Anders Breivik – praag.org

Breivik-linked party joins Norway government

Anders Breivik, once Progress Party member

From spats over halal meat in Danish schools to asylum seekers in Sweden, anger about immigration has fuelled the march of populist parties across Nordic countries, leading one such group to the brink of government in prosperous Norway.

The anti-tax and anti-immigration Progress Party, which once had among its members mass killer Anders Behring Breivik, won 16 percent of votes on Monday and could be kingmaker in a new center-right coalition after eight years of center-left rule.

Its strength reflects both worries about an influx into the Nordics of asylum seekers from countries like Syria and economic migrants from Spain, as well as disenchantment with mainstream parties that have dominated the political landscape for decades.

“We’ll ensure a solid footprint in a new government,” Progress leader Siv Jensen said. “We have reason to celebrate.”

Even without entering government, right-wing populists have managed to toughen public policies ranging from immigration to euro zone bailouts, drag political debate to the right and become a permanent feature of the parliamentary landscape.

The backlash has surfaced even though Nordic economies have outperformed languishing southern European countries. Their success has attracted thousands of “euro refugees”, vying for scarce jobs as their home states endure grinding austerity.

Economic conditions may be different, but many voters around Europe share the same perception that the established parties are out of touch with ordinary people and their concerns.

From Greece to France and the Netherlands, unemployment and economic grievances have combined with suspicion of European integration, Islam and multiculturalism, to propel both the far right and far left.

In Italy, the grassroots 5-Star Movement, born of disgust at the entire political establishment, surged to prominence in a general election in February. Britain’s UK Independence Party has gained ground and spooked mainstream politicians by harnessing an anti-EU platform with hostility to immigration.

BACK FROM THE SIDELINES

Breivik’s killing of 77 people in Norway in 2011 initially set back hard right parties in the Nordics.

But the Danish People’s Party now has the support of nearly one in six voters. The anti-immigrant Sweden Democrats have almost doubled their support since the last general election to touch 10 percent, and Finland’s opposition Finns party stands second in opinion polls with 19 percent support.

Populist groups are nowhere near winning an election and the majority of Nordic voters still express tolerance to immigrants. But any of these parties could secure the balance of power and hold a coalition government hostage on issues like immigration.

Consensus around the post-war Nordic model of high taxes and generous welfare was long sustained by a homogenous society. But immigration, global competition and fear for jobs have put that ideal of equality based on civic trust under strain.

“There exist groups that don’t feel this trust,” said Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt. “These people as voters are more easily seduced by populist forces seeking short-sighted answers and which often are more or less hostile to immigrants.”

Rising immigration has been coupled with economic troubles that have seen iconic Nordic companies such as Ericsson and Nokia shed jobs. Worries about the affordability of welfare have put the once taboo subject of immigration high on the agenda.

The nightmare for mainstream Nordic parties would be the experience of Denmark’s last government, when an anti-immigrant party held the balance of power and pushed for tighter border controls that fuelled tension with European neighbors.

Under Denmark’s current center-left government, immigration had faded as an issue until controversy surfaced when it was discovered that halal meat, slaughtered under Muslim dietary laws, was being served routinely at schools and hospitals – raising protests by anti-Islam groups.

Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt waded into the debate – earning the nickname “meatball Helle’ after calling for voluntary labeling of halal meat but also urging that traditional Danish food including pork dishes be served.

The construction of a mosque in Copenhagen sparked accusations from the Danish People’s Party that it was being used for radical Islamist groups.

In Sweden, immigration has become part of the mainstream debate in a country where 15 percent of people are foreign-born, the highest rate in the Nordics. Riots in poor immigrant suburbs of Stockholm in May led to further debate about how Sweden was integrating its immigrants.

“Immigration is questioned by pretty considerable portions of the populace,” said Folke Johansson, a professor of political science at Sweden’s Gothenburg University. “It’s largely been taboo to discuss these issues, and therefore other mainstream parties haven’t been able to discuss it. It was really an open goal once they (anti-immigration parties) arrived on the scene.”

In Finland, the Finns party, whose anti-euro rhetoric struck a chord with voters in 2011, when they finished a close third in parliamentary elections, aims to join the next government.

Formerly known as True Finns, The Finns leapt to prominence during the euro zone debt crisis by opposing bailouts for troubled countries. They effectively forced the government to demand collateral in exchange for helping Greece and Spain.

Calling themselves a “nationalistic and center-left working class party”, the Finns would curb immigration by trimming immigrant social benefits and adjusting refugee quotas to Finland’s financial situation.

These parties have benefited from media-savvy leaders. The Sweden Democrats’ Jimmie Akesson, whose aim is to reduce immigration by 90 percent, wears a suit and as a lawmaker has changed the party’s former image of street ruffians.

Populists are expected to poll strongly in many countries in European Parliament elections next May, surfing a wave of Euroscepticism due to the financial and economic crisis.

But analysts say these Nordic parties may have hit a ceiling in national elections and are facing greater pushback even as they complicate coalition politics around the region.

Hundreds of Swedish women posted photographs of themselves with headscarves across social media this year to protest an attack on a Muslim woman in Stockholm who was wearing a veil.

Community leaders worry about aggressive rhetoric against migrants, and there have been other attacks. But violent incidents in Nordic countries have been isolated compared with, for example, far right attacks on migrants in Greece.

Reinfeldt’s government recently made headlines by giving Syrians an automatic right of residence.

Support for Norway’s Progress is actually down from 22 percent at the last election four years ago, although the parliamentary arithmetic gives it more leverage.

