Norway’s open values still intact five years after Breivik attack

UTOYA, Norvège: Five years after its worst attack since World War II, Norway sees its liberal and open values as intact despite the horrific massacre of 77 people by rightwing fanatic Anders Behring Breivik.

As more and more countries ponder how to respond to such atrocities, Norway – which on Friday marks the fifth anniversary of Breivik’s hate-filled massacre on Utoya island – has sought the path of “openness” and “love”.

“Our response is more democracy, more openness, and more humanity,” was how then prime minister Jens Stoltenberg said his compatriots should respond to the attack.

Thenationwasstunnedaftereight people were killed in a bombing outside a government building in Oslo and another 69 gunned down, most of them teenagers, at a Labour Youth camp on the island of Utoya on July 22, 2011.

Whereas the United States declared its “war on terror” after the 9/11 attacks, Norway, Stoltenberg said, would seek to “answer hatred with love.”

The country is identical in many ways today (as prior to the Breivik attacks) – and that is a good thing. Terrorism’s objective is to turn society upside down. Eskil Pedersen, former Youth wing leader of the Labour Party

While elsewhere in Europe the talk has been of ratcheting up security and thereby sacrificing a degree of civil liberties in return, the Norwegians have made it a point to stand by their open society principles.

“The country is identical in many ways today (as prior to the Breivik attacks) – and that is a good thing,” says Eskil Pedersen, former leader of the Labour Party’s youth wing, who managed to flee the Utoya carnage.

“Terrorism’s objective is to turn society upside down. So it is a victory that we have not upended everything and we can today show a recognisable face” as a strong and united nation, Pedersen told AFP.

There were no US-style Patriot Acts or rushed anti-terrorist legislation or armed forces in the streets after the carnage.

But a year after the massacre, an independent fact-finding commission highlighted numerous communications and logistical failures and shortfalls in coordinating a response.

The conclusions led to a gradual – and generally consensual – overhaul of the security services and legislative weapons designed to help prevent a repeat.

As for the legal response, Breivik was handed a 21-year prison term – which can be extended indefinitely – following what was seen as a model trial. But earlier this year, Norway found itself having to appeal an Oslo court’s ruling that Breivik’s solitary confinement in prison constitutes “inhuman” treatment – a verdict which stunned observers. – AFP