Norway Massacre: Why?

Many of us went to sleep Friday night with the death toll at 16 only to wake up Saturday morning and read that it was 92.  I don’t know what I thought when I read that, I don’t think I thought, I think I just felt, stunned. 

I read a lot Saturday morning but there wasn’t much more information.  I decided to write. I decided to write then, under the above title, when there was insufficient information to answer the question because that was going to be my point. Here is one of Saturday’s drafts, only partially written:

“At this writing there are 92 dead.  It appears that there was a sole perpetrator, that he is, in the New York Times description, ‘blonde, blue-eyed, Nordic,' a businessman-farmer, Christian fundamentalist, quoted John Stuart Mill…Uhh, that’s very little to go on.  Maybe right-wing extremist, neo-Nazi—those labels were bandied about earlier today and he may turn out to be, as everything we know will change as we get more details.

“I deliberately write now when so little is known, and under the above title posing the ultimate question, and as an American blogger, to emphasize the absurdity of the question at this point, and the absurdity of any attempt by me to answer it, I say I do this now to make the observation that to ask ‘why’ generally is a very Western thing to do, specifically a post-Renaissance Western thing to do, that the question is not asked as relentlessly in non-Western cultures, that it is a ‘rationalist’ question that takes for granted that effects have causes, that assumes the supremacy of reason in determining those causes.  I write to say that to ask ‘why’ now, and generally, is the ‘right’ thing to do, the ‘good,’ ‘reasonable’ thing to do, and also to suggest that Norwegians and we in the West and American bloggers not ask that question ‘too hard’ because if we do we will find an answer and it may be the wrong one.

“Muslim extremists were initially suspected as the cause of the mass murder. That was a—reasonable—hypothesis tested by the scientific method and found quickly to be utterly without merit. That is, it was ‘disproven.’”

[some questions not answerable]

[aberrational: statistics]

[stereotypes]

[murder/manslaughter]

The brackets are things I thought might be included in the finished post.  I stopped writing late Saturday afternoon. By then the identity of the perpetrator, Anders Behring Breivik, had been confirmed (“who” being a first cousin of “why”) and most importantly Mr. Breivik’s “manifesto” had been reported on, the contents of which conclusively, or so it seemed to me, answered the question “why:” anti-Muslim hatred.  In the overwhelming majority of cases the scientific method works, it worked here as it often does in murder cases--and contrary to the cautionary point of my draft--and case-closed as we in the law say: the perp has been id’d, caught, “confessed” (the manifesto), arrested, will be convicted, executed and “We shall utter his name no more,” as the executioners of the Lincoln assassination conspirators put it.

No.

I stopped writing Saturday afternoon to take note of the headlines, headlines being a mode of communication invented in the West (or so I hold until someone proves to me to the contrary) which provide answers to questions like “why” in the most abbreviated, pithy, way. I bookmarked some of those that caught my eye for future reference. The future is now:

“Norway attack suspect had anti-Muslim, pro-Israel views.” 

“Norway suspect ‘fundamentalist Christian.’” 

“Police identify right-wing extremist as suspect.” 

“Norway killer attacked multi-culturalism online.” 

“Norway mourns victims of anti-Islam ‘Crusader.’”

“The Christian extremist suspect in Norway’s massacre.” 

“Blue-eyed blonde who killed 92.” 

“Christian extremist is charged in Norway.” 

“Right-wing extremist charged in Norway.” 

“Norway massacre ‘work of a madman.’” 

“Evil in Norway.”

All of those are true from what I gather. A lot are similar: anti-Muslim ~ right wing ~ Christian extremist; Evil ~ madman, but that raises the “insanity” issue in Western criminal law, which would be counter to “case-closed.”  Some are a stretch in similarity: “pro-Israel views” are consistent with Christian fundamentalism in its American variety but not with “right-wing extremist” views in either the American or European variants. And anti-“multi-culturalism:” I know what the prefix “multi” means, I know what “culture” means, I know what the suffix “ism” means; putting them together, Breivik was against a lot of cultures being together in Norway. Arright man, whatever you say. This way to the gallows please. “Blue-eyed blonde?” 

Each of those headlines also provides, or purports to provide, an answer to that question, so important (and rightly so) in the West, “why,” and it’s there that they fail: Having “pro-Israel views” is not “why” Breivik murdered 76 people (of all things the toll has dropped since Saturday). I don’t think “fundamentalist Christian” is a sufficient explanation, even in part, although obviously people disagree, among them the Norwegian police, whose quote that is. “Blue-eyed blonde?” 

Note what is missing in those headlines too: race, racism, and the variants; “Norwegian” is missing. Breivik is not identified as being Norwegian. The victims are missing (“who" the victims are being a first cousin of “why”). One headline refers to their number, erroneously as it turns out. The victims are not referred to, not as fellow Norwegians, not as “the government,” “governmental leaders and their children,” “Labor Party leaders” (and their children); not as “children” (mostly); not as fellow “Christians” (mostly?); “Blue-eyed blondes” (mostly?, some?)?

From these headlines, one schooled in the scientific method and using science’s method of “deduction” would reasonably conclude that Muslims were the victims. In fact, that is so obvious a conclusion to reach that you’d flunk the science course if you answered anything but Muslims.

In the days since those Saturday headlines a lot more information has come in. Mill has been joined by Niccolo Machiavelli, Immanuel Kant, some author of a book about a future Islamic takeover of Europe, and some American bloggers as named “inspiration” for Breivik’s manifesto. The American terrorist, Ted Kaczynski, is an unnamed source although parts of Breivik’s manifesto were lifted wholesale from Kaczynski’s manifesto (Breivik also wrote that the U.S. was the one nation where multi-culturalism worked). Whether Breivik acted alone or not is in doubt (at least as I write this). A quick check of Google shows that the top headline right now is on a torch lit memorial to the victims;  number two is a video that Breivik took drugs before the massacre, third is a “disturbing” look into his mind (those latter two do not bode well for “case-closed”), the fourth is on Europe’s “right.”  In other words the headlines have not expanded, or narrowed, on “why.”

At the end of the day (maybe not this day) I don’t think Norwegians, or Westerners, or American bloggers are going to find those headlines of the case-closed variety on “why.” This American blogger does not. The evidence at this point is insufficient legally and morally to link Anders Behring Breivik and his murders to any other person, to any other person’s thought, to any group, or “ism.”  The evidence is insufficient, legally and morally, to link Breivik with “fundamentalist Christians,” “Christian extremists,”  “anti-Muslims,” anti-multiculturalists,” “right-wing extremists,”--or their thought. Insufficient to link him with the thought of Mill, Machiavelli, Kant, or Kaczynski. Or to other “madmen.”  “Blue-eyed blondes?”  It’s debatable.

Norwegians, Westerners, Christians, and American bloggers, (especially American bloggers who are criminal lawyers who were raised as Christians) should ask “why,” we should ask “why” until the last dog dies.  We should not ask “too hard.”

Headlines:


1. Jerusalem Post.
2. Sydney Morning-Herald.
3. Spiegel.
4. Edmonton Journal.
5. TVNZ.
6. The Atlantic.
7. The Telegraph, Calcutta.
8. The New York Times (4:45 pm and 9:01 pm).
9. The New York Times ( 5:33 pm).
10. Times of Malta.
11. Washington Post.