Yesterday’s killings in Norway are just unbelievable and horrific. 84 members of the Labour Youth Movement were shot to death in cold blood by a lone gunman on an island retreat and 7 people were killed by a bomb in Oslo. The perpetrator of both attacks is a right-wing 32 year-old christian fundamentalist conservative by the name of Anders Behring Breivek who has been described as being ”islamaphobic” and who, in my view, is clearly insane.
This tragedy has been rightly described by the BBC as the ”worst massacar in Europe in recent years”. Worse still it has been suggested that the perpertrator was driven to do what he did by his extreeme religious fanaticism. This is pure evil. It is madness. It is a monuemental tragedy. It is sheer wickedness and it must be condemned by all in the strongest terms. My heart goes out to the families of all those that have been killed. I am a christian and today I am ashamed of what this so-called ”christian brother” and ”believer” has done. May God deliver us from mad men who commit all manner of atrocities in His name.
Whether it be muslim terror, christian terror or any other form of terror, terror is terror and it must be condemned. The perpertrator is apparantly active on fb and he had just opened a twitter account a few days ago. The first and only posting that he ever made on that twitter account was the following quote by George Stewart Mills- ”A man driven by his belief is more dangerous and powerful than a hundred thousand that are motivated by their interests”. This speaks volumes. And I really do wonder what those beliefs are? He was dressed as a policeman, he was very well-armed (in a country that it is next to impossible to get weapons), the police took over one hour to get to the island to put a stop to his killing spree and the bomb that he planted in Oslo was highly sophisticated, well-primed, extreemly powerful and utterly deadly. In view of all these facts the question has to be asked-was this young man acting alone or were there some ultra-conservative, ultra-nationalist, right-wing groups from within the Norwegian establishment that hate the idea of a multi-cultural, multi-religious Norway and Europe secretly backing him? Who equipped and trained him? Who motivated him and who are his mentors?
Hopefully the next few weeks will reveal a lot more about who he is, what goes on in his dark and twisted mind and who he represents. Meanwhile may the souls of those that were so brutally and so cruelly cut short rest in perfect peace.