“The way Progress communicates is somewhat old fashioned and a bit cheesy,” said Daniel Gaim, 37, a teacher. “But when it comes to real policy, they don’t differ much from other parties. I’m not very concerned about giving them a bigger influence.” – yahoo.com

Breivik moved to most liberal prison

Mass killer Anders Breivik is to be moved to Skien prison, which has one of Norway’s most liberal regimes, local media reported.

Breivik has long requested a transfer back to Skien, where he stayed while his quarters at Oslo’s Ila prison were under construction.

He complained that his isolation at Ila amounted to torture.

Prison authorities said the decision was taken in June and had nothing to do with Breivik’s petitioning.

Jan Erik Sandlie, deputy director of Norway’s probation service, said prisoners are sometimes “moved between different institutions.”

It is not clear when Breivik will be moved. – RT

Breivik’s mother ‘sexualised’ him at four

breiviksistermom — Breivik with half-sister and mother

“The mother and Anders sleep in the same bed at night with very close bodily contact,” psychologists from Norway’s centre for child and youth psychiatry (SSBU), reported after Breivik and his mother spent several weeks there in 1983.

The reports also show that when Breivik was just four-years-old, his mother became preoccupied with fears that her son would violently assault someone. By the time he was four years old, she “sexualised” the young Breivik, hit him, and frequently told him that she wished that he were dead.

“She saw him as an adult violent person, even though he was only a small boy,” said Aage Borchgrevink, author of A Norwegian tragedy. “She was afraid that he would assault people.”

The psychologist reports show that Wenche Behring already felt her son was “aggressive, hyperactive and clingy,” when she was breastfeeding him.

The family’s neighbours at the time became worried about her inappropriate sexual behaviour.

“During the police investigation, the neighbours also said that they had been shocked by the mother’s sexualised language,” Borchgrevink writes. “There was a lot of fighting in the apartment and they remembered sexual activity taking place while the children were in there.”

The SSBU report described Ms Behring as “a woman with an extremely difficult upbringing, borderline personality structure and an all-encompassing if only partially visible depression” who “projects her primitive aggressive and sexual fantasies onto him [Breivik]”.

The psychologists reported that she would frequently tell her son that she wished he would die.

“She shifts very quickly between speaking to him with a sugary voice and openly expressing a death wish,” they wrote.

When she smacked him in an attempt to exert control, the four-year-old would taunt her that the blows did not hurt, smiling in a way she found “condescending, inappropriate and derisive”.

Borchgrevink, a novelist, has faced criticism in Norway for his decision to publish excerpts from the reports, with some accusing him of violating the privacy of Ms Behring, who was admitted to a psychiatric ward the day after her son killed 77 people in his bomb and gun rampage in July 2011.

Ms Behring was excused from testifying in the trial this summer on health grounds, and refused to give permission for the psychologist who examined the family in 1983 and 1984 to give evidence, preventing the information published last week from being heard in court.

After Breivik’s father Jens Breivik lost a child custody case with Ms Behring, social workers recommended that the boy nonetheless be removed from his mother to prevent “more severe psychopathology” from developing, a request that was ignored.

Borchgrevink said it was this that had convinced him that he was right to publish.

“I’ve given more weight to the public interest. The fact is that he was actually caught by the system before the action, not by the security police, but in his childhood. He was within the system, but the system let him go.”

Breivik was sentenced to 21 years in jail for his attack in August, which he claimed was “necessary” to alert Norway to the threat posed by Islamic immigration. – Richard Orange

Reflections on the Richard Millet case

BHL_with_tennisstars — Bernard-Henri Lévy flanked by his wife, Arielle Dombasle (in pink), tennis players André Agassi and Steffi Graf

by Bernard-Henri Lévy, French philosopher and writer

Strangely enough, what I find most shocking in this Richard Millet affair (this editor at Editions Gallimard who caused a scandal in Paris by publishing “Eloge litteraire de Anders Breivik”) is not the white trash racism he recycles, from one book to the next, in his story of the RER, where one feels surrounded by hordes of dark-skinned people.

It is not the tone, no doubt intended to be very Montherlant, of his reflections about “the” women (in one of the two other opuscules he published at the same time, one learns, among other elegant observations, that, once past 40, their skin has “the consistency of a ripe pear”).

It is not even the enormous provocation of this long-time editor who, envious of others’ success, as sometimes happens, has apparently just decided not, as Gide said, to “take himself for a great writer, as one may consider oneself a great hairdresser” (in the past 30 years, he has published a great number of texts, which met with general indifference), but to pull out all the stops, for his own benefit (a pathetic parody of ad man Jacques Séguela’s quip, addressed to Sarkozy at the time of his election, “If you don’t have a Rolex at 50, your life has been a failure”). In an earlier book, he had ventured to support Bin Laden (“there comes a moment when one can only prove Bin Laden right, provided he is not an American or Islamist fiction” — L’opprobre, published by Gallimard) — but no one was interested. Last May, he played the in-defense-of-Bachar-al-Assad card (a charge, meant to be “disturbing,” against the media in utter “rapture” before the “insurgents” of Homs and Aleppo — Printemps syrien, published by a smaller publishing house) — that also fell flat. But now, he’s outdone himself, shifted into high speed by actually offering “praise” for Anders Breivik, the serial killer of Utoya who is, he writes, “what Norway deserved” and whose act seems to him characterized by «absolute beauty» and “literary grandeur.” Miracle! It works! The little bureaucrat of letters finally has his grand affair! This Warholian “15 minutes of fame” which, he explains, his hero, “a writer by default,” didn’t really want but that he, Millet, madly desired, and he’s got it!

