Norway: Where's the anger?
Why Norwegians are refusing to cast blame for Anders Behring Breivik's slaughter.
Why Norwegians are refusing to cast blame for Anders Behring Breivik's slaughter.
OSLO, Norway — In Anders Behring Breivik’s sickest fantasies, he never
dreamed he’d be able to blow up downtown Oslo, sail smoothly in a fake
police uniform to Utoya island and have 87 unhindered minutes to
slaughter his teenage targets.
Even Breivik, on a drug-fueled mission to destroy everything his
country stands for, had faith in Norwegian law enforcement. “He was
surprised that he reached the island,” Breivik’s attorney Geir Lippestad
told a news conference. “He was expecting to be stopped earlier by the
police or someone else during the actual day … . He thought he would be
killed after the bombing.”
It’s widely reported that traumatized survivors of the massacre
screamed “Why didn’t you come earlier?” when police finally did arrive
on Utoya, 58 minutes after they say they received the first notification
that an armed madman was on the loose.
But these anguished cries are among very few early outbursts of anger by Norwegians against law enforcement.
Many of us watching the horrific events from afar have been far more
incredulous than those closest to it: How could it have taken an hour to
stop this sick rampage? Whose fault is that? With such an unfathomable
loss of life — more than one-and-a-half times the toll of the 9/11
attacks on America, in proportion to the population — why aren’t the
Norwegians more angry? Why has no one resigned over this?
The answer is simple and complex at the same time: Because this is Norway and they are Norwegians.
This is a country blessed with significant natural wealth in the form
of oil. It has used that wealth to provide what is by most global
indices the highest standard of living in the world. While there has
long been increasing anti-immigrant sentiment, and many asylum-seekers
and other foreigners say they are not made to feel welcome, the tension
has not boiled over into outright social conflict. The country has not
previously experienced significant acts of terrorism, nor even of public
violence. Norwegians have every indication their public officials are
doing a magnificent job protecting citizens.
With a population of about 4.9 million, just as most Norwegians have a
connection to a victim, they also have a connection to a member of
government or law enforcement. When Norwegian officials swear they did
everything they could the best that they could — as Oslo Police Chief of
Staff Johan Fredriksen did when he said “You can’t expect a better
response” —Norwegians trust that it is true.'
That esteem doesn’t appear to be affected by the police’s own
recounting of the decisions, such as not to call in the solitary
national helicopter (which only seats four anyway) or to try to find
another one — Norwegian TV booked one and flew over the island and took
video of Breivik’s attack before police arrived. The police also
overloaded a boat trying to get to Utoya so it took on too much water
and stalled.
Both children under attack and their parents tried to get through to
police to tell them what was happening on the island, but say their
information was not taken seriously. Some say they were told not to call
unless it involved the downtown explosion.
But even as Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg on Wednesday set up the
independent “22 July Commission” to look into the procedures and
practices, he made sure to emphasize that this is “not a critical
inquiry; we have a lot of respect for the way that our authorities and
our different agencies have handled the operations.”
Bente Kalsnes, a communications advisor at Norwegian technology company Origo.no,
who is active in the blogosphere, isn’t surprised that no one is
searching for a scapegoat. “I don’t get the sense that people are
getting mad,” she said. “Rather even more sad as the names and ages of
the people killed at Utoya are made public. However, there will
eventually be more questions about details of the police and rescue
operations, but it still feels a bit early.”
Cristina Gallach, a longtime European Union official from Spain,
believes the citizens of most other countries would not be so patient.
“If this had happened somewhere else, criticism against the leaders
would have skyrocketed,” she said, noting that after Spain’s terrorist
attacks in March 2004, the incumbent government lost elections,
primarily due to its behavior after the loss of 191 people. Prime
Minister Jose Maria Aznar had blamed the violence on the Basque
Separatist group ETA even when evidence pointed to Al Qaeda.
Gallach said the degree of solidarity in Norwegian society may be
almost unique in Europe, both because the nation has never been attacked
except in wartime and because "while people pay a lot of taxes, they
feel well-protected and that their institutions are trustworthy."
Nevertheless, Kalsnes said she believes there will be changes in the
way police train — and are funded — to prepare for scenarios like this.
“It is of course not okay that the police couldn’t get there before, as
they could have saved more lives if they had arrived earlier.”
Norwegian newspaper Verdens Gang released part of a transcript of text
messages between 16-year-old Julie Bremnes and her mother, as the teen
hid from Breivik among the rocks on the Utoya coast. “Tell the police
they must be quick!” she wrote at 5:42 p.m., 42 minutes after Breivik
had landed. “People are dying here!”
Any mother would want to sound calm for her daughter under such
circumstances, and Marianne Bremnes made an assumption based on what she
was seeing on the news. “The police are on their way,” she wrote back.
“It is going well, Julie.”
It would be 45 more minutes before police reached Breivik, who dropped
his weapons and put his hands up. Julie Bremnes survived. But will
Norwegian mothers ever be able to reassure their children quite so
confidently again?
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