Better or worse?

So, a bomb outside the Government Buildings in Oslo this afternoon, and a shooting spree at Utøya (for many years the site of the annual summer camp for the youth division of our powerful Labor Party). Seven dead downtown, ten so far at Utøya, although police think this latter number will rise as they search the island more thoroughly. Worst disaster in this country since WWII and our first experience with terrorism at home.

I wasn't surprised by the bombing ... sounds cynical, but seriously, it was only a matter of time. Those of you who think anything else are kidding yourselves. In a kind of creepy way we should be happy it was at the Government Buildings rather than somewhere more picturesque, like Parliament. That's a building worth keeping, unlike what was destroyed today. Yes, of course the loss of life is tragic, I'm not saying it's not. But people would have died in any attack on the Parliament building too, and it's far more valuable than almost any other building in town. So ... it can always be worse, is what I'm saying. But where was I.

We had to have something like this in Oslo sooner or later, so this wasn't a major surprise. Weird to see such familiar places on TV in such a setting ... I go by there pretty often on my way to the library. I was on my way out of the city when the bomb went off, I heard the blast, but didn't know what it was, no one on the bus was worried. I only heard that it was a bomb later. The shocking part of this, for me, is the attack against Utøya. An island, chock full of naive teenagers. You've got to be pretty scummy to go after a place like that. I did not see that one coming. A nasty surprise.

Another surprise is that the brain behind these events - and a clever brain it must be, because this has been long in the planning - seems to be our very own homegrown Timothy McVeigh. (Name to be released, or if not, leaked, before long, no doubt.) Of course we Norwegians produce our share of criminals and crazies too - yet another reason why we have no need to be importing more of them - and I'm sure it's just because I'm such a racist bigot that I was surprised by this. My instant thought was that this must have been the work, if that's the word I want, of some bunch of crazy Islamists. What with our soldiers in Afghanistan, our bombers in Libya, those pesky cartoons being printed and reprinted and now Najumuddin Faraj Ahmad being brought up on charges, and only this week too ... these all seem to provide plenty of reason to dislike us filthy pork-eating infidels. But that reaction was clearly in very bad taste, I don't know what I was thinking. Where do I get these crazy ideas?? Clearly out of thin air. In the future I must curb my racist thoughts better.

Seriously, forget about Afghanistan and all that crap - as the events of the evening have unfolded I think the entire scenario has changed completely. I don't think this was an attack against Norway, the Norwegian state or the Norwegian people at all. I think it was an attack directed at the Labor Party. As crazy as that sounds. It's Utøya that's the sticking point here. Who attacks Utøya?? Seriously, if you don't have some nasty beef with Labor, how would you even start getting ideas about Utøya? I'm thinking that this is a guy who has taken in a little too much of the hate-filled rhetoric of the current government's grassroots opposition, and decided to do something about it. Which means that immigration is extremely likely to have been a major factor in this anyway. Gods, I'm tired of hearing about immigration. But I'll have to keep hearing about it till I die.

So that's my theory. Unhinged but intelligent man with a serious grudge against Labor and its many members. (I don't know where I ever could have gotten this insane idea that Muslims might have been involved, it's shameful. But don't worry, I'm sure it was just me thinking that.) We already have a serial killer (who I actually met once, but that's another blog post), now we have a mass murderer too. We're catching up with our friends. I'm not sure if it's better or worse this way, though. If your daughter is brutally murdered, is it worse if it turns out it was your nephew who did it, rather than some random stranger she met at a bar? Or is it better? I hardly know which to choose.

In closing, I'd like to say to Lars Helle, editor in chief of Dagbladet: FUCK YOU. You have some goddamn nerve. YOUR newspaper takes it upon itself to warn the rest of us against 'judging prematurely and spreading rumors'?? FUCK YOU. If I was Erik Schjenken right now and I read that piece of garbage that you probably think of as an interview, I might be inspired to plant a little bomb of my own. You make me sick.