No. The real surprise, for me, has been the reaction of an entire part of the French literary milieu at the publication of these three libels fairly dripping with small-minded thoughts and spite.

There was the Pavlovian reflex of those who, as the first critics became aware of the existence of a book in which a psychopathic killer was thus presented as a “Malthusian hero,” disciple of Baudrillard, started bandying about terms like thought police, organized censure, the triumph of the politically correct.

As always, I mean as in most of the great debates of today, there appeared this strange, new technique which consists of, above all, not taking sides, the better to dismiss the protagonists, back to back — insulters and insulted, same fight; racists and anti-racists, the same lamentable antics; Breivik’s victims and victims, “like Breivik,” of the Norwegian social-democratic horror, a point for all sides, be on your way, there’s nothing to see.

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No less Pavlovian was the convening of the great Elders who were supposed to remind the stupefied reader than one can be a great-writer-and-a-perfect-bastard — poor Céline! Poor Aragon!

As the affair wouldn’t go away and there remained evil minds that found an editor recommending “the song of the Kalashnikov” and the “singular jubilation the fact of killing can inspire” bizarre, naturally there appeared this blogger or that one, speed versions of the editorialist, to compare this obscure actor of the literary scene, seeking a role and disgrace, with Marguerite Duras going off the deep end during a human interest story that made headlines in the 1980s, the Villemin affair (or the essayist Philippe Muray, no longer here to defend himself, whose thousands of pages of Exorcismes spirituels and Après l’Histoire, one should recall, quite apart from the fact that they never gave way to abjectness, were considerably more weighty than these three mediocre brochures).

They pulled the Literature and Evil number on us.

To “contextualise” the affair, they dared to cite Artaud, Sade or Bataille — which seems to me scarcely less serious than not having leapt out of one’s chair at the description of the “ethnic cloaca” that France, according to Millet, has become.

This entire story would be laughable, there would be something pathetic in this desire to be a pariah that one senses on each page of these three books were the author’s destiny not linked, precisely, to this House.

It is difficult to understand how the successors of Sartre and Malraux could continue to be published by a man for whom “what one calls literature” is no longer anything but “the hedonistic face of a nihilism of which anti-racism is the terrorist branch” and who perceives most writers who are his contemporaries as “henchmen” as well as “sycophants.”

This is an edited, synoptic version of a piece by Bernard-Henri Lévy previously published by Huffington Post.

French author Richard Millet forced to resign from publishing committee over Breivik pamphlet

Anders Breivik the white Mandela

French author Richard Millet forced to resign from publishing committee over Breivik pamphlet

A writer who argued in an essay that Norway deserved mass-killer Anders Breivik has been forced to step down from a prestigious role with top French publishers Gallimard.

Richard Millet remains a Gallimard employee, the company stressed Friday, but he will no longer sit on its committee of readers, which helps select books for publication and shapes the output of established writers.

Millet will continue to look after the writers he handled for the publishers, Gallimard said.

It remains to be seen how many of them will want to continue to be associated with him following an outcry over a publication branded “fascist” by a group of 120 writers this week.

Antoine Gallimard, chief executive of the publisher, had written to Millet to express his shock at the end of August, soon after the pamphlet “In Literary Praise of Anders Breivik” was published.

On Monday, Gallimard wrote to the writer once more to remind him that “as a member of the committee of readers, he represents the (publishing) house.”

Millet’s position had been made untenable and he duly announced his resignation from the reading committee late on Thursday.

The writer insists he does not approve of Breivik’s crimes but wrote approvingly of the Norwegian’s 1,500-page online manifesto which outlines his hatred for social democracy, immigration and multiculturalism.

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“Breivik is without doubt what Norway deserves,” Millet wrote, arguing that the killer was as much a child of a broken family as he was the product of an ideological-racial divide caused by immigration from outside Europe.

A prolific novelist and essayist, Millet has been the editor of two winners of France’s literary prize, the Goncourt — Jonathan Littel (2006) and last year’s winner Alexis Jenni.

Despite a traditional reluctance in France’s literary world to do anything which could be seen as restricting the freedom of speech, several Gallimard writers had urged the publisher to distance itself from Millet.

In an article for Le Monde this week, to which 120 writers put their names, novelist Annie Ernaux desribed the essay as a “fascist pamphlet that is a disgrace to literature.”

Breivik was sentenced last month to the maximum 21 years in prison for killing 77 people in a bomb attack and shooting rampage last year. – AFP

French writer says Anders Breivik was ‘what Norway deserves’

richard-millet-litterature-659504-jpg_452806 — Richard Millet, 59, author of 50 books and editor at the famous Gallimard publishing house

Richard Millet, a respected French writer and editor, has sparked controversy for his comments on Anders Breivik, the Norwegian mass killer, whom he described as “without doubt what Norway deserves”.

Breivik was last week sentenced to 21 years in prison for killing 77 people in a bomb attack and deadly shooting rampage that shook Norway.

Mr Millet, who says he has read all 1,500 pages of Breivik’s online manifesto, insists that he does not approve of the Norwegian gunman’s crimes.

However, he praised Breivik’s writing and cry of hatred for social democracy, immigration and multiculturalism.

“Breivik is without doubt what Norway deserves,” wrote Millet in an 18-page pamphlet.

He is “as much a child of a broken family as of an ideological and racial fracture caused by immigration from outside Europe over the last 20 years,” added Mr Millet, who has edited several award-winning books in France.

His writing about Breivik has sparked consternation in the literary circles, with one author Annie Ernaux calling the text “a politically dangerous act”.

