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a. It was domestic terrorism. Compare it to American reaction to domestic terrorism before 9/11 and we may start to have some actual merit in the comparison. Th
by maayank 14y ago
a. It was domestic terrorism. Compare it to American reaction to domestic terrorism before 9/11 and we may start to have some actual merit in the comparison. There was no "War on terror" on the same scale after the Oklahoma City bombing (1995).
b. There's a very different social reaction to domestic terrorism ("there's something rotten in us, we can fix this from the inside") and terrorism from the outside ("we're being attacked, we need to protect ourselves from those people"). Sure, even in domestic terrorism there's a social mindset of differentiation (i.e. "us v.s. them perpetrators") but not to the same extent.
c. One year strikes me as too soon to assess anything and to pat on anyone's back.
d. One could argue the US can't afford what Norway can afford, whether it's because of size, number of enemies, etc. Yes, one could counter-argue those same American policies perpetuate some of these reasons (i.e. number of enemies), but please keep it mind when doing such a comparison.
- vacri 14y agoRegarding a., the background has changed immensely, given the US's extreme sabre-rattling 'with us or against us in this War On Terror' in the ten years leading up to the event.
- nfg 14y agoWhat about the London tube/bus suicide bombings: those were domestic terrorism and elicited a distinctly different response than we're seeing in Norway now. Or is it only domestic terrorism when the perpetrators are white one wonders!
- praptak 14y ago> Or is it only domestic terrorism when the perpetrators are white one wonders! Of course the race (and religion) plays a huge role in the emotional reaction to violence. Uncomparatively more so than the technical "domestic/external" categorization based on residence, citizenship and whatnot. Race and religion are the top factors in eliciting the "us vs them" reaction.
- berntb 14y agoRace isn't the problem, I believe. If Breivik was a convert to Islam, then the reaction would have been different: He would have been taken seriously, not seen as a crazy "one hit wonder". Because of, well, the few right wing crazies in Europe the last few decades.
- ktizo 14y agoIt does seem to be the case in much of the media reporting, that with white supremacist terrorists, the loner aspect is generally played up, where as with those of a somewhat darker hue, grand conspiracy and existential threat is more on the agenda.
- berntb 14y agoWhich I acknowledged. There are no suburbs, in Scandinavia at least, filled with young rightwing extremists getting radicalized.
- morsch 14y agoReally? Cause there are such suburbs all over Europe and I'm pretty sure our local neo-nazi rally also draws buses from Scandinavia.
- berntb 14y agoSigh, you can find neonazis in Israel(!), that doesn't imply those idiots are numerous. (The left wing idiots (AFA et al) seems to be more numerous.) The Norwegians, for good reason, doesn't expect repeated attempts by right wing extremists every year in the future. In Scandinavia, lately we can look forward to such terrorism attempts every year from the islamists... Edit: morsch, I was not talking about Germany! But ok, a simple point. East Germany was a dictatorship; intolerance and conspiracy theories grows in those. As I understand, it was much worse to e.g. have the wrong skin color there 20 years ago.
- maayank 14y agoGood call. I would say that in public perception, since there is an international jihad underway (again, narratively speaking) it is easy to label the tubes bombings as non-domestic. If there was the perception of a global right-wing/fascist war on western society underway then perhaps the Norwegian massacre would have been seen differently. Any Brit here caring to comment on British public perception of the tubes bombing? Would you say it's considered domestic terrorism in Britain? Please chime in. EDIT: in any case, while this IS an interesting discussion (about the tubes), British reaction to terrorism does not reflect on the original comparison and points, so far anyway. Just want to mark different discussions and tangents as different.
- justincormack 14y agoThere was a small international link with the tube bombings (overseas terrorist training). But I think the differences are more to do with the fact that London has always had terrorism, some foreign some domestic, and reacts differently anyway. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_in_London http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_terrorist_incidents_in_...
- deleted 14y ago[deleted]
- carerra 14y agoNot domestic at all. Were those responsible for the tube and bus bombings not immigrants with training elsewhere? Hardly domestic in the sense that 9/11 was domestic. Norway's atrocity was a committed by a lone wolf. The only connection is that he was a fundamentalist, in the same way the American ultra-right party and the Taliban are. That is the global threat to open democracies, now and in the future.
- mseebach 14y agoDomestic with respect to the motive and perspective of the perpetrators. 9/11 and 7/7 had elaborate international and geopolitical motivations, from the perspective of foreign victims of respectively US and British foreign policy.
- cmdkeen 14y agoLondon (and the rest of the UK) had religious terrorism for over 30 years - with regular attacks by professionally trained terrorists of a kind AQ would love to have. Yet even with all that Islamic Fundamentalist terrorism apparently required a massive increase in state power... The difference seems to be the same as with car v plane crashes. Kill lots of people over time v many at once and society reacts very differently, even though the first kills more.
- FelixP 14y agore: "d. One could argue the US can't afford what Norway can afford," also perhaps in the literal sense as Norway has one of the highest per-capita GDPs in the world (along with a government budget surplus instead of a deficit).
- sophacles 14y agoc. One year strikes me as too soon to assess anything and to pat on anyone's back. One year after 9/11 (ok, 14 months but the work was being publicly done within a year) - we had Homeland security, PATRIOT Act, a war, and noise about another war. Sales of duct tape went through the roof (along with plastic tarps, some sort of voodoo chem weapon protection scheme), new warrantless wire taps everywhere, the NSA box to read all internet traffic, and so on. So yes, a year is plenty of time to compare responses in the first year.