"Suppression of debate is the worst form of bigotry"
It has been suggested here - can't remember by who - that:
"he appears to be an extreme Nationalist who has been driven over the edge by the policies of the Norwegian govt....."
"As western economies worsen and living standards, pension rights, public services come under further attack,expect to see a backlash against the policies pursued by goverments in Western Europe over the last couple of decades.
Perhaps we may yet see Mr Powells "rivers of blood".....I certainly hope not, but action needs to be taken now to reverse some of the policies which have created the "time bomb"....."
and
"Over the past few years there has been a rise in Scandinavian Nationalism..... they have a powerful sense of their history and culture. Lately the massive influx of Muslim immigrants has caused much disquiet amongst Danes, Swedes and Norwegians.
These immigrants have been encouraged into Scandinavia for the same reasons that they were encouraged into the UK....purely economic...cheap labour...nothing to do with equality or democracy
but like most government policy, it has caused more problems than it solved."
Before the enormity of the massacre had been realised it was being suggested that the killer appeared to have genuine grievences which should be addressed, that government policy was partially to blame and that something should be done about all those Muslim immigrants flooding into Norway.
It was also suggested that:
"These are the actions which often occur when a people lose their voice, or are unable to make their feelings known."
So it appears that a lack of freedom of speech for racists also played a part in the massacre.
These statements are ones of appeasment to an extreme act of racism, of pandering to the views of someone who has carried out a massacre of mainly young people, the largest since WW2, of shifting the blame away from the perpetrator's twisted racist views and actions, first to the government and later to "the massive influx of Muslim immigrants" flooding into Norway.
It implies that countries that have laws against the incitement of race hatred should scrap them for fear that some other racist nutters should carry out other massacres.
The Norwegian government has shown dignity, wisdom and courage in declaring it is not prepared to surrender its freedoms to such acts.
The killer was hoping to be granted "freedom of speech" by being allowed to use his appearence in court as a platform, even a rallying call to other racists - the court denied his "right to it" - long may that continue to be the case.
Granting "freedom of speech" to racists is removing their victims' freedoms to live ther lives unterrorised - a racist's charter - is that what is being proposed here?
Jim Carroll