the fine line between information and propaganda

The media are saturated with news of the terror attacks in Norway. How do you try to understand the motives behind such atrocities without promoting or giving an outlet to the propaganda of the terrorist?

And Yes I do think it's fitting to call him a terrorist. This was a terrorist attack, made with political purpose to terrorise people, with the aim of acheiving societal change. A man setting off a powerful bomb in the center of Oslo then drives an hour away to a little Island to execute teenagers in a political summer camp with cold blood. The terrorist might have been a right-wing extremist but he is a terrorist none the same. The reluctance of the world's media to aknowledge this fact is beyond me. Even authorities in Norway hesitated using the word as they said at first they could not say wether this was a "terrorist attack" or not. It was. And as far as we can see, there were no muslims involved, but a violent muslimhater (and womenhater for that matter) born and raised with Scandinavian values. Muslims are not synonymous with terrorism. And the insistance of the media  to blame muslims for violent attacks is not acceptable.

How do we discuss this rationally (it is impossible not to empathize with the Norwegian people, still in shock) without doing exactly what he expects us to, promote his ideals and beliefs?  

We want to understand how such a tragedy can happen, how it can be planned and executed by someone seemingly like us, living by society's rules without attracting specific attention to himself, planning for years to kill people and executing it right in front of our eyes or rather, right in front of our screens. (The teenagers twitted as they were under attack, asked through their facebook profiles not to be contacted on their phones as this would give away their hiding spots and the rumours took off as the shooting took place, although many of the first details to emerge on the internet turned out to be correct : "he is nordic, blonde, speaks norwegian", "a man in a police uniform is shooting us".  There were other stories such as the one about the workers' youth league (AUF, Arbeidaranes Ungdomsfylking) chairman being rushed off the Island by two bodyguards just as the shooting began that seem to have been incorrect). 

The images of the shooter in action are also terryfying and you find yourself asking the question "How can they capture a picture like this and not shoot down the gunman?" or "why did it take an hour from the call being made to police before they got on the Island and arrested him?". The police has said their helicopters are not equipped to transport personnel and a specific armed force was needed from Oslo so local police was asked to wait for their arrival. The air footage could be from observational helicopters, even news helicopters that might have been airborn due to the bomb explosion earlier that day. It just seems crazy that we could almost follow a massacre live on a screen and still not do anything about it. The manifest posted a few hours earlier online by the shooter where he explains his motives and details his planning is also peculiar. A 1500 page Manifest, with it seems some chapters copied entirely after the Unabomber of the "rational" behind this event seems a perfect way to make sure his beliefs are circulated. The Shooter (and I won't name him as I do not think he deserves to be remembered by name) sees his trial as a perfect platform to make his ideas known to the world (and hence his demand for an open trial) in the hope the world's media will glorify him.  And it is precisly what the terrorist has planned, for us to discuss his work and ultimately realize what is wrong with our society, through him, and the images he himself has chosen for this purpose, so he acheives some kind of recognition.

It is difficult to discuss the ideology (if there is any) behind a terror attack or reasons a person would act like this. Haukur Már Helgason has attempted to dissect some ideas reflected in the manifest on his blog "Bíddu aðeins". It is in Icelandic (maybe we can hope for an english translation soon), but it takes many paragraphs from the manifesto and discusses its ideas. It seems from this reading that the terrorist is extremely bothered by multiculturalism, modernity but mostly feminism. He has such hatred for women (disguised in some praise for those who look attractive enough to bear children of worthy men like himself) that more questions could be asked about his personal background, specifically about his upbringing and family connections. His father has lived in France for a long time and according to his own account has not spoken to his son since 1995. Precisely. The son has lived with his mother for a long time it seems (was he raised by a single mother?) and just recently moved out, he was 32 years old. He seems specifically bothered by his women friends that are promiscuous and concerned about the lack of respect white males in the Northern hemisphere receive from their female counterparts, especially in comparision to other cultures (still he thinks muslims and other cultures, along with the EU are distroying Europe). This hatred for muslims and women is not only extremist, it must be personal. (It is too early to speculate about the family dynamics and anything I say is guess work but I think there is something there that must have contributed to so much anger, frustration and the lack of recognition in one individual. Some want to blame the mother (how very Freudian of them) but could it be that some lack of affection, from either parent, could have ignited the spark to hating the world?)  

These acts were for the terrorist not "plesant but necessary". I think it is a little bit too easy to say that- many want to change the political system but would never go to such lenghth as to shoot another person, or 70 other persons, young teenagers, down to 13-14 year old to make a point. Many would set a questionmark to killing children, and I am not saying it is better to kill adults or to make a bomb explode in a busy city center but to plan an attack on a tiny Island, where noone can escape, where teenagers are holding a summercamp, teenagers that many come from political families and could be argued are too young to have formed any political views for themselves, attacking them by dressing up as a police officer and then play on the trust people have to authorities, luring them from hiding just to shoot them multiple times is more than sick. It requires someone that has so much hatred and thirst for blood that there can not be anything political about it. Trying to dress it up with political ideology, even an ideology full of hatred towards people that are different from yourself (Women, people of other cultures or religions or even opinions) is not being intelligent. It's denying to see what you really are. You are not a visionary. You are not opening the eyes of anybody towards those ideas of yours. Your mission has failed and you are a nobody.

We should make sure not to give too much attention to the terrorist and instead hail the survivors and honor the memory of the fallen.

In the words of a surviving member of the AUF:

 ”Om én mann kan vise så mye hat, tenk hvor mye kjærlighet vi alle kan vise sammen.” 
("If one man can show so much hate, think how much love we can show all together.")