Norway Islamophobic Tragedy Spotlights Anti-Muslim Thought

[BillyTheMountain]

Originally Posted by Mikefule

what's happened in Norway is far worse.

Originally Posted by gunnstein

86 people, mostly youths, shot dead at Utøya. 7 killed as government buildings blasted to shreds in Oslo. 96 people injured, several of them are still fighting for their lives.

Greetings from Norway.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Norway_attacks

Anders Behring Breivik's manifesto quoted 64 times from anti-Muslim American bloggers.

A number of people in other threads have been compelled to go off-topic to discuss it, and it was suggested to start a thread about it.

[nick]

My condolences to anyone who has been effected by this. I really can't get over the fact that he shot, at close range, well over 100 young people.

I'm usually not one for crime and punishment, but this seems kind of insane:

The attacks have caused outrage in Norway, and some have called for the reinstatement of the death penalty, which was eliminated decades ago. The maximum prison sentence facing Breivik is 21 years' imprisonment, though legal experts said the sentence could be extended indefinitely for five years at a time.

taken from: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/eu...227631688.html

21 years maximum, seems pretty light.

[MrBoogiejuice]

The guy has strong links to a fascist, street thug outfit here in the UK called the English Defence League.

check this out to see the face of fascism in the UK today and why anyone UK based should be down in East London to confront them on September 3rd.

Fascism has been allowed to spread in the current atmosphere of islamophobia promulgated in the right wing press here in the UK and elsewhere in Europe. If something good can come from last week's awful happenings in Norway it's that people will pay closer attention to casualised islamophobic attitudes and put more energy into confronting the fascist groups and far-right parties that have been gaining ground over the last decade.

[gunnstein]

Originally Posted by nick

My condolences to anyone who has been effected by this. I really can't get over the fact that he shot, at close range, well over 100 young people.

It's not quite that bad. The numbers were adjusted downwards today, and now they are 68 at Utøya and 8 in Oslo, 76 in total (from a previous max of 93).

Originally Posted by nick

21 years maximum, seems pretty light.

The penalties are fairly low in our country. 21 years of prison is the maximum sentence anyone can be given, but when someone is considered a threat to society they may be instead be sentenced to up to 21 years of "forvaring" (containment: a nice word for "storage", really) and unlike an ordinary prison sentence this may be increased, in 5 year increments, for as long as it is considered necessary to protect society. So imprisonment for life is possible, even though a life sentence isn't. The death penalty is not an option though, and it is my impression that it has very little support in Norway even now, which I'm glad for.

[gunnstein]

Originally Posted by MrBoogiejuice

The guy has strong links to a fascist, street thug outfit here in the UK called the English Defence League.

check this out to see the face of fascism in the UK today and why anyone UK based should be down in East London to confront them on September 3rd.

Fascism has been allowed to spread in the current atmosphere of islamophobia promulgated in the right wing press here in the UK and elsewhere in Europe. If something good can come from last week's awful happenings in Norway it's that people will pay closer attention to casualised islamophobic attitudes and put more energy into confronting the fascist groups and far-right parties that have been gaining ground over the last decade.

I'm not sure if fascist is the right term for this man. He's certainly not a neo-nazi, he is for example supportive of Israel. According to the analysis I heard on the radio his hate for muslims is the most dominant aspect. He's also a christian. He calls himself a "true conservative" and a defender of christian values and European culture. He calls his enemies "multi-culturalists" and "cultural marxists". The analyst calls him a reactionary, wanting to revert Norway to the 50s, with no immigrants, patriarchy, christian dominance, and no "moral perversions".

One reason for attacking the Labour Party youth camp rather than for example a mosque is that he considers people who let muslims into his country worse than the muslims themselves - he refers to the politicians as "traitors". He is extreme, but he has a lot in common with, say, the most far-right 5-10% of Norwegians, apart from the actual massacre bit. He was planning to be arrested, and wants to use the trial as a podium to preach his views.

Where he completely loses contact with reality, is in his expectation that his massacre will help start a war against muslims. His actions have done more for the acceptance of muslims and curbing of racism than anything the pro-immigration community could ever do.

The memorial march in Oslo today gathered 150.000 out of 600.000 inhabitants.
http://www.aftenposten.no/nyheter/os...cle4183678.ece

In my hometown the estimate is 50.000 out of 50.000 (people arriving from neighbor towns as well).
http://www.varden.no/nyheter/telemar...rgen-1.6384237

[fkb]

Originally Posted by gunnstein

It's not quite that bad. The numbers were adjusted downwards today, and now they are 68 at Utøya and 8 in Oslo, 76 in total (from a previous max of 93).



The penalties are fairly low in our country. 21 years of prison is the maximum sentence anyone can be given, but when someone is considered a threat to society they may be instead be sentenced to up to 21 years of "forvaring" (containment: a nice word for "storage", really) and unlike an ordinary prison sentence this may be increased, in 5 year increments, for as long as it is considered necessary to protect society. So imprisonment for life is possible, even though a life sentence isn't. The death penalty is not an option though, and it is my impression that it has very little support in Norway even now, which I'm glad for.

I guess I have some of the old Texas/Wild West mentality in me, but I believe this guy should fry. I support the death penalty when there is overwhelming evidence of guilt. As we say here in Texas, "try 'em, fry 'em, throw 'em in the hole." Why waste taxpayer dollars keeping this guy alive?

