He was a friendless loser, whom everyone turned their backs on because he was too intense, too extreme, too conspiratorial and too mad. For years, he systematically searched for kindred spirits, but never found any, and remained alone in his childhood bedroom writing a manifesto about his dream world, filled with fictitious medals from fictitious supporters in a fictitious army fighting a fictitious war. That is also why he was entirely alone when he moved to a farm and began preparing for solitary mass murder.
His complete lack of empathy is reflected in his lack of sympathisers and accomplices, and this was precisely democracy’s finest hour. A victory for our society. Had Breivik told a single soul about his plans, word would probably have spread during the year in which he was preparing, and he would then have been stopped – because no one, absolutely no normal Norwegian, shares Breivik’s ideological baggage, which can be summarised as follows:
“Enough debate and democracy! The time has come for violence, terrorism and mass murder!”
This subheading is the concentrated essence of Breivik’s manifesto. This is the essence of all terrorists’ ideological baggage. The dividing line between democracy and barbarism runs through the use of violence. This is the red line. This is what distinguishes a participant in society from a terrorist. A debater from a destroyer. Words from action. Opinions from murder. And absolutely everyone raised within Norway’s democratic culture, governed by the social contract concerning the state’s monopoly on violence, knows this. But every year, on 22 July, influential figures in society come forward and pretend that they do not know it.
I shall not name names, because they know who they are: the political actors and media heavyweights who year after year claim that there is a large following behind the terrorist, and that this following is growing as the ideological baggage spreads to ever more people in society in the form of “right-wing extremism”, “racism” and the normalisation of “hatred”. Through this narrative, they brand a large section of the population who have had enough of the Labour Party’s dysfunctional economic policies, globalism and fawning over the EU. It is not merely an outright lie; it is also anti-democratic vilification: divisive, hateful and destructive.
Every year for 15 years, influential figures in society have come forward and implied that all critics of the Labour Party’s poor policies are potential perpetrators of violence and terrorists. Every year, they sound the alarm that there has never been a reckoning with Breivik’s “ideological baggage”, and that it is spreading in the form of fascism, racism and “hatred”. On this day, influential figures in society and future leaders may freely and uninhibitedly accuse their fellow human beings of the worst human qualities. Without evidence, documentation, context or debate. And they are allowed to do so without contradiction.
Those who smear others with Breivik do not believe what they themselves say
Those who accuse their fellow human beings of fascism, racism and right-wing extremism never participate in honest debate. They call for dialogue, but they do not want any. (Or is the invitation from NRK arriving now?) They claim to desire democracy, freedom of expression and unity, but represent the exact opposite through their malicious accusations. They claim that the victims of terrorism are being silenced, even though the number of interviews grows every year. They claim that the terrorist attack has become taboo, even though everyone speaks freely about it. What is taboo is pointing out how wrong this vilification of political opponents is. Fortunately, I have never cared about taboos, and this pack of opinion predators can do nothing to me that they have not already done.
The desire to use terrorism and violence is not spreading among Norway’s population. That is nonsense, and everyone knows it. Problems are growing within entirely different groups that unquestionably constitute a following and definitely share the terrorist organisation Hamas’s ideological baggage. Hordes of Norwegians are not racists and fascists. That is unadulterated hate speech. And no one seriously believes that voting for the Progress Party or the Democrats of Norway places one at the furthest rightward point in politics. Nevertheless, they call it the “far right” – constantly and regardless of the circumstances. Not because it is true, but because it has been an effective tactic of domination. But 15 years later, it no longer works.
The Labour Party deserves criticism
And why not? Because time passes. And because the criticism of the Labour Party’s dysfunctional policies is important and justified: the millionaire Labour prime minister Støre and his wealthy circle of friends have nothing to do with the working class. The adaptations to the EU are destructive of Norwegian sovereignty. Climate policy and the green transition do not work, and are destroying our economy and energy system. Mass immigration is a threat to cohesion, the economy and the welfare state. Multiculturalism does not work, and integration is a 40-year-old magic word devoid of content. Islam is not an ethnicity or skin colour, but a primitive macho superstition with totalitarian political ambitions.
This is the truth for many who feel powerless in the face of the growing EU state, and powerlessness is democracy’s most dangerous enemy. Powerlessness must be given an outlet, otherwise it runs out of control. In a democracy with freedom of expression, anyone who feels powerless, exasperated, despairing or consumed by burning rage over the policies being pursued must be warmly welcome to express it, without those feelings being characterised as “hatred”. Damn it!
The claim that the Labour Party, in cooperation with the globalists in the Conservative Party, has betrayed Norway in favour of globalism and other countries is not “right-wing extremist”. It is an entirely legitimate political viewpoint in a functioning democracy. Anyone who disagrees with this is undemocratic. This is, after all, the perceived truth for around half of Norway’s citizens. No one has the right to stop debate on this by playing the Breivik card. Those of you who do so are now the problem.
Breivik did not invent Labour Party critique, and Breivik will never be able to stop it
You see, the antipathy towards and criticism of the Labour Party’s globalist policies did not begin on 22 July 2011. It began long, long before. It was not the terrorist who created the intense opposition to the EU, the EEA, immigration, multiculturalism, the Sustainable Development Goals, climate hysteria and Islam. It was our democracy that initiated the criticism. Just ask Carl I. Hagen. The truth is that it was the Labour Party itself and its policies that created the antipathy, the divisions, the hatred, the opposition and the criticism directed at the Labour Party – as all political parties must accept when they implement controversial and wasteful policies that do not work, on behalf of other countries and foreign power structures such as the EU, the UN and the WEF.
This is what we must finally confront: the ideological baggage of the left, according to which it is acceptable to vilify, hate and accuse political opponents of the worst human qualities, without filters, documentation or restraint. They are normalising hate speech. We must also confront the transformation of the lone terrorist Breivik into a major political force for society as a whole, because he does not deserve that. He is a criminal, not a tool for division.
Accusing others of hatred, racism and right-wing extremism is not merely a complete absence of common decency. It is also extremely divisive, and you are only making the division worse and worse – instead of creating unity and cohesion, as you claim to desire. It is therefore time that we establish once and for all what constitutes Breivik’s, and all terrorists’, “ideological baggage”, from Hamas and Breivik to the assassination of Charlie Kirk:
Abandoning civilised dialogue, exchanges of opinion, the state’s monopoly on violence and democracy, and crossing the line into the use of violence. THAT is Breivik’s ideological baggage, and no normal citizens share it.