A decade ago, far-right radical Anders Breivik detonated a bomb outside the Norwegian prime minister’s building yesterday, killing eight people, and then made his way to the small island of Utoya, where he shot another 69 people, mostly teenagers and members of parliament. from the youth wing of the Norwegian Labor Party (center left).

Before this attack, Breivik wrote a 1,500-page document that he called 2083, European Declaration of Independence – where he exposed all his racist and neo-Nazi ideas and feelings. His goal, by writing all these words and then causing a real carnage, was to inspire other radicals (and fanatics) from the far right to follow in his footsteps. According to Breivik, it was necessary to start a new crusade against those who nicknamed “Treacherous Cultural / Multiculturalist Marxists”.

Precisely to prevent Breivik from using his court as a simple media platform with the sole purpose of exposing his views and presenting himself as a martyr (that was his plan), the court decided that his testimony would not be televised.

He was eventually sentenced to 21 years in prison – a criminal offense in Norway – but that country’s law includes precautions to extend this type of punishment for a longer period if the prisoner is deemed too dangerous. be in jail. freedom. In practice, given Breivik’s crimes, his lack of remorse, and the fact that he always stressed that he was mentally sane when he planned and committed murders, this means that you can spend the rest of your life in jail…

What lessons have we learned from this tragedy ten years later, if only to ensure that this form of violence, motivated by racial and ideological hatred, never happens again?

Back this week refer to the news site German German waveNorway’s secret services agency (known by its acronym PST) warned that “the far-right ideas that inspired the attack continue to be the driving force behind the far-right radicals, both inside and outside the country.”

Worse. PST believes that Breivik (who was 32 years old when he committed the crimes) served as an inspiration and model for the terrorist attacks that have taken place in the past decade, namely the massacre of two mosques in the city. Christchurch, New Zealand in March 2019, resulting in 51 deaths by a 28-year-old man.

Norwegian intelligence agencies also cite the case of Philip Manshaus, a Norwegian who shot his Chinese adoptive sister in August of that year and who, after this crime, went to a mosque in Oslo to commit a crime. more kills. Once there, he fired several shots at the door of the mosque, and the scenario was no worse, because a member of the religious community, a 65-year-old man who was at the entrance, was able to forcefully stop the 21-year-old man. an old armed young man preventing him from entering the place of worship.

When it came to court Manshaus stated believe that her half-sister is a danger to the family due to her Asian descent. As for what he wanted to do in the mosque, he himself admitted his intention: “I did everything I could to carry out the attack.” Its purpose was to simulate the Christchurch massacre.

In fact, Manshaus acknowledged the facts and regretted not being able to go further in his intentions, but denied the charges against him. claiming that your act he intended to apply “emergency justice” and also expressed his opposition to the entry of immigrants from non-Western countries into the country.

In court, the young man even turned to the cameras and made one of the identification marks used by extreme right-wing radicals with his hand: the thumb and forefinger joined at the ends, forming a circle, the rest of the fingers were raised up. a gesture that those who do not know the true meaning may be confused with a zero or OK sign.

In 2020, the PST itself admitted that a year before the crime it had received “vague” information about the threat that Manshaus could pose, but decided not to take any action due to the lack of “concrete plans” indicating intent to attack.

After the massacre at Utøya lacked the political courage to cope with extreme right, and eventually won the right to more media spaces in the name of greater freedom of expression, criticizes an author who has studied this phenomenon.

“At the time, I was among those who advocated a national settlement of accounts with the far-right, racist and Islamophobic ideology that drove Breivik. This is because I knew very well that their ideas about Islam, Muslims and the left were far more prevalent among Norwegians than many would like to show. But the Norwegian society did not take this path, ” wrote to the newspaper The keeper Norwegian social anthropologist Sindre Bangstad, University of Oslo, author of the book Anders Breivik and the rise of Islamophobia (still no Portuguese edition).

