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Anaxagoras -> RE: Media and the Oslo attacks (7/25/2011 7:37:57 AM)
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ORIGINAL: Fightdirecto
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In much media reportage, Mr. Breivik has been characterised as a deranged loner: a Muslim-hating Christian fanatic whose ideas and actions placed him outside of society. Nothing could be further from the truth. Mr. Breivik's mode of praxis was, in fact, entirely consistent with the periodic acts of mass violence European fascists have carried out since World War II. More important, Mr. Breivik's ideas...were firmly rooted in mainstream right-wing discourse...
Little attention, the scholar Bruce Hoffman noted in a 1984 paper, had been paid to right-wing terrorists by Europe's police forces. Their eyes, firmly focussed on left-wing organisations, had characterised the right “as ‘kooks', ‘clowns', ‘little Fuhrers', and, with regard to their young, ‘political punk rockers'.”...
In a thoughtful 2008 report, a consortium of Dutch organisations noted that “right-wing terrorism is not always labelled as such.” Because “right-wing movements use the local traditions, values, and characteristics to define their own identity,” the report argued, “many non-rightist citizens recognize and even sympathize with some of the organization's political opinions”...
Mr. Breivik's ideas, it is important to note, were echoes of ideas in mainstream European neo-conservatism. In 1978, the former British Prime Minister, Margaret Thatcher, famously referred to popular fears that Britain “might be swamped by people of a different culture.” In 1989, Ms Thatcher asserted that “human rights did not begin with the French Revolution.” Instead, they “really stem from a mixture of Judaism and Christianity” - in other words, faith, not reason.
In recent years, key European politicians have also used language not dissimilar to Mr Brevik. Last year, Angela Merkel asserted that multikulti, or multiculturalism, had failed. David Cameron, too, assailed “the doctrine of state multiculturalism,” which he said had “encouraged different cultures to live separate lives.” France's Nicolas Sarkozy was more blunt: “multiculturalism is a failure. The truth is that in our democracies, we cared too much about the identity of the migrant and not sufficiently about the identity of the country that welcomed him.”
Mr. Brevik's grievance was that these politicians were unwilling to act on their words — and that the people he claimed to love for cared too little to rebel.
I read the quote from that article. Its central contention is somewhat absurd, that this guy wasn't a loner because some mainstream politicians made a few somewhat similar opinions. Those comments were somewhat out of the ordinary. It is not common to hear politicians bashing the concept. None of these politicians explicitely criticised Islam, far from it in fact. Many critics would seem them as mealy mouthed. Cameron actually said it was Islamophobic of Europe not to include Turkey in the EU! The point about multi-culturalism was a long time coming. People cited issues with it for decades before a few mainstream politicians cited problems with it. Its seen as a basic problem of integration, not at all about assimilation. In the UK people face posters declaring Sharia zones in the East end of London. The UK government is to ban unofficial Sharia courts practicing there.
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* Left-wing terrorism is an outside threat to your country and always comes as part of a vast multi-national conspiracy.
* Right-wing terrorism is just mis-guided patriotism on the part of one individual who came up with the idea all by themselves.
As far as I can tell there is a relatively higher level of right-wing violence in the US compared to Europe. In Europe the vast majority of political violence originates on the left whether in planned riots during demonstrations (e.g. J18) or in the form of terrorism with groups like November 17, although the latter phenomenon has died down a lot. I think your point about right-wing violence being cast as misguided patriotism is incorrect as the two main nationalistic groups in Europe that resort to violence are ETA and the IRA, both of which are strongly leftist.
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