Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League analyses the ideology that inspired Anders Breivik.
Category Archives: Norway
Norwegian government’s naive attitude to immigration is to blame for Breivik killings, says Le Pen
The founder of the National Front party in France criticized Norway for its “naivety” in the face of immigration and terrorism and called government inaction more serious than the massacre of 77 people by an anti-Islam extremist.
Jean-Marie Le Pen said the July 22 gun and bomb attack by Anders Behring Breivik – once a member of Norway’s populist right-wing Progress Party – appeared to be the work of a “sick” man, but pointed a finger at Norwegian authorities and society.
“What strikes me as more serious … is the naivety and inaction of the Norwegian government,” said Le Pen, 82, the former party head in a weekly video blog published on the party’s website on Friday.
“The most serious responsibility, it seems to me, is that of the Norwegian government and society which has fallen asleep … which has not taken into account the global danger of massive immigration which is the main reason in this deadly crazy man’s thinking, but also terrorism, which is a global phenomenon.”
Following as it does the news that a Front National member hailed Breivik as a “defender of the west”, her father’s intervention shows that Marine Le Pen has her work cut out in rebranding the FN as a party that has renounced political extremism.
East End declares unity against the EDL
Hundreds of protesters stood in silence at a rally in East London last night with raised flowers to remember the 76 people killed in the Norway massacre by the self-confessed bomber Anders Behring.
The rally, calling for the Home Secretary to ban a proposed march by the English Defence League through Whitechapel, came at the end of a day when a delegation led by the Mayor of Tower Hamlets and the new Bishop of Stepney met the Norwegian ambassador and signed the Book of Condolence.
“I know the dangers of extremism has been in your minds in the aftermath of the horrors committed in Norway,” Mayor Lutfur Rahman told the 300-strong rally. “I know your heart will have been moved by the grieving of the Norwegian people. So I was proud and saddened to go to the Norwegian embassy with faith and community leaders to offer condolences and solidarity from the people of Tower Hamlets.”
He has written to Theresa May urging police to use their powers to stop the EDL coming to Whitechapel, adding yet more weight to calls for a ban from MPs, councillors, London Assembly figures and church leaders.
Norwegian trade unionists flew to London from Oslo to speak at the rally staged at London Muslim Centre along the Whitechapel Road – where the EDL plan to march on September 3.
The Bishop of Stepney, the Rt Rev Adrian Newman, in his first public engagement since his inauguration last Friday – ironically on the day of the Oslo massacre – was cheered when he told the rally: “I’ve already been criticised for standing shoulder to shoulder against fascism. But I stand with the people of the East End – this is no place for hate.”
East End Advertiser, 30 July 2011
See also Robert Lambert, “Londoners United Against the EDL”, Huffington Post, 30 July 2011
Update: See “Hundreds pack East End rally in run-up to 3 Sept demo against EDL”, UAF news report, 30 June 2011
Pamela Geller edits post to conceal violent rhetoric in ’email from Norway’
Little green footballs has the details.
Update: Geller has posted a “clarification” on her blog. She explains:
Back in June 2007 I received an email from a disheartened reader in Norway who was bereft at the deterioration of the society and the lawlessness of life in Norway. It was a heartbreaking email, and I published it at the time: “Email from Norway.” After the massacre in Norway last week, I removed the following sentence from the email, as I found it insenstive and inappropriate: “We are stockpiling and caching weapons, ammunition and equipment. This is going to happen fast.” The sentence I edited is not an incitement to anything. It refers to self-defense, but I removed it in the light of recent horrific events in Norway. I thought it insensitive. Nothing more.
Over at Antiwar.com Justin Raimondo points out that in the comments which follow the original post one of Geller’s readers warns that the author of the email could be prosecuted in Norway. Geller replies that this is “why I ran it anonymously”.
Raimondo observes:
So here is some nut stockpiling “weapons, ammunition, and equipment,” because “this is going to happen fast” – with Geller’s enthusiastic encouragement. Indeed, she’s so concerned her correspondent might be arrested that she’s protecting his identity.
Who is Geller’s mystery correspondent – is it the same Norwegian nut-case who ruthlessly cut down dozens of children, or a different one waiting in the wings to do the same? Come on, Pamela – clear up the mystery. Or would you rather continue to shield your fellow “counter-jihadist”?
In his rage against Muslims, Norway’s killer was no loner
There is a continuum between the toxic bigotry of the mainstream media, EDL slogans and Breivik’s outpourings, Seumas Milne argues.
FN member defends Norway attacker
A member of the Front National has been suspended for defending the work of the Oslo attacker, who killed 76 people on Friday.
Jacques Coutela, who represented the far-right party in local elections in the Yonne earlier this year, wrote a blog post describing Anders Behring Breivik as “an icon” and a “defender of the west”.
