That the horrible terrorist attacks in Oslo on Friday that left some 90 persons or more dead– a bombing of the prime minister’s office and shootings at a Labor Party youth camp– were allegedly committed by a blonde, far right wing Norwegian fundamentalist Christian rather than by a radical Muslim group is being treated as a matter of surprise in some quarters.
Even I, an Arab Muslim, was surprised and had been completely convinced that it was the work of Alqaeda or other fundamentalist Muslims. Does that mean that I am a self hater?
The lesson from Norway is that one shouldn’t rush to conclusions. But that can work both ways. If an observer assumed that the killer was a Muslim extremist, that doesn’t necessarily mean that the observer is a Muslim hater (or self-hater in my case).
Norway was an ideal target for Alqaeda. It was ill prepared for terrorist attacks. It has soldiers fighting in Afghanistan and planes bombing Libya. The terrorism style itself (coordinated attacks in multiple locations) was typical of Alqaeda. The assumption that it was the work of Alqaeda was a completely safe one.
Why am I bringing this up? Because I’m expecting a backlash in the Arab world. Many commentators are going to use this incident to “prove” that Muslims are widely hated in the west. I’m not saying that this is necessarily wrong, I’m just saying that the Norway incident is not a good proof of that.
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Mouai … well … in my case when I heard about that, my reaction wasn’t really like yours, it was more : “oh shit … oooooh SHIT … I really hope that this ain’t some muslim fanatics again …”
I let you appreciate the difference.
Its terribly sad how we all initially assumed it had to be alqaeda or the likes. But whats even sadder is the media coverage all focusing on the guy being “a blond with blue eyes” etc. as if they need to repeat it to themselves and us that its really really not a muslim radical’s wackjob.
Today some genius at work had this to say:
“The person must have been manipulated and brain-washed by Al Qaeda to do their bidding without realizing…”
Well its wise not to jump to any conclusion now. Both almost parallel attacks seemed very similar to typical Al-Qaeda attack.
It seemed so similar to Al-Qaeda type attacks that some owners of websites which are sympathisers of Al Qaeda welcomed the attack and asked their followers to send wrong messages to the ambulance and police hotlines in Oslo in order to create more chaos. This was reported in several news articles.
It was also reported about the attacker that he is a freemason, which contradicts the idea that he is a christian fundamentalist. You are either freemason or a faithful. As you are either a fascist/ communist or a faithful. Both is not possible because freemasonry, fascism and communism are based on atheist ideology by definition.
It was as well reported that the attacker considers himself as a resistance figther, He thinks that the ruling politicians are suppressing the interests of the population. The main conflict lines are the immigration of people from the muslim world and the concessions vis-a-vis the muslim immigrants. He considers ”the will of the Norvegian people are suppressed as the ruling politicians use their means everywhere to suppress opinions and groups against immigration”. His strategy was ”to attack these ruling politicians and their political parties”. The idea is ”simply to bomb away the political decision makers who push the muslim immigration”. What this new idea and attack will change within the political landscape in Europe and ”within the culture of resistance” can only be guessed.
Formore, he killed 84 children last time i checked…how is that resistance and flushing out politicians? is it just me or does it sound like you’re justifying his attacks?
The professional media should never ever assume anything. we are not talking about ordinary people like you and me, mustapha. the media should always verify and not speculate. this is the crux of the matter, and the media has shown once again its bias against muslims
Ann Summers, it seems very strange to me to see you using the claim of “bias against muslims” in regards to Norway. Not just this case, but just in regards to Norway in general. I don’t have any idea what motivated this attack, and it doesn’t particularly matter to me since it obviously is an internal norwegian dynamic that has nothing to do with the US which is my country. But I’ve been annoyed with Norwegians and their self-righteous posturing for about a decade now. I knew this was an angry white dude soon as I read the first paragraph of the breaking news story. As I said earlier, I live in the US. I know about angry white guys. Now Norway knows about angry white guys, too. Although, based on a statement I saw a Norwegian official make earlier today where he said that Norway thought it had “eliminated’ right wing extremists (mo, seriously, that’s what he said – he thought they had successfully eliminated right-wing extremists) it seems like Norway knew that it had a problem as well, but just decided to ignore everyone who didn’t like what the government was doing. That’s some shit-hot democracy, isn’t it? I’m glad I’m not European because there’s trouble on the horizon over there and the marxists and socialists running the show seem to have no clue how to deal with it.
” I’m glad I’m not European because there’s trouble on the horizon over there and the marxists and socialists running the show seem to have no clue how to deal with it.”
- Yeah, there’s trouble coming all right, but as we just saw in Norway the threat isn’t (or isn’t just) Islamist extremists, but right-wing extremists just as much. I’m from Denmark (dark hair, white skin, blue eyes) and here the government is run by conservatives and nationalists. The last 10 years they’ve done nothing but restricting immigration, restricting rights of immigrants and pushing the tone of the debate to the far right pleasing the nationalistic voter segment. These policies have not in any way diminished the threat of an attack from groups believing in some form of Islam – on the contrary. The policies have strengthened the polarization of the Danish society and the marginalization of the immigrants.