Another author Tahar Ben Jelloun said: “He has lost his head.”

Others were less critical.

“He is still my editor,” said Alexis Jenni. “I don’t want to take any public position on the subject. Millet believes only in literature.

“He is someone who writes marvellously well. His questionable ideas do not reduce his literary qualities,” he argued.

Breivik was last week sentenced to 21 years in prison for killing 77 people in a bomb attack and deadly shooting rampage that shook Norway.

Source: AFP

Anders Breivik the white Mandela

by Joseph Secrève

It’s been a week since the most notorious modern day mass murderer on Norwegian soil has been sentenced to 21 years, the maximum sentence the Norwegian state could offer. Given the severe nature of Breivik’s crimes – the killing of 77 innocent citizens – there would be little doubt that had the Nordic state recognised the death penalty, he would have been incarcerated in a cell next to the gallows, awaiting his final ordeal. Legal experts and various news makers from all over the world would have concurred that a sentence of death would have been apposite.

Throughout the entire hearing he did not cease from flaunting his extreme ideals in the courtroom, hoisting his fist to his chest and raising it in the air, saluting an ideal not entirely clear to us. He considered himself to be at one with his ideals that were thoroughly elaborated in his 1500 page manifesto, and refused to appeal the sentence after it was passed.

The overwhelming reaction to Breivik is shock, disgust and contempt. Yet underneath, he managed to attract a scant number of admirers, if one were to take a look at certain news excerpts. French author Richard Millet appears to be the first in line to be seduced by his skill to “write marvellously well” and his “questionable ideas [that] do not reduce his literary qualities”. The Italian Euro politician Mario Borghezio landed himself in hot water when he stated forthright that Breivik had some “excellent ideas”.

One could argue that it is human nature to seek what is hidden, to peek behind the mask of public opinion. Noblemen are scrutinised for their frailties and ignominy, while thieves and murderers are subject to sympathy once they open up and reveal a dram of victimhood. In Breivik’s case however, he exudes a certain strength and an unfailing belief in what he did. One could argue that his admirers are in a way attracted to the strength of his conviction, as if some primitive mechanism drives people to seek the strong. Strength after all is protection, and protection is security. Instead of being a hothead or displaying incoherent ramblings, his comportment reveals a calm and collected man, well in control of his thoughts, actions and words. Here we see a perfect alignment between high ideals, actions and the most basic emotions mankind possesses: a condition we call charisma.

We saw this same thing happening earlier.

Fortunately for many South Africans at that time, Nelson Mandela was thwarted from committing a similar yet much larger onslaught in South Africa. After having been found guilty of manufacturing enough explosive material for 210 000 hand grenades, 48 000 anti-personnel mines, 1500 timers, 144 tonnes of ammonium nitrate, 21.6 tonnes of aluminium powder and one tonne of black powder, he was sentenced to life long imprisonment, just barely escaping death row. In a ghastly similarity, legal experts from all over attended the Rivonia trials, stating the death penalty would have been justified. The onslaught he helped facilitate had already started, and the government could not stop all his acts of terrorism, downplayed to sabotage. Various factories government facilities, newspapers and people were targeted and assailed with pipe bombs.

Once he was arrested and placed in the docks, he refused to be sworn in and could therefore not be cross-examined, but his writings were unequivocal in their meaning. In his essay “How to be a good Communist” whom he claimed was written by someone else even though he couldn’t identify that particular person, he supported a campaign of ruthless elimination of all traitors and informers. Neither did he shy away from cutting off the noses of those impimpis who dare cross the line. (Interestingly, in recent google searches of How to be a good Communist, the “eliminate” sentence itself seems to have been eliminated.)

What has remained of all this is clear to see. All through the eighties, Mandela refused to call his people to order, countenancing the savage necklace killings and people’s war in the townships, while “signing off” the Church Street bomb in 1983 that killed 19 and injured 200 people, black and white. Mandela was awarded The Nobel Peace Prize by the selfsame people who locked up Breivik, even though Mandela never swore himself to peace, right up to this day. However, Mandela’s sympathisers and fellow activists also recalled his calm and sober demeanour during his protracted trial, masterfully deluding people into buying his good intentions, not much different to Breivik apparently.

With the help of his connections within the ANC and communist agents across the world, he managed to turn the tidal wave in his favour. He is nowadays considered as one of the world’s most revered men and his actions justified. His country has unfortunately little to show for it except for debasement, extreme poverty, farm murders and self-serving tenderpreneurs. Babyrapes, muti murders and other superstitious practices are all part of daily life. Savagery is considered civil and civil is the new savagery. All the while, politicians and their juiced-in friends are leeching off the state coffers and taxpayers are considered as no more than charity workers for the rich.

Yet, regardless of this, Mandela’s integrity is beyond question, proving how the amazing power of conviction could outlast any factual proof. The Age of Reason has passed and the Age of Sentiment has taken its place, beaming its brave new world into the living room of every spoiled child and misguided adult.

People have a remarkably short-term memory when it comes to politics, as Mandela’s life has taught us. It is plausible to assume that Mandela was not up to an urban lifestyle when he first came to Johannesburg, feeling the pressure of being a nobody while descending from Xhosa aristocracy back home. Did this cognitive dissonance propel him into politics?

Conversely, Breivik hails from a homogeneous nation, and as many foreigners in Norway can attest, the Norwegians are far from worldly in their approach, shamelessly discriminating against those who are not of their own. The well-laid rules and codes that commanded Norwegian life for so long are now challenged by the foreign born and many Norwegians are feeling the same pressure.

