July 22 2011 In A Country As Peaceful As NORWAY

Right-wing radicalism leads to terrorism, but many people still don't understand it.

Here is the story of July 22 2011 when a young right-wing radical by the name of Anders B.Breivik became the worst mass killer in Norway, a country you almost never hear of when it comes to mass shootings and terrorism.

What happened?

Nine years ago to this day, on July 22 2011, Breivik detonated a fertilizer bomb outside the tower block housing the office of Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg in Oslo, resulting in eight deaths.



Within a few hours of the explosion he travelled to Utøya island, the site of a camp for Worker's Youth League, (the young members of the Norwegian Labour parti) posing as a police officer in order to take the ferry to the island, and then fired intermittently for more than one hour, killing 69 with one murder victim as young as 14 years old.

Background:

He had grown up with an abusive mother in a small flat in Oslo. 

During her pregnancy Breivik's mother already developed a disdain for him. She claimed that he was a "nasty child" and that he was "kicking her on purpose". She had wanted to abort him but at the time that she returned to Norway from the UK, she had already passed the three months threshold for an abortion. Psychologists reports stated that she thought that Breivik was a "fundamentally nasty and evil child and determined to destroy her.

In February 1983, on the advice of her neighbors, Breivik's mother sought help from the National Centre for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry (SSBU) in Oslo. There the mother then stayed during the day with Breivik and was observed by psychiatrists for about one month. The conclusion of the stay from the psychiatrists was that Breivik should be placed in the foster care system. That, however, never happened.
Breivik was exempt from conscription to military service in the Norwegian Army and had no official military training. The Norwegian Defence Security Department, which conducts the vetting process, say he was deemed "unfit for service" at the mandatory conscript assessment.

After the age of 21, Breivik was in the customer service department of an unnamed company, working with "people from all countries" and being "kind to everyone". A Former co-worker described him as an "exceptional colleague", while a close friend of his said he usually had a big ego and would be easily irritated by those of Arab or South Asian origin.

According to Belarussian opposition figure Mikhail Reshetnikov, Anders Breivik underwent paramilitary training in a camp organised by retired KGB colonel Valery Lunev. According to Reshetnikov, Breivik visited Belarus three times and built lasting connections with the country. 

Breivik claims that in 2002 (at the age of 23) he started a nine-year-plan to finance the 2011 attacks, founding his own computer programming business while working at the customer service company. In May 2009, he founded a farming company under the name "Breivik Geofarm". It was this entity which eventually made it possible for him to purchase ammonium nitrate fertilizer.

In 2010, he visited Prague in an attempt to buy illegal weapons. He was unable to obtain a weapon there and decided to get weapons through legal channels in Norway instead. He bought one semi-automatic 9 mm Glock 34 pistol legally by demonstrating his membership in a pistol club in the police application for a gun license, and the semi-automatic Ruger Mini-14 rifle by possessing a hunting license.
As he admits in his manifesto he used the company as a cover to legally obtain large amounts of artificial fertilizer and other chemicals for the manufacturing of explosives. A farming supplier sold Breivik's company six tonnes of fertiliser in May. Breivik also bought a small quantity of an explosive primer from an online shop in Poland,
During the early years of his preparations Breivik wrote a 1,518 pages "manifesto" which he calles "2083 A European Declaration of Independence".

Breivik admitted that much of this was quotations from writings he had copied and pasted from other authors. The entire file was emailed to over 1000 email addresses 90 minutes before the attack took place.  The document describes two years of preparation of unspecified attacks, supposedly planned for late 2011, involving a rented Volkswagen Crafter van (small enough not to require a truck driving licence) loaded with 1,160 kilograms (2,560 lb) of ammonium nitrate/fuel oil explosive (ANFO), a Ruger Mini-14 semi-automatic rifle, a Glock 34 pistol, personal armour including a shield, caltrops, and police insignias and a full police uniform.

The manifesto also expresses support to various right-wing NAZI groups. But Breivik was focussed on muslims being the subversive element in western society, and he blaimed the liberal labour government of Norway for the destruction of the traditional white society of Norway. Breivik was anti multi-culturalism, admired the mono-culturalism of Japan and South Korea, as countries which don't accept refugees. Ultimately he demanded the forced deportation of all muslims from Europe.

Breivik's rhetoric is not unheard of. Over the last three years we have heard a lot of the same or similar from the US president and from many leading republicans. The main difference between Norway and the US is the fact that Norway had a mono-culture until about the mid-seventies, while the United States has been multi-cultural and multi-racial since 1776. The fact that a country's population has not grown used to multi-racial citizens after such a long time is concerning, to say the least. 

What happened to Anders B. Breivik?

On 25 July 2011, Breivik was charged with violating paragraph 147a of the Norwegian criminal code, "destabilising or destroying basic functions of society" and "creating serious fear in the population", both of which are acts of terrorism under Norwegian law. On August 24 2012, Breivik was adjudged sane and sentenced to containment—a special form of a prison sentence that can be extended indefinitely; with an approximate period of 21 years and a minimum time of 10 years, the maximum penalty in Norway.

He is currently zoning his prison sentence in a high security prison unit. He has described himself as a monster.