It was not lacking on trial that fall. After the rose train, before the trial, some tried to point to the ideological landscape that prepared the ground for a far-right terrorist attack that killed 77 people, most of them children and young people.
Oh, no, was the fearful response from the commentator who is unstoppably accused of being left-wing. Do not mix words with action, hate with violence. There were other reasons why it failed. Not least it was Jens Stoltenberg.
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Stoltenberg joined direct praise for being unifying the first crucial days. He was not only the party leader, but the prime minister of an entire nation in shock. The rose trains thus appeared as a manifestation of an underlying message that quickly took hold; the terrorist was a foreign growth without roots in norwegian politics. He had attacked us all, democracy itself, not just one party and one politics. Stoltenberg stuck to this redeeming line long after the roses had withered and everyday life returned. He even put his foot down for party colleagues who criticized the political discourse and especially the FRP’s anti-immigrant rhetoric. Instead, he let Erna Solberg hammer away about failure in emergency preparedness as if a barrier in Grubbegata was democracy’s best defense.
That did not stop Per Sandberg (Frp) from going to the Storting’s rostrum four months after the attack and accusing the Labor Party of “having played victim” after 22 July. He was the first, but not the last, to make such an absurd accusation. In the backward country after the terror, several political opponents have accused the Labor Party of leaving «22. the July card », and the term was quickly adopted in forums where Labor hatred lives on. A recent study from NKVTS shows that survivors from Utøya are exposed to serious harassment and threats; many are struggling with trauma and have withdrawn from politics. AUF members feel they have been left alone in dealing with the terror that allegedly hit us all. They talk about the resounding silence afterwards and the opposition to discussing politics in what happened.
How did we end up here, where the incitement continues and the wording in Breivik’s right – wing manifesto has slipped into the comment fields without much resistance?
The question is asked in a number of books that are published in connection with the 10th anniversary. A common thread in the books is the settlement that never came, and how the story of July 22 has been depoliticized and unclear. We agree that we should not forget, but not about what we should remember, as the then general secretary of AUF, Tonje Brenna, writes about in the book «22. July and all the days afterwards ».
Swedish Ali Esbati sets the narrative into a larger political and economic context in the book «After the rose trains. July 22 and the dangerous hatred »which is launched today. He was on Utøya when the terror hit just to talk about right-wing extremism. His then heavily pregnant cohabitant, Marte Michelet, was one of Breivik’s foremost targets. As a Dagbladet commentator, she was a sharp critic of right-wing extremist circles, and therefore she was to be executed in a propaganda video, according to plans found after the arrest.
It is not clearer who and what the terrorist’s goal was. Nevertheless, the mobilization and settlement did not take place. Esbati believes that terrorism can only be understood politically and as part of a larger canvas. He writes about the prelude to July 22, the toxic political climate in Norway, where he then lived, and the obsession with immigration issues, not least in Frp; the endless hijab debates and accusations of sneaky Islamization from party leader Siv Jensen. He also describes well how more established politicians pursued, because they had to “listen to the voters” and “dare to take the debate”.
This is right-wing populism safest cards; to take hold of the debate climate, establish false premises and spread conspiracies that are incorporated into the political conversation. Netiquette is a form of organized street fighting, in his opinion, but not least alternative media play an important role in preparing the ground for authoritarian politicians, as Breitbart did for Trump. In Norway, too, alternative media have emerged that operate in the same way, and that have even received millions in state support, thanks to Frp.
After ten years, it is not too late to change the story. It happens in history unstoppably, and I have great faith that the tenth anniversary will contribute to that. But the promise of “never again July 22” requires more than a barrier in Grubbegata to be fulfilled. It requires that we see a bigger picture.
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