Only time will tell where Breivik will end up over 21 years, should he still be alive by then. His firm conviction and the changing demographics of Norway may possibly serve him.

However, between Breivik and Mandela there is a much larger yet hidden battle going on of which they are nothing more but its ramifications. It is the nationalists versus the internationalists. The handlers of the nation state versus the handlers of the world’s richest enterprises. The internationalists seem to be winning, with Mandela acting as their pied piper and the sheeple following in blind obedience. Breivik on the other hand is their bogeyman. Similarly, Hitler’s killing spree of 6 million Jews is seen as a stark warning against any form of nationalist upsurges, while the 100 million victims of communism is all but forgotten and didn’t even make it to the courtroom.

We live in a world where justice itself has become an object of questioning. No longer is it a matter of right and wrong, but which is the lesser of the two evils, since justice also has a nasty habit of following the money.

Perhaps in the end we could only rest ourselves in the words of historian Carroll Quigley when he wrote: “I have objected to a few of [the international Anglophile network’s] policies but in general my chief difference of opinion is that it wishes to remain unknown, and I believe its role in history is significant enough to be known.”

Should their role be known, however, the centuries of injustice they masterminded would spill out for all to see, and Mandela’s true empire builders will scatter like vampires in the sun, seeking that last bit of shadow to cower behind along with their dirty little tricks.

And that may just be the opportunity that Breivik is secretly waiting for.

Anders Breivik’s ideas ‘are almost mainstream in many European countries’

Norwegian mass killer Anders Behring Breivik may have failed to ignite a race war with Muslims, but he succeeded in stoking anxieties about the stability of Europe’s increasingly diverse societies.

Though his talk of an international underground of killers – latter-day Crusaders he called the Knights Templar – seemed to be mere fantasy, and while his methods place him far beyond the pale of mainstream politics, many of his beliefs are to be found within the fold of anti-Muslim, anti-immigrant populists.

“His ideological `manifesto’ is a distilled representation of a cultural crisis that pervades the European continent and finds expression in an increasingly xenophobic populism,” Kirsten Simonsen, a professor at Denmark’s Roskilde University, wrote in “Bloodlands”, a 2012 series of essays about Breivik.

Some notions – that Europe and its indigenous cultures are being weakened by immigration and multiculturalism – have been helping reshape the continent’s right-wing politics for years.

These beliefs occasionally find an echo on the margins of centre-right parties, among politicians seeking support from communities plagued by rising unemployment.

Mario Borghezio is a case in point.

The Italian politician set off a storm of outrage after Breivik’s gun and bomb massacre by declaring in a radio interview that its perpetrator had some “excellent” ideas.

Borghezio exemplifies a trend among populist anti-immigration groups – the use of the language of Western counter-terrorist efforts against al Qaeda to pursue what amounts to an anti-Islamic cultural campaign.

CALL FOR A “EUROPEAN SPRING”

Human rights groups are increasingly alarmed, not just at the far right, but at what many see as the pandering to its Islamophobic stereotypes by Europe’s mainstream parties.

“We need our own ‘European Spring’ to overcome old and emerging forms of racism and intolerance,” Nils Muiznieks, the Commissioner for Human Rights at the Council of Europe, a governmental human rights body, wrote in a July 2012 blog.

Muslims, he said, had become the primary “other” in right-wing populist discourse in Europe, and needed to be accepted as an integral part of society, entitled to equality and dignity.

Political parties in Austria, Bulgaria, Belgium, Denmark, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Norway and Switzerland had employed anti-Muslim rhetoric for political gain, he said.

Borghezio’s Breivik comment was denounced by his party, the pro-devolution, anti-immigrant Northern League, which apologized to Norway and temporarily suspended Borghezio from their ranks.

The European lawmaker argued the indignant reaction was misplaced, because he strongly condemned Breivik’s violence.

And yet, a year on, he still sees Breivik’s stance on some issues as attractive – particularly a perceived need to prevent Muslim immigration to Europe and combat Islamist extremism.

“Not all the ideas were criminal. It is the man who behaved in a criminal way,” Borghezio told Reuters.

CHEAP MUSLIM LABOUR

Tough regulation of immigrants, particularly Muslims, was essential, he said. In many mosques in Italy, he said, Muslims in economic difficulty were encouraged by extremist Islamist organizations “to carry out antisocial and illegal acts”.

His comments echo the public position of many in Europe’s far-right networks: a sense that the continent is under threat from Islamic extremists and is being betrayed by a rapacious political elite that values cheap Muslim labor above the economic welfare of its own communities.

Security specialists worry that far-right social media commentary stigmatizing Europe’s Muslims may help push enthusiasts towards militancy, much as al Qaeda propaganda opened pathways to violence for numerous Islamist radicals.

In a 2012 report, European police agency Europol stated the threat of violent right-wing extremism “has reached new levels in Europe and should not be underestimated. The threat will most likely come from lone actors, but organized, underground groups also have the capability and intention to carry out attacks.”

Some argue Breivik might have had more chance of setting off the kind of religious war he imagined if he had targeted Muslims, so as to create a cycle of revenge killings, rather than killing young white Norwegians from the pro-immigration Labour party, which encouraged a rallying behind common values.

“COUNTER-JIHADIST” MOVEMENT

On September 3, 2011, six weeks after Breivik’s Utoeya massacre, Stephen Lennon, a leader of the rightist English Defence League, took to a podium in central London and warned against any repeat of the 2005 attacks by British Islamists on London’s transport network that killed 52 people.

