I do not know who you are or what your beliefs are, your history or your situation. What I know some of, is ours. The situation in Norway.
What I also know is that, depending on what news outlet you get your news from or what your friends are saying, is that you may not have the correct view of our situation.
I am in no way speaking on behalf of my neighbours, my friends, my colleagues or my fellow Norwegians. I do not presume that what I think is necessarily what others think. What I do know is that many of us feel that certain elements of the foreign press has greatly misrepresented our country and our reaction to the terrible incident here.
"The answer to the violence is even more democracy, even more openness"
- Jens Stoltenberg, prime minister of Norway
- Jens Stoltenberg, prime minister of Norway
In Norway the majority of people believe that the answer to such atrocities that we have experienced against our children and our government is more democracy and more openness.
We are not naive, we are not stupid. But, as the founding fathers of the U.S. believed we believe that freedom of speech, the freedom of democracy and the freedom of actually trying to talk to what can be conceived as your enemy is the right way to do things.
We are not willing to sacrify our open society to live under a wall of fear. We are not willing to give up the belief that by cooperating we can actually make a better world. It is not a question of us and them. It's just a question of us.
The massmurderer who killed the children attending a political summer camp and placed the bomb(s) next to our government did not believe in democracy. He did not believe in the fundamental building blocks of an open society. He believed he was fighting a war against Islam with the Christian God on his side.
A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another.
-- John 13:34-35
When some news outlets in the US and other countries are reporting there is an outcry for the death penalty in Norway they are wrong. There is a public outcry that nobody, regardless of what action they take, are allowed to change the way we live. When an american news outlet, Fox News, are reporting that several thousand Norwegians have joined a Facebook group that wants to install the death penalty in Norway they are not telling you the truth.
They are not fair and not balanced. If you look at the numbers there are some hundreds who are members of such groups, many of them are not from Norway. You can at the same time look at the group supporting the lawyer for the killer. The group supporting the difficult, but in a civilized society important, job he will do has around 50 000 members.
"Question with boldness even the existence of a god; because if there be one he must approve of the homage of reason more than that of blindfolded fear."
- Thomas Jefferson, author of the Declaration of Independence and third President of the United States
We believe in democracy, freedom and openness.
Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
- Martin Luther King
- Martin Luther King