According to Bangstad, the survivors of Utoya want to do something about this far-right Islamophobic ideology, but the then government of Norway, despite being led by the Labor Party (in 2013, they lost the legislative elections to the coalition led by the Labor Party ). The Conservative Party (center-right party) is stuck in a “political and moral impasse” over how best to respond to what has happened. Either they adopted “inclusive rhetoric,” in which a terrorist attack would be considered an attack on all Norwegians, or they “accentuate the fact that it was the Norwegian left in particular that was the target” of Breivik. According to Bangstad, the executive branch, led by Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg (the same one who has served as NATO Secretary General since 2014), opted for the first option.

Consequences? “Any talk of an undeniable connection between Breivik’s conspiratorial, anti-Muslim worldview and broad populist law, including the Progress Party, of which Breivik was a member for several years, has become taboo,” he says.

First of all, a little context. In 2009, the Progress Party won about 23% of the vote, leaving it in opposition, but in the 2013 legislative elections, despite dropping to 16%, it managed to integrate the Conservative Party’s coalition government, which it came to. … vacation in 2020. The reason for leaving the coalition was the repatriation to Norway of a citizen who voluntarily entered the Islamic State: in the past, she went to Syria and married a soldier from this jihadist group. The Progress Party uncompromisingly stated that there should be no help in this return to the country. The government stated a humanitarian motivation, as one of her two minor children, also returning to Norway, urgent medical attention needed… In the end, the mother was arrested, barely landed, on charges of belonging to a terrorist organization, but was immediately taken to the hospital, like her children.

Let’s go back to the analysis that the anthropologist Sindre Bangstad did for The keeper. Also, according to this scientist, after the massacre in Utoya and the explosion of a bomb near the headquarters of the government, the media main stream changed their speech, preferring the terms “tragedy” and “catastrophe” to denote what happened instead of the word “terrorism”. Bangstad claims it happened “as soon as it became known that the culprit was a radical right-wing Norwegian and not a radical Muslim.”

“Norwegians also quickly learned that, for predominantly white, middle-class media editors, the notorious response to racist hate speech was ‘more and more freedom of speech.’ In Norway, wider media spaces have been offered to far-right activists in the name of defending ‘freedom of speech’. “

After the 2013 Legislature, the right-wing party in the Norwegian parliament, the Progress Party, came to power for the first time, allied with the center-right party of Prime Minister Erna Solberg (the Conservative Party). Bangstad says the arrival of the Progress Party has opened the door for “feelings” that are radically opposed to Islam and social democracy, a political ideology supported by the youth of the Labor Party gathered on Utoya Island. reached the government “just two years after the massacre.”

“We know from research that Progress Party voters were among those least likely to have participated in memorials following the 2011 attacks. City Council and Local Association Activists [o município onde está situada a ilha de Utøya] they fought with all their might to prevent the construction of a national memorial to the victims of the Utoya massacre. Ten years later, earlier this year, it took a court order to stop them. It is documented that up to 70% of Progress Party respondents believe that the Labor Party “used” July 22, 2011 for political gain. [o estudo, publicado em junho deste ano, pode ser consultado aqui]… “

Despite this current scenario, the University of Oslo academic envisions a future in which ideas associated with extreme right-wing radicalism will no longer have such strong support. What dynamic makes you believe this?

“Tendencies against extreme right and right-wing populists can be found mainly among the many young Norwegians of all stripes and religions, who are growing up in increasingly multicultural areas where daily life has long been a side of their lives. This can also be found in the slow but steady decline in the number of Norwegians who generally have negative attitudes towards immigrants and immigration. Last but not least, she can also be found among the many young activists inspired by Black lives matter and other social movements in recent years have joined the ranks of the Norwegian anti-racist movement, giving it new energy and dynamism. As for the survivors of Utoya, they were and remain an integral part of these opposing trends, vowing to “always remember and never remain silent.”