“The Islamic community will feel the full force of the English Defence League if we see any of our citizens killed, maimed or hurt on British soil ever again,’ he said.

U.S.-based researcher Arun Kundnani, in a June 2012 paper for the Hague-based International Centre for Counter-Terrorism, asserts that in the past two decades rightist violence in Europe has been comparable to Islamist bloodshed.

By his count, since 1990, at least 249 people had died in incidents of farâ€right violence in Europe, compared to 263 who have been killed by jihadist violence.

A 2012 report by a left-wing anti-racist group, Hope Not Hate, identified more than 100 groups it said were part of a so-called counter-jihadist movement promoting anti-Islamic agendas in Europe, the United States, Canada and Australia, sharing anti-Islamic commentaries, photos, videos and rock music.

The groups, some of which Breivik quotes from in his manifesto, replaced the old racial nationalist politics of neo-Nazis with the language of cultural wars, Hope Not Hate said.

Immigration is an obsession with such groups.

Fifteen to 20 million Muslims, out of a total population of 500 million, are estimated to live in the 27-member European Union as well as non-EU members Norway and Switzerland.

France, a nation of 60 million people, is home to Europe’s largest Muslim minority, estimated at about 5 million. Norway estimates two percent of its 5 million population are Muslims.

A 2011 Pew survey of 50 European countries said the Muslim share of the population was expected to grow from six percent of the region’s people in 2010 to eight in 2030, due in part to higher birth rates among Muslims than non-Muslims.

“ADULTERATING” PURE NORWEGIAN BLOOD

Breivik argued his 77 victims, mostly teenagers at the ruling Labour Party’s summer camp on Utoeya, deserved to die because they supported Muslim immigration, which he said was adulterating pure Norwegian blood.

In Norway itself, Breivik’s deeds rebounded against the right. The mainstream but anti-immigration Progress Party, briefly joined by Breivik, suffered a huge blow in municipal elections two months after the attack.

But a growing number of opinion surveys show Europeans increasingly receptive to the notion that immigration, especially by Muslims, should be curbed or halted.

A July 2011 Pew Attitudes survey found that, when asked whether Muslims wanted to adopt local customs or stay culturally distinct, majorities of European populations chose the latter answer. A Populus research service poll in 2011 of more than 5,000 people in Britain for the Left-wing Searchlight Educational Trust found deep resentment among a range of communities about immigration.

“TOO MANY” IMMIGRANTS

In June 2012 an Ipsos MORI poll on attitudes to immigration found that in seven out of nine EU member states surveyed the majority regarded immigration as having had a negative impact on their country: Sweden and Poland were the only exceptions.

Mainstream centre-political parties have tried to keep up with the trend, enacting a variety of measures in the social sphere that have sometimes inflamed tensions on the street.

France banned clothing that covers the face in April 2011 and Belgium followed suit in July of the same year, while similar legislation has been proposed in the Netherlands, Italy and some Spanish regions. Switzerland barred the construction of new minarets following a referendum in 2009.

There is a broad European shift away from overt skin-color racism to prejudices about culture and religion shaped in part by the West’s war on al Qaeda.

“The whole focus of far right activity in Europe has shifted from race, the idea that â€˜blacks are inferior’, to wider issues of identity,” said Ted Cantle, executive chairman of the Institute of Community Cohesion, a think tank.

Multiculturalism is another bugbear of the far right, which tends to define it as an excessive tolerance of immigrant communities that amounts to Western cultural suicide.

Centre-right politicians who have also questioned multiculturalism and advocated the primacy of Western liberalism in recent years include British Prime Minister David Cameron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and former French President Nicolas Sarkozy. All did so facing domestic political pressure to take a tougher line on immigrants unwilling to adapt to host cultures.

Another example is Dutch populist Geert Wilders, head of the anti-immigration, anti-euro Freedom Party. Breivik’s manifesto reproduced anti-Islamic comments Wilders made to the Dutch parliament. Wilders has denounced Breivik and his actions.

Pepe Egger, head of Western European Forecasting for the UK-based Exclusive Analysis research house, says some of Breivik’s ideas are held quite widely among European political activists.

“The bizarre thing is that his ideas, as Islamophobic as they are, are almost mainstream in many European countries,” he told Reuters. “The perceived need to defend Europe against ‘Islamisation’ is not that far removed from what you can find in the opinion pieces in large daily newspapers.” – Reuters

Norway has to decide on Breivik’s sanity

As the trial of Anders Behring Breivik comes to an end, Norway is just starting to shape its future as a nation no longer isolated by its great wealth from a troubled outside world.

Survivors of Breivik’s massacre are waiting for Friday when an Oslo court passes judgment on the anti-Muslim gunman, hoping to return to something like the lives they led before he slaughtered 77 people last year.

Norwegian society, however, must still balance its liberal and conservative traditions exposed by Breivik’s 10-week trial as it decides how to deal with security and intelligence surveillance, gun controls and rising immigration.

“We are no longer so naive to believe that Norway is the best country in the world,” said Mette Yvonne Larsen, one of the three lawyers in court representing victims of Breivik’s attack on July 22, 2011. “It has made us understand we are a part of international society. We cannot solve problems by ourselves.”

For survivors such as Khamshajiny Gunaratnam, the most pressing need is to hear the verdict after a trial that went into every detail of Breivik’s bomb attack in Oslo that killed eight, and his shooting dead on Utoeya island of 69 people, mostly teenagers.

“After Aug 24, we can be done with it,” Gunaratnam told Reuters.

