NORWAY BLOODBATH

by Daphne Liddle

ANDERS BREIVIK shook the world last weekend by placing a bomb in central Oslo and, while police were diverted, making his way to an island where hundreds of young socialists were enjoying a summer camp and systematically shooting as many of them as he could before police arrived.

He dressed himself as a Norwegian policeman to add to the campers’ confusion and get them to approach him so he could shoot them more easily.

This was a very carefully planned and executed massacre and many still doubt whether it could be the work of just one person — despite the claims of the Norwegian police, who insist, against all the evidence, that he was a lone madman.

motivated

Breivik was motivated, it seems, by rabid Islamophobia and claimed that Europe is being taken over by Muslims. It has puzzled some then, that his attacks were centred on the fairly mild socialists of the Norwegian Labour Party.

But here he betrays his real roots as a neo-Nazi — whose first hatred is not for the Jews or Muslims but for those who would most effectively defend them and have the political capacity to defeat the Nazis: in other words, communists and socialists. Hitler outlawed and jailed communists before he launched his attacks on the Jews.

The response of the western media is revealing. At first the right-wing tabloids reported it as an al Qaeda atrocity, without a shred of evidence to support this — thus stoking the very Islamophobia that motivated Breivik.

It is interesting how some in the media have been quick to seize on the interview given to the BBC by the Norwegian domestic intelligence chief Janne Kristiansen to say that Anders Breivik had no links with far right extremists.

But if you actually listen to Kristiansen’s actual wording she says something slightly different. She told the BBC: “We don’t have indications that he has been part of a broader movement or that he has been in connection with other cells or that there are other cells.”

She was not saying that he had no contact with other extremists just that he was acting alone and was not part of a wider conspiracy.

He did have contacts with the Islamophobic English Defence League

contact

According to a press release from the anti-fascist magazine Searchlight: “Anders Behring Breivik was in contact with the EDL, supported their aims and was involved in the Norwegian Defence League

“Only months before he went on his murderous killing spree he exchanged several messages with EDL supporters using his internet pseudonym Sigurd Jorsalfare, the name of the 12th century King of Norway who led one of the Crusades.

“In one message on the EDL forum, dated 9th March 2011, he wrote: ‘Hello. To you all good English men and women, just wanted to say that you’re a blessing to all in Europe, in these dark times all of Europe are looking to you in surch [sic] of inspiration, courage and even hope that we might turn this evil trend with islamisation all across our continent. Well, just wanted to say keep up the good work it’s good to see others that care about their country and heritage. All the best to you all Sigurd’.”

He went on to describe his hatred of society in Norway and specifically picked out the Norwegian Labour Party for his criticism.

Prime Minister David Cameron has promised to learn any lessons of the appalling events in Norway to ensure that this country is “more secure against horrific outrageous like this”.

But he has so far failed to order the Home Office to reclassify the English Defence League. Despite the violence and racial hatred whipped up by this street gang the authorities refuse to label the group as “far-right extremists.

not monitor

As a result the police do not monitor the group like they do dozens of Muslim organisations and take little interest in its activities.

One police officer who has responsibility for monitoring extremists recently told Searchlight that the EDL was only an issue when it had a knock-on effect on Islamist extremist groups.

Now anti-fascists in Britain are concerned that a planned EDL march in the East End of London on 3rd September — close to the 75th anniversary of Cable Street, could lead to “huge public disorder”.

We must all pressure the authorities to ban this march and to reclassify the EDL as a dangerous extremist organisation.