I wish to present my condolences to the affected of the Oslo bombing, and Utøya shooting. This is a grim tale, that we have not heard the end of yet.The Rose is for the fallen, but also for the Norwegian Labour Party, who has lost so many of their ranks. Never, perhaps, has their symbol of the red rose been more appropriate.
Still I am proud that the norwegian government promised a better, and more democratic society, instead of reacting to violence with the threat of violence.
Now we can only support and rebuild. And afterwords comes the analysis, and the work to hinder such attacks again.
Noam Chomsky tells us that any state suffering such attacks reacts inevitably with encroaching on civil liberties. But it seems so far, and I hope I am right, that the Norwegian state will prove him wrong.
A crisis such as this always brings people together. But the Norwegian people has said; we will come together for one another, not to fight someone else. And so I hope in the end that we will be able to counter hate with love.
One Year After
It's now been exactly one year. On the 23rd of July the prime minister and our king spoke. The first gave structure to our thoughts, the second gave the best expression of our emotions. And so it was that the two public images most recognized for their dignity and love for this country gave us a leading start for the year to come. The first was the prime minister's two words; "Openness and democracy". The king gave us his tears.
Since there has been a massive trial. The extremity of his actions shook the foundations of any institution that came close. His trial soaked up resources from police, and justice system. The field of psychology got to show it's strengths and weaknesses. And of course - the media had their role to play. This last year there has been no case more popular to cover in the media than the trial and the shooting. The papers have ranged from outrageous to meditative and healing. It's been hurtful to finally get the sensation that, I think, necessarily must come from such incessant coverage; I became tired with hearing about it. I guess you could say that the guilt of non-care is still a sign that one does care - but I think it was really something else. The endless stories of minutiae surrounding the case seemed to deaden or flatten it - I think I wanted to keep some of the initial feelings after the masacre sacred; the disbelief, the humanistic compassion for the family, the fear of what it could do to the norwegian society. After months of ranting in the press, it is hard to recall ones initial reactions - much has been overshadowed by what we now know happend.
As time passed by society seemed to seep back into its old mold. If anything hateful expressions seemed to be more frequent. Professional politicians, for the most part, stayed away - but from the ugly underbelly of far right politics the simultaneously hateful and spiteful emotions and opinions became more prominent. Those who had listened to the words of the prime minister and said; "Openness, democracy", had more zeal to retaliate. Neither had they forgotten the prime ministers suffix to that sentence: "But we shall not be naive".
The late example has been a depressing lack of compassion for a group of Gipsies living on an abandoned building sight in Oslo. The police had to stand watch to protect them. Things have been thrown into the camp, and the media has been filled with hate speech. Staying for a while around people of similar opinion has lead me to do some distressing observations; not everyone seem to care too much how they justify their claim. A gut feeling seems to be enough to state something clearly, with confidence and to be bombastic. It is disappointing, but not surprising, that we should lack the broader vision decency dictates.
Summer, even here in the north with it's midnights sun, has gotten a tinge of darkness. It is the feeling - that no matter how many silver linings you can see - there is darkness hidden there beyond. My hope for last year was that we, as a state, would avoid restricting civil liberties. I think we have reached that goal. My next wish is that we should use that dark tinge, the memory of a dark day in norwegian history, to explore the darkness within us and to encounter it there - pick at it, and see if we cannot dissolve the knots that contain our prejudice.
