It is not madness or online war games but the soul of Europe that is being fought over in Oslo’s District Court.
Fascist killer and "Crusader" Anders Beivik massacred 77 innocents in cold blood
Self confessed mass murderer Anders Breivik wears his beard like that for a reason. To an observer outside of Northern Europe, Breivik may appear like some kind of out of time Captain Ahab but all Northern Europeans will recognize the strictly clipped beard that skirts the edge of his face as the image of a Lutheran or Calvinist minister of the old school. Thus he hopes to appeal to the Scandinavian Folk motif. A harking back to a mythical time when Norway was clean and pure and white. The Crusader Red Cross on the front of his “manifesto” meanwhile, will be understood by his fellow fascists across Europe.
Breivik's manifesto - a new Crusade for fascists
This is not a game despite the plethora of comment once Breivik had been revealed as a “hard core” player of the on-line Warcraft game last week. For the strategy that is being played out by prosecution and defence respectively in the Breivik case is a metaphor for the struggle now being played out in Europe as a whole. As Capitalism staggers from one crisis to the next, Europe becomes more and more polarised. In Greece, France, England, even in liberal Scandinavia, there are many who seek to lay the blame for the crisis at the immigrant’s door or Islam as a blanket term for the “enemy”. The Greek fascist’s on air assault on his opponents who had the temerity to challenge him is just the thin end of the Breivik wedge. Breivik wants to portray his heinous deed as a rational consequence of Islamification. The prosecution is pursuing a dangerous strategy of trying to portray him as unbalanced, not in full control of his faculties, though it is true that he reacted violently when being pushed on his obsession with online war gaming. For whilst a guilty but insane verdict might well condemn Breivik to lifelong psychiatric surveillance (which is why he so vehemently opposes this notion) a guilty but insane type verdict will reinforce the lone wolf psycho depiction, which is a false scenario.
The new Crusaders - Fascist dictators traditionally recruit get their footsoldiers from the lumpen proletariat and petite bourgeoisie
Irish people were subjected to a similar form of racism to that now faced by Muslims. We recognise that mass of England fans wearing Crusader uniforms as a continuation of their No Surrender To The IRA counterparts from the 80s and 1990s. We too were “irrational”, “priest ridden”, “dirty”, “mad bombers” and it was not lone madmen who created this myth but a power elite that seeks to divide and scapegoat. It is a harsh truth but Breivik has a point when saying that his thinking was normal for the conservative right that wishes to reinforce exclusivism, greed and racism. How many people understand that the Muslims who kicked Labour out of office in Bradford recently, and handed the seat to George Galloway on a plate, were reacting against Muslim cronyism? That the society which professes Islam is subtly nuanced just as Irish people are the world over?
The class struggle goes on within the Muslim world just like everywhere else. Regardless of the religion that people do, or do not, profess, society’s basic fault line is between those who wish to oppress and those who strive towards social and intellectual liberation. Liberal minded people do not generally make good “hard core” warriors but as the moral and political consciousness of Europe oscillates wildly it is time to stand firm against the far right and their manifesto of selfishness and hate. Time to stand up for diversity, multiculturalism and real wealth distribution worldwide.
In whatever way you can, stand firm against racism, greed and avarice - the blood brothers of fascism that will eventually ensure the destruction of the planet if unopposed.
No Pasaran
@Paul Larkin
Carraic, Gaoth Dobhair,
16ú lá Meán an tSamhraidh