Islands of Truth

Two cinematic studies of the Utøya massacre of 2011 - Paul Greengrass's 22 July and Erik Poppe's Utøya. Of the two, the latter is unquestionably the more powerful and fully achieved.

22 July begins as a pseudo-documentary, with a re-enactment of some of the horrific events of that day - first, we see the mass murderer preparing explosives at a remote farm in the country. Then, the arrival of the children and teenagers for the Labour Party AUF youth camp on the island of Utøya. After that, the sequence proceeds to unfold: the bomb explosion in Regeringskvartalet, the arrival of Breivik, dressed as a police officer, his shooting of the camp leader and island hostess, and then his hour-an-half rampage around the island, killing and maiming.

The film then turns into a procedural, with reconstructions of the interrogation of Breivik, his statements to the police and court, and an exposition of some of his far-right and Islamophobic ideas. These are set in contrast to the experience of Viljar, a survivor who has suffered terrible and life-threatening injuries, but is gradually recovering and trying to make sense of what has happened to him and to others.

While the story of Viljar is moving and inspiring, for the viewer it's hard to see why the retelling of the story of Breivik (masterfully played by Anders Danielsen Lie) is necessary - it merely serves to put the sociopath on a pedestal, and subtly changes one's perspective on the first part of the movie, which in retrospect becomes something akin to a historical re-enactment - surely not the director's primary intention. For what pretends to be a fact-based account there are curious and major omissions. These include any reference to the absence of a police response during the massacre, and to the help that was given by local residents, who picked up many survivors in small boats - for some reason we never see them in the movie. Perhaps one of the reasons why one reviewer characterised the movie as searing but shallow.

Utøya approaches the subject from quite a different angle. While the movie is almost exclusively a re-enactment, the manner in which this is achieved stands in marked contrast to the Greengrass production. Instead of a blow-by-blow or shot-by-shot docudrama account we get an inner, subjective sense of how it felt to be a victim of Breivik's terrorism. 18 year-old Kaja (Andrea Berntzen) moves through the hour and a half of shootings in an almost dreamlike fashion, terrified yet at the same time filled with deep compassion for the victims she encounters around her, and with anxiety for the fate of her sister from whom she becomes separated at an early stage in the massacre. With the exception of one brief, nightmarish moment we never see the gunman himself - all we hear is the seemingly endless litany of gunfire, now in the distance, now shatteringly close and deafening.

Utøya doesn't sermonise or preach - in a simple, direct way it puts the events in context: this is the result of a far-right extremist's thoughts and actions. What dominates inside this contextual frame is not ideology but the human experience of living under tyranny and terror - the kind of terror that fanatics like Breivik would like to impose on us, the people of the free world.

London riots

Not really a subject for this blog, I suppose, though in the context of AB Breivik's sadistic and brutal campaign it may have some relevance even here. A LiveJournal poster has written what I think is so far the best and most informative reflection on the recent violence in London and other British cities.

2083

From 2083, by Anders Behring Breivik:

...we have to agree on a consensus for creating a modern, “un-tainted”, cultural conservative, patriotic youth movement which will prevent our youths from joining NS or WN movements. This movement should be somewhat like the equivalent of Russias Nashi movement (Putins youth movement - 120,000 members aged between 17 and 25). They are anti fascist/anti Nazi, but still patriotic conservatives.

(p. 652)

Many state leaders around the world are puzzled over how little resistance the European elites are getting in their attempts to completely demographically reshape Europe.

Even the Russian president, Vladimir Putin knows exactly what is going on as he has publicly stated in the past:

“Western Europe is heading in a direction where they are going to become colonies of their former colonies."

(p. 732)

Q: Name one living person you would like to meet?

A: The Pope or Vladimir Putin. Putin seems like a fair and resolute leader worthy of respect. I’m unsure at this point whether he has the potential to be our best friend or our worst enemy though. He’s very hard to psychoanalyze. I wouldn’t want to be his enemy, that’s for sure. Obviously, he has to openly condemn us at this point which is  understandable.


(p. 1407)

Dershowitz in protest at ambassador's remarks

Alan Dershowitz has spoken out in protest against remarks made in a recent interview by Norway's ambassador to Israel that Hamas terrorism against Israel is more justified than the recent terrorist attack against Norway. At the conclusion of his article, Dershowitz writes:

Nothing good ever comes from terrorism, so don’t expect the Norwegians to learn any lessons from its own victimization. As the ambassador made clear in his benighted interview, “those of us who believe [the occupation to be the cause of the terror against Israel] will not change their minds because of the attack in Oslo.” In other words, they will persist in their bigoted view that Israel is the cause of the terrorism directed at it, and that if only Israel were to end the occupation (as it offered to do in 2000-2001 and again in 2007), the terrorism will end. Even Hamas, which Norway supports in many ways, has made clear that it will not end its terrorism as long as Israel continues to exist. Hamas believes that Israel’s very existence is the cause of the terrorism against it. That sounds a lot like the ranting of the man who engaged in the act of terrorism against Norway.

