NORWAY: VICTIM AND PERPETRATOR

  • by Johan Galtung
  • Inter Press Service

Anders Breivik was driven by a calling to save Christianity -Catholic essentially- from a European civil war with Islam. He believed that Islam's entry into Europe was facilitated by multi-culturalism, which was promoted by social democrats, like the youth in the camp on Utoya Island. Dialogue with an implacable, fanatic enemy was impossible. Violence against government facilities and the killing of young supporters, however deplorable, was necessary. Norway, and Europe, needed a wake-up call to return to their origins, writes Johan Galtung, founder of Transcend, a peace-development- environment network.

We see ourselves in Anders Breivik, Galtung argues . We see Norwegian sharpshooters, gunners in tanks, fighter pilots, with the disgusting belief that democracy serves as a license to kill in Afghanistan and to bomb Libya. The acts are disturbingly similar.

By what ideology does Norway justify this? "When NATO goes in we go in, when NATO pulls out we pull out." "When the UN Security Council so mandates..." Authoritarianism, following the leadership of the US and Europe. And what theory do they apply? Not merely a European but a world civil war, Bernard Lewis' clash of civilisations (wrongly attributed to Samuel Huntington). And what says Breivik? A European civil war instead of a global clash of civilisations; a social-democratic youth league instead of the Taliban. Dialogue with fanatics is impossible; violence is deplorable but necessary. It's depressingly similar. If one is crazy, so is the other. If one is terrorist, so is the other. Breivik hides behind God and History; Norway behind NATO and the UN Security Council.

We need more dialogue with people like Breivik, challenging them, exploring the consequences of their thinking, using the Golden Rule or Kant or the Ten Commandments or Sura 8:61 or the Buddhist 8-fold path -not lazy self-righteousness. We must reach across borders to Muslim countries, which were repeatedly attacked by the West in the last centuries. Listen. Reflect. Repent. Solve conflicts. Do not kill.

© Inter Press Service (2011) — All Rights ReservedOriginal source: Inter Press Service