What is threatening our societies is not Muslims and immigrants, which is the idea put forward, but extremism in all its terrible forms. How do we fight extremism? By removing the wood the keeps the fire burning and makes the extremist able to recruit. Yes, we have to have policies that makes it hard for extremist to get the tools to carry out the attack, but most importantly, we have to ensure that they have a very hard time finding people who want to join.
Yunus Adams,
- Yeah, there’s trouble coming all right, but as we just saw in Norway the threat isn’t (or isn’t just) Islamist extremists, but right-wing extremists just as much.
The “threat” isn’t Islamist extremists, at all, in my opinion. The threat is European extremists, same as it has ever been in Europe. And how is it that you missed the left?
What is threatening our societies is not Muslims and immigrants, which is the idea put forward, but extremism in all its terrible forms. How do we fight extremism? By removing the wood the keeps the fire burning and makes the extremist able to recruit. Yes, we have to have policies that makes it hard for extremist to get the tools to carry out the attack, but most importantly, we have to ensure that they have a very hard time finding people who want to join.
No, that’s not how you fight extremism. Shutting people up and putting them in a cage so they feel powerless in their own societies is how you CREATE extremism. And if you haven’t noticed it yet then I have some very bad news for you: Europe has nothing BUT political extremes. Both the left and the right in Europe are statist and illiberal. Your right is white-supremacist ultra nationalists and your left is marxist internationalists and there’s no room for Joe 6-pack to even breathe let alone sit down and enjoy his beer. The leftists may think things are looking pretty good for them these days since they got the whole unelected EU thing going on and there’s not much anyone can do about it, but things have a way of changing. Especially in Europe. And the one thing Europeans do better than anyone else is pull staggeringly large armies out of thin air and kill a lot of people in record time.
Anyway, sorry for all that, but this is what I meant when I said that the marxists and socialists running things in Europe have no clue how to avert catastrophe. They (and you) believe that a pogrom is in order. On top of all the other suppression of dissent that’s been going on in Europe for decades. That’s a recipe for disaster.
PS Ann Summers, just so there is no confusion I think the only correct ending to this statement:
“One man’s terrorist…”
Works out to:
“…is another man’s terrorist”.
Terrorism is terrorism. Period. If you can say the same then I’m happy to make your acquaintance. If not, then your opinions on this matter aren’t very relevant anyway and you’re just trying to capitalize on a tragedy for political gain.
i was talking about the professional media’s coverage and its use of terminology. in fact, the word terrorist was not used in this case as much as it should have been, if you noticed, there’s talk of ‘gunman’, psychopath, and so forth. no i agree with you, one man’s terrorist is another man’s terrorist. But terrorism in the media is a word that is often used with muslims, islamist, islamic, etc. when it’s not muslims who perpetrated the attack, the word terrorism is absent, which is suspicious to me.
i dont know why you went off on your rant based on my opinion i dont see how anything you said is relevant or even logical
i dont know why you went off on your rant based on my opinion i dont see how anything you said is relevant or even logical
Really? Because, I put it right there at the top:
Ann Summers, it seems very strange to me to see you using the claim of “bias against muslims” in regards to Norway.
It seems clear to me that you have an agenda, and that you are using this attack to get it serviced. It seems outrageous to me that in this particular case when the perpetrator was motivated by a feeling that Muslims were shown favoritism in his country of Norway, to complain about bias against Muslims in the news coverage of his rampage.
In any case, as far as I’m concerned the people Norwegians are most biased against are Christians and Jews, and the countries they are most biased against are the United States and Israel. Hence, my “rant” when you tried to shine the spotlight on “bias against Muslims”. There is no place on this earth where Muslims are treated better than Norway. Well, maybe Sweden.
P.S. i and Ann Summers are the same, you will notice, but have different computers
How can you claim that I want to justify the attack? You are jumbing to wrong conclusions. I condemn every physical attack. I have quoted reports I read in the news. It looks like a change of a paradigm. Instead of assaulting muslims in the western world, he wanted to attack politicians who bring Muslims into his country. He claims to be a ”resistance fighter”, some people considers him a person who runed amok others a terrorist. Its maybe too early to judge today.
Craig: I obviously meant the international media, duh, not the norwegian media
A madman is a madman in no matter what religion, culture, political orientation or whatever. In times of crisis people’s basic and irrational fears well up. For example, when John Kennedy was assasinated suspects were theorized as being communists, Anti Castro Cubans, Pro Castro Cubans, Republicans, CIA, anti Catholics, Russians, Texas right wingers, and a few more possibilities that I can’t remember. For muslims it’s Americans, Israelis, CIA, Crusaders, etc. For the other side it’s Muslims, al-Qaida, Arabs, Iranians, immigrants, foreigners, etc.
A madman is still a madman.
was bin laden a madman?
Psychopath would work too.
I didn’t think it was Al Qaeda but thought it was Gaddaffi.
My reasoning:
- Norway’s fighter jets bombing Tripoli (Check)
- Gaddaffi threatening to hit Europe (Check)
- Gaddaffi probably having alot of connections in Europe from the left wing militant campaigns of the 1970′s and 1980′s in Europe (Check)
- Prior history of Gaddaffi attacks in Berlin possibly Lockerbie (Check).
But also in saying that when I heard it was a right winger I wasn’t suprised either. I’m European there a nasty recession on here alot of people angry.