The time is long overdue for Norwegians to do some deep soul searching about their sordid history of complicity with all forms of bigotry ranging from the anti-Semitic Nazis to the anti-Semitic Hamas. There seems to be a common thread.

Update (August 5): The Jerusalem Post has published an op-ed piece by Norway's deputy foreign minister in which he says the following:

The ambassador was incorrectly quoted by Ma’ariv. He did not compare the motivation behind different terrorist attacks; he simply tried to answer a question about whether the terrorist attacks in Norway would change perceptions of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. He stated that many Norwegians see the conflict in Israel and the Palestinian territory in the context of the occupation and religious extremism, and that this view would probably not change after the events in Oslo and on Utoeya.

Gazeta.ru: Oslo/Belarus connection

According to Gazeta.ru, Belarusian oppositionists claim that Anders Behring Breivik has connections with Belarus which went far beyond his ostensible interest in Viking graves and the Chernobyl nuclear disaster (he visited the country as a tourist in 2005). Party of Patriots leader Mikhail Reshetnikov is quoted as saying that that earlier in 2011 Breivik may have received paramilitary training from former members of the Belarusian KGB. See also this link.

...and in the context of the North Caucasus

«Брейвики» придут на Кавказ?

http://www.rosbalt.ru/kavkaz/2011/07/27/873430.html

Breivik as author

From IslamRF.ru:

Всякий, кто когда-нибудь хоть немного занимался тем, что называют наукой, например, писал (а не скачивал) добротный реферат, понимает – создать подобное без определённой подготовки или помощи «компетентных друзей» невозможно. Есть основания сделать более радикальное предположение – манифест Брейвика писал не он.

Скорее всего, данную книгу, несущую лёгкий «закос» под любительство, а на самом деле сбитую весьма профессионально, делал хорошо подготовленный коллектив. Возможно, Брейвик её читал, возможно, какие-то фрагменты вставлял сам – но слишком многое сказано не им.

Но от его имени.

От имени массового убийцы и террориста, не дрожащей рукой расстрелявшего десятки ни в чём не повинных молодых людей, от имени психопата-нациста, ещё и похваляющегося своим поступком. 

http://islamrf.ru/news/politics/analytics/17008/

Oslo bomb blast and Utøya shooting - 3

Breivik has chosen Geir Lippestad, a member of Norway's Labour Party, as his defence lawyer.

...han har snakket en del om det han opplever som motiv. Det jeg generelt kan si, er at han ønsket å ramme samfunnet, samfunnsoppbyggingen og den måten vårt samfunn styres på, sier Lippestad. (Aftenposten)

Manfred Gerstenfeld on Norway carnage and Israel (YnetNews)

The politisk.no report on Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre's visit to the AUF summer camp, dated July 21.

Following Breivik's claims of links with Britain's EDL, there are also reports from St Petersburg that several Internet groups in the Russian Federation have been closed down after they published large volumes of comments in support of the killer.

The court hearing will take place behind closed doors, with all media banned.

Min venn Anders, by Peter Svaar.

Oslo bomb blast and Utøya shooting - 2

At a Norway police press conference on July 23 national police chief Sveinung Sponheim said that Breivik has made Internet postings which "suggest that he has some political traits directed toward the right, and anti-Muslim views, but if that was a motivation for the actual act remains to be seen".  During the conference the term "Christian fundamentalist" was used.

If the Oslo blast was caused by a vehicle bomb, it could not have been assembled in a private apartment, but must have been prepared elsewhere, either in the city or outside it. Vehicle bombs are widely used for terrorism not only in Pakistan, Afghanistan and the Middle East but also in the North Caucasus, which leads one to speculate that as there are several thousand Chechen and Ingush radicals living in Norway, there can be no shortage of experts in the field, and the individuals or group who organized the July 22 bombing must have got their expertise from somewhere. However, such speculation is probably misguided, at least at this stage.

Document.no has posted a list of all the comments Breivik has left on its site. There is a Google-ish English translation here.

A second shooter may still be at large.

The death toll continues to mount.

Berlingske reports that Breivik gave himself up voluntarily to Norwegian police.