By far the most destructive terrorist attack in Norway was carried out not by Islamists but by a Christianist fanatic. Per capita, it was more destructive of human life in Norway than 9/11 or 7/7 in the US and UK. My problem with Bruce Bawer's WSJ piece is that it didn't seem even to reflect on that astonishing fact. When you have been pointing out the danger of terror from Islamism for years, and it turns out that the terror comes from someone who is on the fringe of your side of the debate, I think it's worth taking some stock.
This essay is exactly such a response, admirable in many ways, in particular its struggle with free speech in a political atmosphere poisoned by religious fundamentalism, Christianist and Islamist:
I, as editor of the conservative Norwegian website Minerva, have been forced to confront the fact that Anders Behring Breivik, the mass murderer of my countrymen, has visited our website and posted comments in our forum. Though it was impossible to detect this extremism in his comments at the time, I have often worried about the increasingly aggressive tone that characterizes too many not only in our forum, but everywhere that the multicultural society is debated.
The nuances of the piece are its strength. This mass murder emphatically must not squelch robust debate about culture, immigration and Europe. But equally, the lessons of the consequences of extremist rhetoric are real:
There are too many, in Norway, in Europe, as well as in the US, who have Islam as their only concern, their only evil, and who interpret all events in light of that one issue. They are willing to accept ever more illiberal measures against Muslims. And not accepting the legitimacy of today’s policies, some question our whole political system, and see democratically elected leaders as traitors.
This is the Christianist temptation: to be so convinced of your own good intentions and culture that you become blind to the fact that you too can spawn and enact evil. That's how the US came to adopt a torture program based on those once used by Nazis and Communists. That's how Israel can look at the dead bodies of children buried in Gaza rubble and accept no blame or responsibility at all. That's how Bill O'Reilly can simply assert that a confessed Christian simply cannot be one because he is a mass-murderer. And that's how some neocons can regard an Iraq invasion based on false premises that resulted in the deaths of tens of thousands of innocents as a success worth repeating. The task for us is to fight extremist terror – Islamist and Christianist – while retaining common decency, the Geneva Conventions, respect for moderate Islam and apolitical Christianity, and bedrock commitments to free speech, however inflammatory. This conclusion is hard to beat:
Imagine Muslims saying after 9/11: “Yes, we believe that the US is the Big Satan, that Israel is the Small Satan, that Westerners who engage with the Muslim world should be seen as crusaders, that the Caliphate should be restored – but we categorically have nothing to do with terrorism.” It would not sound terribly convincing. Today, there will be those who continue to insist that Islam is the incarnation of evil, that there is no threat that is not ultimately connected to Islam, that Muslim immigration is just a polite word for Muslim invasion, that areas with a large Muslim population or a majority are occupied, and that politicians who allow immigration have lost all legitimacy and commit treason to their own nations. And they will categorically deny that they have any reason to rethink their rhetoric or approach in light of right wing, counter-jihadist terrorism. Read American counter-jihadi blogger Pamela Geller’s comments on the attacks. That attitude must be confronted.
Indeed it must. And I have little doubt that my friend, Bruce Bawer, will do so once the dust settles.
The Dish 