This came out of nowhere, one Norwegian police commander said after the weekend massacre. This is not exactly true, however. The massacre that descended on the Norwegian people has its roots in the past. The abominable suspect, Anders Behring Breivik, absorbed extreme right-wing doctrines that flourished in Norway in the 1940s. Apparently these ideas are still very much in existence today. One case in point is the novel by Norwegian writer Jo Nesbo, published in 2000, entitled The Red Breast, which seems to have been written with ink left over from Norway's darkest days in the 1940s. The story opens with a neo-Nazi thug smashing the skull of a Vietnamese worker, and continues with a series of similar, inexplicable murders. One of the characters in the book says, It is no wonder that Hitler felt close to the Norwegians. Indeed, we are fanatic nationalists by nature. We just dont dare to admit it. No sensible person thinks this way today. Just as most Israelis are not Baruch Goldstein nor are most Americans Timothy McVeigh, most Norwegians are not Anders Behring Breivik. The murderer and those like him will not destroy our democracy, said the Norwegian prime minister. Indeed, theses from the 1940s still threaten enlightened liberal democracies even today. Yet Breiviks act has created another problem, one of awareness. In a world in which anyone who is dark-skinned and has a mustache is suspected of connection to a terrorist organization, it is difficult for some of us to accept that a blond, even handsome, man could also be dangerous. Breivik could easily have played the good guy in a Hollywood movie. Perhaps this is the root of Europes great fear. It is easier to fight Islamic terror because most Muslims don't resemble us, and are not like us. Extreme rightists, however, come from within us. Perhaps thats why the world today is quick to attack what it knows best: Islamic terror. The New York Times rushed to report that the Islamic organization Ansar Al-Jihad had claimed responsibility for the attacks in Norway. A number of news sources, sites and blogs followed their lead. The Norwegians, just like Israelis and Americans, are not impervious to this thing called terror. There will continue to be both Islamic and right-wing extremist terror. It is despicable and it preys upon us, yet we, the citizens of the world, have to deal with it. By the way, at the start of 2011, the Norwegian Secret Service wrote that the extreme Right -- as well as the extreme Left -- do not pose a clear and present threat to Norwegian society. Just as other countries intelligence services did not envision the Arab Spring.
