- Do a preliminary brainstorm in class discussing, on the base of your previous knowvledge or gaining information from news article, the motivations behind this terrorist attack
- What kind of people and phenomena were the targets of Breivik' s action?
- On which literature did Breivik build up his thought?
- What is the place of Christianity in his thought?
- Why did Breivik attack symbols of power as government offices and a political camp?
- Have there been violent actions against different religious/ethnic communities in your country? Find information about the motivation behind these acts, and how the idea and the fear of the "Other" is involved.
For teachers
5. Cultural Fundamentalism against Islam and multiculturalism
Anders Behring Breivik, a man of Novergian origin, who planned and made terroristic attacks on Oslo and in the island of Utøya in Norway in 2011.
First a car bomb exploded a short distance from a building complex that housed numerous government offices, including those of Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg in Oslo. Stoltenberg was unharmed in the explosion. One hour and a half after the bomb detonated in Oslo, Breivik shoots people with an automatic rifle and a pistol in a youth camp hosted by the Norwegian Labour Party in the island of Utøya. Most people were teenagers.
Breivik's thought was of extreme-right wing nature and was against multiculturalism and Islamic immigration in Norway, in fact he was active on neo-Nazi and anti-Islamic Web sites. Before terrorist attacking he wrote the treaty that was filled with anti-Islamiclanguage and imagery evoking the Crusades and the Templar religious military order.
Besides, he spent several years amassing funds to finance what he called his “martyrdom operation”. Stating that the Labour Party had failed to prevent the “cultural Marxism” (multiculturalism) and a “Muslim takeover,” Breivik sought to precipitate an armed revolt. His attack on the Labour Party youth camp was designed to limit the party’s ability to recruit in the future. He intended to target former Labour Prime minister Gro Harlem Brundtland, who delivered a speech at Utøya just hours before the massacre.
Breivik developed his thought in the treaty referring literature about clash of civilizations, Muslims seen as conquerors of Europe (Eurabia) and multiculturalism as a threat to Occident or Christian culture. In sum, it is a literature aimed to demonize the "Other". At any rate, it is very difficult to consider this event based on a form of Christian Fundamentalism. In fact, in his “2083: A European Declaration of Independence” , Christianity is explicitly conceived as a something that can provide identity, moral basis and mythical imaginery (such as "Crusades" or "Templar Knight") for Europe against the Muslim threat, but not a theocratic guidance. Therefore his thought can be categorized as a form of Cultural Fundamentalism, based on the belief of a homogenous, a-historical European culture, that must be defended at all cost.
Introduction to religious traditions | Religions and Fundamentalisms
5. Cultural Fundamentalism against Islam and multiculturalism
Anders Behring Breivik planned and made terroristic attacks on Oslo and in the island of Utøya in Norway in 2011. His terrorist attacks killed 77 people, most of all teenagers involved in the Labour Party youth camp.
Two pictures about Terrorist Fundamentalism in Norway
Anders Behring Breivik
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anders_Breivik#mediaviewer/File:Anders_Breivik.jpg (07/08/2014) CC BY 2.0
Destroyed building
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Norway_attacks#mediaviewer/File:Regjeringsbygget_22.7.2011.jpg
(07/08/2014) CC BY 2.0