In the Wake of Terror, Oslo 22th of July.

The past week, Ive been wanting to write something about the recent terror attacks in Oslo, Norway. I’ve sat down a couple of times, reached for the computer and opened Microsoft Word just to stare at an empty, white page…

It is not that I don’t know what to write about, it is more a question of how to write. How do you express and put into words an emotion you’ve never had before?

I realize that alone is a testament to my protected way of living. The very fact that I now feel in ways I’ve never felt before, is a proof of the comfort of the society I’ve grown up in. I imagine that if you are from the US or the UK, and especially London, you may look at the photos from Oslo that has been circulating the media lately and wonder what is different from Oslo to what keeps happening all over the world? You may look at images of people crying, dust covering destroyed buildings and pieces of paper caught in the wind from the explosion and think that this…this is no worse than September 11th. This is no worse than terror attacks in London. And you are right.

Any act that takes the lives of innocent people is equally atrocious.

I think part of the reason why Norwegians are so consumed of what has happened, why we are so shocked by this particular incident, and why every TV station is running 24/7 on news from Oslo and Utøya, is the very fact that this has never happened before. Not only has it not happened before, we never in our wildest dreams thought it could happen. Not in Norway. Not in our small, somewhat naïve society.

To those of you who are not familiar with Norwegian customs and law, I can give a few pinpoints into our governmental system regarding crime and safety.

• In Norway the justice system is based on integration rather than punishment. This usually means short (in international standards) jail sentences in apartments rather than prison cells.


• Our police officers are not allowed to carry firearms on a regular basis.


• Governmental buildings are rarely fenced in and thereby accessible to the public.

In fact, the last time I was in Oslo, the only building I can remember being surrounded by guards and fences, was the US embassy! The royal palace on the other hand, the very neighbour to the US embassy, has no fences. This is just the way our society works. It is to a very high degree based on trust.

So when I sat on the bus on my way home from work, Friday July 22nd, and a young woman in front turned and asked whether any of us in the back had heard of “the bomb that went off in Oslo”, we looked at her with a frown wondering who this crazy person was. I got up to get off at the next stop and she looked at me and asked me if I had internet access. I shook my head and got off the bus. But the terror in her eyes worried me, and I made a phone call to my boyfriend, who was still at work, and asked him to check the online news. Words like “Al Qaeda”, “terrorist attack” and “car bomb” intertwined with “Oslo” filled the online media. The knot that grew in my stomach is indescribable. I told my boyfriend to use other means of transportation home rather than the new, much profiled and hyped, light rail he would normally use. I couldn’t help thinking that if this was in deed a terrorist attack, Bergen could be next.

Obviously, as the evening went on and new reports of shootings at Utøya ticked in, it became apparent that all of this was the result of, not extreme islamists, not Al Qaeda, but an ethnical, blonde Norwegian.

It was someone who had grown up in our society. Someone who had grown up and spent his life in the better neighbourhoods of Oslo, with a normal, Norwegian, standard education. Someone with a deranged mind. Someone who believes that by blowing up buildings and gunning down innocent children, will prevent Norway and its government from welcoming new citizens from other parts of the world.

I do not feel like mentioning his name. I do not want to take part in making this individual immortal. But he claims to be anti-Islamic. He is against multicultural regimes and “Muslims taking over Europe” and his delusional way of showing that, is by doing exactly what Al Qaeda is known for doing; car bombs, terror and mayhem. By being against them, he becomes them.

It makes no sense to me.

Someone who could very well have been my neighbour, anyone’s neighbour, has caused the biggest loss of innocent lives since World War II in Norway. In a country with 4.6 million people, nearly 100 lives is a very large number. It causes a sense of grief in the whole population. Everyone knows someone who has been, directly or indirectly, involved in this.

It is then a great comfort to see how everyone cares. To see the flowers that decorate Oslo and every other major city in Norway, in remembrance of the victims. To see people hugging each other in the streets and lighting candles. And to see Norwegian embassies all over the world decorated in flowers. People care.

In the wake of the terror that was meant to frighten us from being democratic and open minded, to make us build fences and close our hearts to others, the people of Norway, both Christian and Muslims alike, have done the exact opposite.

It makes me proud and very hopeful for the future of our open, free society that we love so much.