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.

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.

Seven Dresses for Visibility

by Pia Tafdrup

I am sewing a dress that can be worn
proudly by one who is born with
an expectant spark in the heart’s vessels,
it will perfectly fit large and small,
is spun strong by the bow of the rain
it can be enjoyed a whole life long,
if the cloth is looked after well.

I am sewing a dress that can be worn
silently by new victims of fear,
it can fit large and small,
does not hide vulnerability
as droves of birds are hunted
out of the tree's dense crown,
the fabric flutters in the wind.

I am sewing a dress that can be worn
lightly by new victims of hate,
it is coloured red by blood
and has thunder-black borders,
it can fit large and small,
those who least of all will think
that one should change before the night.

I am sewing a dress that can be worn
by the victims of a cold cynicism
it can fit large and small,
its crazy fabric is made
of fire no downpour will quench,
it will be a reminder that the earth
may open up at any time at all.

I am sewing a dress that can cover
dried blood on the victims of death,
it can hide large and small,
it is shaped by the deep furrows
of tears across the cheek,
the cloth matches the walls of the dark,
the peace in each grave on the planet.

I am sewing a dress that can be worn
in a misty haze of sorrow’s
victims, designed for relatives
and friends of the deceased,
it can fit large and small,
anger’s first light is visible
between lead-grey threads of pain.

I am sewing the dress that can be worn
securely by one who knows hope,
woven in are the laughter of friends,
quiet tears of joy, the desire
to wake up in spite
of life the disaster took
– it reflects the rays of the sun.


SYV KJOLER FOR SYNLIGHEDEN

Jeg syr en kjole, som kan bæres
stolt af den, der fødes med
forventningsgnist i hjertets kar,
den passer fuldendt stor og lille,
spindes stærkt af regnens bue,
den kan nydes hele livet,
hvis der værnes godt om klædet.

Jeg syr en kjole, som kan bæres
tyst af frygtens nye offer,
den kan passe stor og lille,
skjuler ikke sårbarhed,
som flokkevis af fugle jages
ud af træets tætte krone,
flagrer stoffet op i vinden.

Jeg syr en kjole, som kan bæres
let af hadets nye offer,
den er farvet rød af blodet
og har tordensorte kanter,
den kan passe stor og lille,
den, der mindst af alt vil tro,
der skulle skiftes tøj før natten.

Jeg syr en kjole, som kan bæres
af en kold kynismes offer,
den kan passe stor og lille,
kjolens vanvidsstof er gjort
af ild, som ingen skylregn slukker,
den skal minde om, at jorden
når som helst kan åbne sig.

Jeg syr en kjole, som kan dække
størknet blod på dødens offer,
den kan skjule stor og lille,
den er formet efter grådens
dybe furer over kinden,
klædet matcher mørkets vægge,
freden i hver grav på kloden.

Jeg syr en kjole, som kan bæres
i en tågedøs af sorgens
offer, viet til en slægtning
og til venner af den døde,
den kan passe stor og lille,
vredens første lys er synligt
mellem blygrå smertetråde.

Jeg syr på kjolen, som kan bæres
trygt af den, der kender håbet,
vævet ind er venners latter,
stille glædestårer, lysten
til at vågne op på trods
af liv, som katastrofen tog
– den reflekterer solens stråler.


translated from Danish by David McDuff

Utøya poem

Pia Tafdrup has written a poem about the Utøya shootings - my translation can be read at World Literature Today.

The Danish text of the poem is on this page of Politiken's e-edition (left-hand page, right-hand column, click to enlarge).

A Poem for Norway at the London Times (paywall).

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.