With what witnesses described as a “joyous battle cry”, Breivik arrived at the island youth camp of the ruling Labour Party dressed as a policeman. He regarded his victims, the youngest of whom was 14, as brainwashed “cultural Marxists” whose support for Muslim immigration threatened Norwegian ethnic purity.

Gunaratnam, aged 24, escaped the massacre by jumping into icy lake waters and swimming for her life. She survived because Breivik was busy shooting her friends in the head at point blank range, presuming she would drown.

SANE OR INSANE?

The verdict itself is not about Breivik’s guilt but whether, as prosecutors say, he is insane.

If Breivik is declared sane, his maximum sentence is 21 years, although this can be extended if he is seen as a danger to society. If declared insane, he faces indefinite mental care under lock and key.

The 33-year-old well-to-do son of a former diplomat is jailed in a three-room cell. He has a computer in one room, a treadmill to keep fit in another, access to TV and newspapers and is allowed a daily stroll in the fresh air outside.

Whatever the verdict, Breivik will probably spend the rest of his life in similar conditions, underscoring what some Norwegians regard as an excessive civility in the face of the cold-blooded killings.

Lawyers for the survivors say some do not care about the verdict while others would prefer Breivik be declared sane, meaning he takes responsibility for his actions.

Breivik himself wants to be ruled sane and his attack considered a political statement rather than an act of lunacy. He has said an insanity verdict would be “a fate worse than death” and that he would appeal it, prolonging the survivors’ ordeal.

A COUNTRY APART

Beyond the survivors’ personal feelings, the country of five million people faces difficult decisions following its worst massacre since World War Two.

Norway’s huge oil wealth has long set it apart from other nations. It has prospered outside the European Union, and its economy is expected to grow more than three percent this year while many European neighbors are stuck in recession.

Likewise, its strong political and legal systems mean it has avoided the corruption that afflicts many other oil producers.

With more than $600 billion in reserves from its oil fund, pristine forests and a welfare system that is the envy of the world, Norway has often looked haughtily at the rest of Europe.

However, some Norwegians now believe their country must draw on the experience of other nations to debate issues such as immigration as the oil wealth attracts large numbers of foreign workers.

These are being discussed more openly after the killings by Breivik, who believed the government’s immigration policies were adulterating Norwegian blood and leading to war with Muslims.

“We know now that Norway can be a source of terrorism … it has led us to just start talking about what kind of society we want,” said Geir Lippestad, Breivik’s lawyer. “What to do about right-wing fundamentalists, access to internet sites by extreme groups. We have just started the discussion.”

“Norway is more aware of racism now, of the issues of multiculturalism. Hopefully, we can start a process that Norway can open up more for the rest of the world,” he told Reuters.

NORWAY TRIES TO STAY THE SAME

On the face of it little has changed since the killings. The foreign ministry has new road blocks on its nearby street and a security check has been set up at the prime minister’s office. But government ministers still walk around without bodyguards and you can drive right up to the parliament building.

After the massacre, Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg stressed that Norway would make no gut reactions that would infringe on its tradition of open democracy.

When prosecution lawyers shook hands with Breivik at the start of the trial, this civility sent a deliberate message that he would not force changes on the Norwegian way of life.

In some ways they succeeded. Opinion polls show more Norwegians accept multiculturalism – policies designed to accommodate differing communities – as the immigrants flock in.

Norway’s population grew 1.3 percent last year, one of the fastest rates in Europe, and net immigration accounted for 71 percent of that growth. While immigrants arrived from all round the world, 70 percent of them came from Europe.

“People are more aware of the danger of anti-Muslim rhetoric. We are more aware that some ideas can become very dangerous,” said Larsen.

But Norwegians’ civility is being tested already. A 500-page official report last week into the attacks found a host of mishaps and mistakes by police and intelligence services allowed Breivik to carry on the attacks unimpeded.

Norway’s police chief resigned after the report and the intelligence service are pressing for more surveillance powers.

Stoltenberg, who drew widespead praise for his measured and dignified leadership after the attack, is now under pressure to resign following the report. The conservative opposition has gone on the offensive before parliamentary elections next year.

The report also touched on a subject at the heart of Norway – wide gun ownership in a country where hunting is a national pastime, a legacy of Cold War defense preparations and Norway’s strong rural culture.

But the commission’s proposal to ban semi-automatic weapons – the kind that Breivik bought easily – may founder on opposition from many of Norway’s conservative voters for whom gun ownership, like in the United States, is a right.

Some critics of the government say Norway is also unprepared for its role in the outside world, saying its presence in the NATO-led force in Afghanistan, for example, could make it a target for further attacks.

All these debates need to be settled after the Breivik verdict. “Perhaps it was necessary to have a year of mourning,” Brent Aadal, political scientist at the Institute for Social Research. “Now we have to move forward and respond to real challenges.” – Reuters

Norway killer Breivik refuses to recognize court

(Reuters) – The Norwegian militant who massacred 77 people last summer gave a clenched-fist salute, smirked at the court and said he acted to defend his country against Muslims on the first day of a trial that threatens to turn into a “circus” showcasing his far-right views.

Anders Behring Breivik, 33, has admitted setting off a car bomb that killed eight people at government headquarters in Oslo last July, then killing 69 in a shooting spree at a summer youth camp on an island organized by the ruling Labour Party.

The real question of the trial will be whether Breivik will be declared insane or criminal. While he risks staying behind bars for the rest of his life, the high school dropout has said being labeled insane would be a “fate worse than death”.

Wearing a suit and loose tie, Breivik entered the court in handcuffs, which were taken off just before he was seated. He smirked several times as the cuffs were removed, put his right fist on his heart then extended his hand in salute.