The post, which has since been deleted, said: “The reason for the Norway terror attacks: fighting the Muslim invasion, that’s what people don’t want you to know.”
Anti-racism movement MRAP has filed a complaint against Mr Coutela for inciting racial hatred.
However, FN leader Marine Le Pen has accused MRAP of “taking advantage of a terrible event” to target her party. She said: “The Front National of course has nothing to do to the Norwegian slaughter, which is the work of a lone lunatic who must be ruthlessly punished.”
Another Front National member, Laurent Ozon, posted comments on Twitter this weekend linking the attacks to a rise in immigration in Norway.
Thom Hartmann on how right-wing Islamophobes inspire violence
FN member defends Norway attacker
A member of the Front National has been suspended for defending the work of the Oslo attacker, who killed 76 people on Friday.
Jacques Coutela, who represented the far-right party in local elections in the Yonne earlier this year, wrote a blog post describing Anders Behring Breivik as “an icon” and a “defender of the west”.
The post, which has since been deleted, said: “The reason for the Norway terror attacks: fighting the Muslim invasion, that’s what people don’t want you to know.”
Anti-racism movement MRAP has filed a complaint against Mr Coutela for inciting racial hatred.
However, FN leader Marine Le Pen has accused MRAP of “taking advantage of a terrible event” to target her party. She said: “The Front National of course has nothing to do to the Norwegian slaughter, which is the work of a lone lunatic who must be ruthlessly punished.”
Another Front National member, Laurent Ozon, posted comments on Twitter this weekend linking the attacks to a rise in immigration in Norway.
Dutch debate Wilders’ responsibility for Norway terrorist attacks
Discussion has started in the Netherlands about the influence Geert Wilders had on the Norwegian bomber Anders Beyring Breivik, since he praises the Dutch anti-Islam politician 30 times in his manifesto. Whether it’s fear of polarisation or political correctness, Dutch political parties seem to be inclined to protect Wilders.
Democrat MP Boris van der Ham called it an “idiotic reflex” to link Wilders with the massacre, while Socialist Party leader Emile Roemer said it was unwise to point the finger at Wilders. “If a murderer quotes me tomorrow does that make me responsible too?” he asked.
Historian Dirk-Jan van Baar has an answer to that: “I would say Wilders is not legally guilty. But as a politician he must be perfectly aware that there is such a thing as political responsibility. And he would undoubtedly have pointed that out if the killer had been a Muslim.”
Freedom Party leader Wilders can hardly be said to have kept a low profile in recent years when it comes to, say, hate-preaching imams and their effect on Muslim terrorists. He has also had harsh words to say about the Norwegian Labour Party, which was the target of the attacks. In a speech he gave in Rome in March this year, Wilders accused left-wing multiculturalists of cheering at every new sharia court or mosque. He claimed Europe would fall if it was stupid enough to believe that all cultures were equally valid and there was no reason to fight for its own culture.
On 1 May – Labour Day – he sent a tweet directed at Dutch Labour Party leader Job Cohen: “Congratulations, Job, on the 65th anniversary of the Arab Party. You gave the Netherlands mass immigration and imported countless no-hopers and criminals.”
On Tuesday Geert Wilders announced that he was “repulsed” by Breivik and that the violent actions of a psychopath were “a slap in the face for the worldwide anti-Islam movement”. Job Cohen welcomed Wilders’ statement but also had a comment:
“Wilders has now distanced himself, but I think it’s good to realise that your words do have an effect – and that goes for all politicians including Wilders. They can influence people and play a role in all kinds of ways. There is no way Wilders can be held responsible for this in any sense, but he [Breivik] uses the same rhetoric as Wilders does.”
Wilders rejects all attempts to link his ideology and that of Breivik. He claims the left is trying to make political capital out of the tragedy. However, speaking in parliament, he has himself linked remarks by his political opponents with potential terrorist attacks.
Green Left MP Tofik Dibi has now requested a parliamentary debate with Prime Minister Mark Rutte about xenophobia in the Netherlands. He believes the Freedom Party is largely responsible for channelling resentments in the Netherlands and he wants to discuss the similarities between Breivik’s ideas and attitudes which are prevalent in the Netherlands, for instance in Freedom Party circles.
‘Counter-jihadism’ and terrorist violence
In the wake of the attacks, Fjordman, Geller, and other prominent counter-jihadists have condemned Breivik’s actions and argued that they have never condoned violence. However, their dystopian fantasy world – in which the white Christian martyrs of Eurabia are constantly subjected to rape and murder at the hands of bloodthirsty Muslims – clearly provided what former CIA officer Marc Sageman has described in The New York Times as “the infrastructure from which Breivik emerged”.
Øyvind Strømmen analyses Anders Breivik’s roots in the “counter-jihad” movement.