Anders
Behring Breivik is a 32-year-old Norwegian and he is a terrorist. No, he does
not have a long black beard, nor does he dress in a white robe or wear a
skullcap. Yet, he is responsible for the death of over 70 innocent civilians,
many of them teenagers at a Youth Camp! Shocking, right? Wrong.
Breivik is part of an ever-increasing faction of right-wing church-going
extremists whose core objective is to disrupt multicultural world peace and to
curb the spread of internationalism. All in
the name of God.
“Wait,” you might be thinking. “What’s the difference between these lunatics and Al-Qaeda?”
Good question. See, the difference is - you don’t hear about these guys on the news because they’re embedded deep within the European political framework. Strange, isn’t it that these terrorists could blend in perfectly while seated around a table in the bright sunshine at a cafe in Paris or Prague, sipping iced tea while plotting a violent terror attack? Not your stereotypical meeting over kahwe in some remote cave in Afghanistan, is it? Yet its consequences could be just as devastating. Their ideology was brought to the mainstream media for the first time in the aftermath of the July 22 attacks in Oslo.
For those of you who don’t already know the details - a powerful explosion rocked downtown Oslo in an area home to several government buildings including the office of the Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg. The car bombs killed 8 people and left several others critically injured. Barely 2 hours after the bombing, a separate shooting incident occurred on Utoya Island where Anders Breivik, dressed as a police officer, killed scores of 15 and 16 year-olds who were participating in a camp organised by the governing Labour Party. Left with no other option, many youngsters jumped into the freezing water or hid under heavy rocks in an attempt to survive the rampaging maniac. Some heart-wrenching accounts of teenage survivors can be viewed on YouTube, and help us to truly understand how terrifying this incident was - the deadliest attack by a single gunman in recorded history.
But why? Why would a level-headed EU citizen do something like this?
Breivik explains himself in a self-written 1,516-page manifesto which he uploaded online just 90 minutes before the car bomb in downtown Oslo. In it, he describes himself as “a real European hero” and “the saviour of Christianity” and goes on to explain his anti-immigration, anti-Islamic and patriarchal beliefs. What’s most disconcerting is the fact that Breivik says his ideology is shared by many others in and around the continent and they will continue to target governments in an attempt to “preserve a Christian Europe.”
What we need to understand from this is - terrorism, in all its forms, is the evil. No matter how many Breiviks of this world we come across, we cannot start branding all Christians as terrorists, can we now? The same applies to all other faiths. As time progresses, so will the interdependence of nations. When a bomb drops in Beirut, a baby cries in Baghdad and a glass shatters in Berlin. But who started the fire?
“Wait,” you might be thinking. “What’s the difference between these lunatics and Al-Qaeda?”
Good question. See, the difference is - you don’t hear about these guys on the news because they’re embedded deep within the European political framework. Strange, isn’t it that these terrorists could blend in perfectly while seated around a table in the bright sunshine at a cafe in Paris or Prague, sipping iced tea while plotting a violent terror attack? Not your stereotypical meeting over kahwe in some remote cave in Afghanistan, is it? Yet its consequences could be just as devastating. Their ideology was brought to the mainstream media for the first time in the aftermath of the July 22 attacks in Oslo.
For those of you who don’t already know the details - a powerful explosion rocked downtown Oslo in an area home to several government buildings including the office of the Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg. The car bombs killed 8 people and left several others critically injured. Barely 2 hours after the bombing, a separate shooting incident occurred on Utoya Island where Anders Breivik, dressed as a police officer, killed scores of 15 and 16 year-olds who were participating in a camp organised by the governing Labour Party. Left with no other option, many youngsters jumped into the freezing water or hid under heavy rocks in an attempt to survive the rampaging maniac. Some heart-wrenching accounts of teenage survivors can be viewed on YouTube, and help us to truly understand how terrifying this incident was - the deadliest attack by a single gunman in recorded history.
But why? Why would a level-headed EU citizen do something like this?
Breivik explains himself in a self-written 1,516-page manifesto which he uploaded online just 90 minutes before the car bomb in downtown Oslo. In it, he describes himself as “a real European hero” and “the saviour of Christianity” and goes on to explain his anti-immigration, anti-Islamic and patriarchal beliefs. What’s most disconcerting is the fact that Breivik says his ideology is shared by many others in and around the continent and they will continue to target governments in an attempt to “preserve a Christian Europe.”
What we need to understand from this is - terrorism, in all its forms, is the evil. No matter how many Breiviks of this world we come across, we cannot start branding all Christians as terrorists, can we now? The same applies to all other faiths. As time progresses, so will the interdependence of nations. When a bomb drops in Beirut, a baby cries in Baghdad and a glass shatters in Berlin. But who started the fire?