“I do not recognize the Norwegian courts. You have received your mandate from political parties which support multiculturalism,” Breivik told the court after refusing to stand when judges entered the courtroom. “

“I acknowledge the acts but not criminal guilt as I claim self defense,” he added, seated in front of a bullet-proof glass wall.

Occasionally suppressing a yawn and sipping water, he stared down at the indictment papers, following without visible emotion a laundry list of his killings as the prosecutor read out each one. Some details were so graphic that Norwegian television bleeped out descriptions of the massacres.

The trial is scheduled to last 10 weeks and has raised fears that it could reopen wounds in Norway, a country that prides itself on its tolerant and peaceful society.

The “lone wolf” killer intends to say he was defending Norway against multiculturalism and Islam. He says the attacks were intended as punishment of “traitors” whose pro-immigration policies were adulterating Norwegian blood.

More than 200 people took seats in the specially built Oslo courtroom while about 700 attack survivors and family members of victims watched on closed-circuit video around the country.

“Today the trial starts, and it will be a tough time for many,” survivor Vegard Groeslie Wennesland, 28, said outside the courtroom. “Last time I saw him in person he was shooting my friends.”

“PANIC AND MORTAL FEAR”

Some Norwegians fear Breivik will succeed in making the trial, with about 800 journalists on hand, a platform for his anti-immigrant ideas. His defense team has called 29 witnesses to shed light on his world view. Norway’s legal system gives defendants wide leeway to defend themselves as they wish, but judges can trim the witness list.

Breivik’s proposed witnesses include Mullah Krekar, the Kurdish founder of Islamist group Ansar al-Islam, who was recently jailed in Norway for making death threats, and “Fjordman”, a right-wing blogger who influenced Breivik.

Breivik is scheduled to testify for about a week, starting on Tuesday.

Breivik had been living with his mother in Oslo preparing for the attacks before renting a farm in order to make a fertilizer bomb.

Last July 22, he set off the bomb in the centre of Oslo before heading to the youth camp on Utoeya island in a lake 40 km (25 miles) outside the capital, gunning down his victims while police took more than an hour to get to the massacre site in the chaos following the blast.

Disguised as a police officer, Breivik managed to lure some of his victims out of hiding saying help had arrived. Other victims jumped into a lake, where he shot at them in the water.

Reading out the indictment, prosecutor Inga Bejer Engh spoke of the “panic and mortal fear in children, youths and adults” trapped on the island.

The prosecutors painted an image of a Breivik obsessed with the “World of Warcraft” computer game, prompting the judge to ask whether the game was violent. Breivik broke into a smile when the image of his online character was displayed.

“Your arrest will mark the initiation of the propaganda phase,” he wrote in a manual for future attackers, part of a 1,500-page manifesto he posted online. “Your trial offers you a stage to the world.”

In a recent letter seen by the Norwegian newspaper VG, Breivik said: “The court case looks like it will be a circus … it is an absolutely unique opportunity to explain the idea of (the manifesto) to the world.”

An initial psychiatric evaluation concluded that Breivik was criminally insane while a second, completed in the past week, found no evidence of psychosis. Resolving this conflict could be the five-judge panel’s major decision.

If found sane, Breivik faces a maximum 21-year sentence but could be held indefinitely if he is considered a continuing danger. If declared insane, he would be held in a psychiatric institution indefinitely with periodic reviews.

The courthouse, accessible through airport-style security, was barricaded by TV trucks as 200 media organizations have descended on Oslo, home of the Nobel Peace Prize.

The courtroom, the country’s biggest, can seat just over a tenth of the journalists, victims and relatives wishing to attend, so closed-circuit viewing rooms have been set up nearby and in 17 other courthouses around Norway.

The trial will also examine Breivik’s initial claim that he was part of an organization of “Knights Templar” with similar views. Police said evidence now points to solitary attacks by Breivik after years of radicalization.

Lone wolf attackers have become an increasing security risk worldwide, with U.S. President Barack Obama last year saying they now pose a greater danger than large, coordinated actions.

Norway deeply divided over Anders Breivik

(DPA) Two in three Norwegians believe the country’s media have devoted too much coverage to last year’s bombing and shooting attacks that claimed 77 lives, according to a survey published on Thursday.

The results were released just a few days before Anders Behring Breivik, the man who has confessed to the deadly attacks, was to stand trial amid a huge media presence.

The survey found that 68 per cent of Norwegian media consumers felt the coverage of the July 22 attacks was too extensive, while 28 per cent said it was on the right level, the Oslo daily Aftenposten reported.

The February 16 to March 2 poll comprised about 1,400 people, of which almost half were journalists. The margin of error was 3.5 percentage points.

The survey said almost half of the 637 Norwegian journalists polled also considered that the coverage had been too extensive.

Research company Response Analyse conducted the survey for the upcoming Nordic media days convention in Bergen, western Norway.

Professor Frank Aarebrot of the University of Bergen, who was in charge of the survey, said the results showed that “people want to move on” and put the July 22 events behind them.

Per Edgar Kookvold, secretary general of the Norwegian Press Association, said the coverage was on the whole adequate and necessary.

Meanwhile, Oslo daily Dagbladet was set to offer its online readers an option on its home page that would take them to pages without any reference to Breivik’s 10-week trial, which is due to start on Monday and run until June.

Dagbladet editor-in-chief John Arne Markussen said the newspaper had decided on this some time ago, citing views from its readers, broadcaster NRK said.

Aftenposten and broadcaster TV2 said they had also considered this approach, but opted not to, citing the importance of the trial.