[MuniOrBust]

Originally Posted by fkb

I guess I have some of the old Texas/Wild West mentality in me, but I believe this guy should fry. I support the death penalty when there is overwhelming evidence of guilt. As we say here in Texas, "try 'em, fry 'em, throw 'em in the hole." Why waste taxpayer dollars keeping this guy alive?

+1
Some call it old Texas/Wild West mentality, some call it common sense. Even if it were free to keep him alive... why should we?

[MrBoogiejuice]

Originally Posted by gunnstein

I'm not sure if fascist is the right term for this man. He's certainly not a neo-nazi, he is for example supportive of Israel. According to the analysis I heard on the radio his hate for muslims is the most dominant aspect. He's also a christian. He calls himself a "true conservative" and a defender of christian values and European culture. He calls his enemies "multi-culturalists" and "cultural marxists". The analyst calls him a reactionary, wanting to revert Norway to the 50s, with no immigrants, patriarchy, christian dominance, and no "moral perversions".

Not wanting to over-simplify, but - fascist is as fascist does.

Fascist ideology isn't exclusive to German's oppressing jews. Fascist ideology rests on essentialising certain qualities of an "out-group" such as race or religion, whilst praising certain qualities of its "proponents in-group" and usually promotes violence as a tool to realise its desired changes to society.

The most saddening thing about the Palestinian struggle is that those doing the oppression and promoting dangerous, extreme nationalist policies have suffered so greatly, and so relatively recently, from similar ideology and practices.

Villification of the left and intense "Marxo-phobia" is also a classic marker of fascisitic, far-right thinking. As is some sort of claim to being the true defender of a country's values or morals - as if there's some ideal, homogenous set of them that absolutely every native adheres to and desires to see in others.

Originally Posted by fkb

I guess I have some of the old Texas/Wild West mentality in me, but I believe this guy should fry. I support the death penalty when there is overwhelming evidence of guilt. As we say here in Texas, "try 'em, fry 'em, throw 'em in the hole." Why waste taxpayer dollars keeping this guy alive?

Because killing people is cruel and unusual punishment, hence why society deems it necessary to punish those who kill.

[johnfoss]

Here's a simple test to see if someone's "solution" is in line with their religious beliefs. If it involves murdering children, they're probably off the reservation of whatever religion they claim to be associated with.

Or am I oversimplifying things?

[fkb]

[QUOTE=
Because killing people is cruel and unusual punishment, hence why society deems it necessary to punish those who kill.[/QUOTE]

Its not cruel because its relatively painless and it is not unusual because death sentences have been going on for a long long time. We are way to soft on criminals. Fifty years ago, prison was not a place anyone wanted to be...at least in the U.S. There was no gym, no basketball hoops, no air conditioning, no television, and prisoners had to work to eat. This taught them at least some sort of self sufficiency. I have no sympathy for this asshole. It seems he has been a punk all his life. To quote Ron White, "In Texas if you do something really bad, you don't wait for years on death row, you go straight to the head of the line. Other states are trying to abolish the death penalty, my state is putting in an express lane."

[gunnstein]

Originally Posted by MuniOrBust

+1
Some call it old Texas/Wild West mentality, some call it common sense. Even if it were free to keep him alive... why should we?

Because we're better than him. Because if he stays alive, he will be shown how wrong he was, when his wild predictions will fail.

[gunnstein]

Originally Posted by MrBoogiejuice

Not wanting to over-simplify, but - fascist is as fascist does.

Fascist ideology isn't exclusive to German's oppressing jews. Fascist ideology rests on essentialising certain qualities of an "out-group" such as race or religion, whilst praising certain qualities of its "proponents in-group" and usually promotes violence as a tool to realise its desired changes to society. (...)

Right, I'm with you on this.

[wobbling bear]

Originally Posted by gunnstein

. He's also a christian. He calls himself a "true conservative" and a defender of christian values and European culture.

aren't "thou shallst not kil" and "love thy neighbor" at the top of christian values?
Cite any ideal and you will find someone who will pervert it for the name of it !

[Mtb.Marroon]

I know little about his beliefs or politics but the death penalty should not be reinstated for this, or any crime. Once it came back it would then set a standard to where the death penalty could be used which would mean that the standard could drop and soon enough the bar could be at killing 2 people opposed to 76.

I do agree that prisons should be made harder or a certain portion of some prisons become sectioned, with less comforts and made especially for scum like this.

Its interesting that he had links with the EDL. a group which originally gained attention because it was seen to be the non aggressive/ non nazi form of BNP. However in my veiw this has slowly changed possibly due to BNP trying to change there image to a professional political party.

The thing thats more worrying about the EDL / BNP is that they recruit young white brits in the towns with most immigrants. Where I live and many other small ex-mill towns in greater manchester are a prime example of this. Young aggressive lads with poor education and little money will always be up for a fight, and the EDL/ BNP just brainwash them with crap and tell them who to fight against. These groups need to be stopped or atleast forced underground, so that less people know about them, as everyone one of these group members are potentially as dangerous as the guy in Norway.

To me this what seems to have happened in Norway, the guy is angry at a certain group, and has taken action against another group which he holds responsible from some far outstetched link.

[MrBoogiejuice]

Originally Posted by gunnstein

Because we're better than him. Because if he stays alive, he will be shown how wrong he was, when his wild predictions will fail.

Word.

Imagine how different the world would be today had Americans taken a similar stance after 9/11.

As a proportion of population, Norway lost more people last week than the US did on 9/11.