NYTimes | It has been a rite of passage for Norway’s liberal elite for decades: a summer camp set on a verdant Nordic isle called Utoya, where this week hundreds of young people gathered to meet government ministers, dive into election strategy sessions and maybe find a little summer romance.
But for Helen Andreassen, a 21-year-old aspiring politician, a celebration of bright futures became something horrifyingly different when she and her friends jumped from a second-story window to escape the bullets of a man who was hunting them specifically because of their politics.
They ran for their lives, she said, tumbling down the rocky heights to the sea shore, hoping the man in the police officer’s uniform would not pursue them into the water. But he kept shooting.
“He was standing just by the water, using his rifle, just taking his time, aiming and shooting,” Ms. Andreassen said. “It was a slaughter of young children."
For more than an hour, the gunman stalked the forests and steep, rocky shores of the island. There were no bridges to provide escape. Time was on his side.
The young people desperately silenced their cellphones and stripped off colorful clothing. But the shooter was methodical. After killing several people on one part of the island, he went to the other, and, dressed in his police uniform, calmly convinced the children huddled there that he meant to save them. When they emerged into the open, he fired again and again.
“He shot a boy in the back,” said Stine Renate Haaheim, 27, a member of Parliament who was also among those hiding. “I saw that some people were falling, and we turned around and ran. At that point I didn’t look back.”
The police have identified the suspect as Anders Behring Breivik, who in his writings has portrayed himself as a modern knight, charged with driving out Islam and immigrants and the political correctness that he said had been wrongly invited into Norway and was thriving there.
The campers at Utoya appeared to be the embodiment of his hatred.
But for Helen Andreassen, a 21-year-old aspiring politician, a celebration of bright futures became something horrifyingly different when she and her friends jumped from a second-story window to escape the bullets of a man who was hunting them specifically because of their politics.
They ran for their lives, she said, tumbling down the rocky heights to the sea shore, hoping the man in the police officer’s uniform would not pursue them into the water. But he kept shooting.
“He was standing just by the water, using his rifle, just taking his time, aiming and shooting,” Ms. Andreassen said. “It was a slaughter of young children."
For more than an hour, the gunman stalked the forests and steep, rocky shores of the island. There were no bridges to provide escape. Time was on his side.
The young people desperately silenced their cellphones and stripped off colorful clothing. But the shooter was methodical. After killing several people on one part of the island, he went to the other, and, dressed in his police uniform, calmly convinced the children huddled there that he meant to save them. When they emerged into the open, he fired again and again.
“He shot a boy in the back,” said Stine Renate Haaheim, 27, a member of Parliament who was also among those hiding. “I saw that some people were falling, and we turned around and ran. At that point I didn’t look back.”
The police have identified the suspect as Anders Behring Breivik, who in his writings has portrayed himself as a modern knight, charged with driving out Islam and immigrants and the political correctness that he said had been wrongly invited into Norway and was thriving there.
The campers at Utoya appeared to be the embodiment of his hatred.
12 comments:
So a carefully plotted massacre of children of the liberal elite. All right. I can't quite put that together with a lone lunatic worried about 'multiculturalism.'
Manifesto says that European American (the Klan has accepted this trope) where in invovled in forming this manifesto against multiculturalism - just code words for Europe and its Euro-American which in reality are multicultural. To attempt to purge Liberalist is to attack on a dualism and insane. The WW I and WWII were ethnic-driven wars, where nations took on theories that suited their cultural meme and core - like Father Land and Superman. Without Islam, there is no Europe. What we are seeing is an atrophic development, by a species that can kill at will. Welcome to the 21st Century my friend. Oh friendly Norway lol
So this attack has just one thing in common with the the Sept 11 attacks. It's all very well worked out, but complicated enough that I get the feeling of somebody showing off.
Could be Gibson's cold civil war heating up, who knows?
Nanakwame, It's insane to attack liberals because, contrary to our carefully-maintained image, we are nightmarishly dangerous and vindictive. But I sense that's not what you mean?
The active side of what's gridlocked in congress. I see the cold side being played out in public agency politics and spending at the state and municipal levels, as well.
Liberals' weaknesses I think are that we're naive, inane and easily led. It's not normal for the ultra right to come right out and admit they're the enemy. We could wake up.
and then what? how to pick and choose targets, and, who/what becomes the vehicle for liberal force projection? the reason right-wing authoritarian coups and power seizures worked time, and time again during the 20th century is because they are organized, follow a leader, and have little or no compunction about the use of force against demonized others, and really only need to rev up a critical mass consensus within their minority collective security clubs.
Targets ... what is the point in attacking liberals in general, unless it's pretty clear who you really are?
Force projection for liberals is only through government power. Without connections to that, nada.
No, I hear you though on the takeovers.
Which leaves us in somewhat of a tactical and strategic quandary, given the current state is one in which trust in the government monopoly on the use of force is at an all-time low.
I find it difficult to even imagine a more perfect time for right-wing authoritarian elements to move en masse, given the general malaise, and, given their significant covert interpenetration of all military and police forces. This is precisely why the collective security club (CSC) has shown itself to be an evolutionarily stable strategy through the entirety of recorded human cultural history.
'quandary' = we're screwed?
I can't seem to find anything on collective security club. You're talking about these rt wing cells ? Or ... ?
Back last year when I posted about CSC's they were transparently identifiable as churches. http://subrealism.blogspot.com/2010/03/church-in-our-times-common-security.html (and not all of the warm, fuzzy, and harmless Unitarian Universalist sort, either)
It appears that they've done a significant amount of rebranding and now term themselves resilience circles http://localcircles.org/what-is-a-resilience-circle/
What a difference a year makes....,
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