorising people according to a narrow one-dimensional identity, and creating policies accordingly, has caused many problems, including aggravating the complications of Muslim immigration to Europe and creating crude stereotypes. Individuals should be treated as individuals, by the state and by one another.
The first is a reminder – one that too many countries need – of the civilising effect of a fair and open judicial process. In the courtroom, Anders Behring Breivik has been diminished. The concreteness of the proceedings and the scrutiny of prosecutors and judges have transformed an abstract horror into a mere man. There is less to fear.
More
On this story
- Breivik ‘planned to behead’ Norway’s ex-PM
- I would have done it again, says Breivik
- Breivik warns of further terror attacks
- In depth Norway massacre
- Norwegians wary on eve of Breivik trial
Editorial
But seeing Mr Breivik speak links his mediocrity more strongly with his ideas. Here is not a leader of men, and the more this is exposed, the lesser will be the attraction his ideas can exert on otherwise impressionable minds.
There are also lessons to draw from the content of the proceedings. Mr Breivik, a rabid Islamophobe, has had no compunction about using al-Qaeda terrorists as “methodological role models”. That vividly underlines how extremism has the same violent logic, no matter what ideological or religious garb it dons. We ignore at our peril that political bloodshed can come from any direction.
Mr Breivik’s violence did, however, come from a particular place: the Islamophobic extreme right. It is important to separate the first premise of his “justification”, that Muslim immigration is harming Europe, from his second, that only violence can bring attention to this concern. A significant number of Europeans believe the former, and in certain cases this extends to some of Mr Breivik’s wildest ideas, such as those about Islamic “demographic warfare” against non-Muslims.
It is important to listen to these peoples’ arguments more carefully than has sometimes been the case, and painstakingly seek to demolish them, in the hope that logical engagement can sway people from extremism and violence.
Politics that insists on categorising people according to a narrow one-dimensional identity, and creating policies accordingly, has caused many problems, including aggravating the complications of Muslim immigration to Europe and creating crude stereotypes. Individuals should be treated as individuals, by the state and by one another.
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