EUROPEAN RACE AUDIT BRIEFING PAPER NO.5 - SEPTEMBER 2011 Breivik, the conspiracy theory and the Oslo massacre Contents (1) The conspiracy theory and the Oslo massacre 1 (2) Appendix 1: Responses to the Oslo massacre 14 (3) Appendix 2: Documentation of anti-Muslim violence and other related provocations, Autumn 2010-Summer 2011 18 In a closed court hearing on 25 July 2011, 32-year-old But, as this Briefing Paper demonstrates, the myths that Anders Behring Breivik admitted killing seventy-seven Muslims, supported by liberals, cultural relativists and people on 22 July in two successive attacks in and Marxists, are out to Islamicise Europe and that there is a around the Norwegian capital – the first on government conspiracy to impose multiculturalism on the continent buildings in central Oslo, the second on the tiny island of and destroy western civilisation, are peddled each day Utøya, thirty-eight kilometres from Oslo. But he denied on the internet, in extreme-right, counter-jihadist and criminal responsibility, on the basis that the shooting neo-Nazi circles. In this Briefing Paper we also examine spree on the Norwegian Labour Party summer youth certain intellectual currents within neoconservativism camp, which claimed sixty-nine lives, was necessary to and cultural conservatism. For while we readily admit wipe out the next generation of Labour Party leaders in that these intellectual currents do not support the order to stop the further disintegration of Nordic culture notion of a deliberate conspiracy to Islamicise Europe, from the mass immigration of Muslims, and kick start a they are often used by conspiracy theorists to underline revolution to halt the spread of Islam. Even before his the righteousness of their beliefs and actions. court appearance, political analysts and anti-fascist Even in the aftermath of the Oslo massacre and the monitors like Searchlight had been investigating deaths of so many youngsters, the extreme Right has Breivik’s motives, sifting through numerous online post- not been circumspect. After a short pause, its members ings and, crucially, analysing his 1,500-page manifesto have returned to the old business of attacking ‘left-wing written in English under the pseudonym Andrew elites’ and ‘Islam-huggers’ whom they claim bear some Berwick.1 The manifesto, entitled 2083. A European Dec- responsibility for the deaths of the young Norwegian laration of Independence and sent out to 1,003 counter- Left activists on Utøya. Utilising an old rhetorical trick jihadist and far-right extremists across Europe ninety and presenting themselves as victims of political cor- minutes before he embarked on his killing spree, is, by rectness, they argue that it is their right, to criticise Islam all accounts, part bomb-making manual, part diary and and Muslims, which is now under threat.2 Fox commen- part political rant against his enemies who range from tator, Glenn Beck, a darling of the US Tea Party move- cultural Marxists and Muslims to liberals and journalists. ment, went further than most when he compared the This Briefing Paper identifies the various elements in Norwegian Labour Party Summer Camp at Utøya to a the Islamic conspiracy theory that Breivik drew on, its gathering of the German Nazi party’s youth wing. For his discursive frameworks, its key shapers and followers. part, Geert Wilders the leader of the Freedom Party in Extreme-right politicians, counter-jihadists and other the Netherlands has accused the Left of launching a political commentators that Breivik cites in 2083. A Euro- witch-hunt against him. ‘I would say to ... the left in the pean Declaration of Independence have been anxious to Netherlands: it is not my words, but your silence about distance themselves from his actions and establish that the dangers of Islam which has the negative influences’ they do not support violence. They describe him as a he said. (For more on Wilders and other extreme-right loner, a violent psychopath, and a freakish aberration. responses, see Appendix 1.) ERA BRIEFING PAPER NO.5 - SEPTEMBER 2011 P1 SHAPERS AND FOLLOWERS of common sense’. Breivik declared himself in favour of Breivik started out as a member of Norway’s anti-immi- the Stop the Islamisation movements, and also men- grant Progress Party3 which today appears to have tioned in positive terms the True Finns (several of whose bethought itself, promising that its approach in future members were sent the manifesto by him), the British election campaigns would be more thoughtful. The National Party, and, in Germany, the National Progress Party was seriously embarrassed by the publi- Democratic Party, the Deutsche Volksunion and the cation of various videos and photographs, believed to be Republikaner. (Tanguy Veys, an MP of Vlaams Belang from around 2002, which show Breivik at parties with a was also sent a copy of the manifesto.) The leader of the number of individuals who are now senior politicians in Dutch Freedom Party, Geert Wilders, was cited in the party.4 We know that Breivik soon became disillu- Breivik’s manifesto on thirty occasions. He commented sioned with the Progress Party because it was not radi- that Wilders was a possible ally, though Wilders would cal enough. He became a member of the Nazi web forum ‘have to condemn us’[at the point of violence] ‘which is Nordisk (Nordic), which has more than 22,000 mainly fine. It is after all essential that they protect their repu- Scandinavian members. In his manifesto he claimed to tational shields.’ have adopted the philosophy of the Vienna School of Breivik’s manifesto was signed AB Justiciar Knight Crusader Nationalism, praising the Stop the Islamisation Commander, cell 8 Knights Templar Europe. Throughout movements of Europe and the United States and count- the document and in numerous online postings (where er-jihadist websites such as Atlas Shrugs (run by Pamela he used the pseudonym Sigurd Jorsalfar, a reference to Geller), Jihad Watch (run by Robert Spencer, whom the 12th century King of Norway) Breivik revealed his Breivik cites sixty-four times), and the Gates of Vienna obsession with the Crusades, the supposed threat to (whose operator describes himself as a Virginia consult- Christian Europe posed by Muslim immigrants and ant and goes under the pseudonym ‘Baron Bodissey’). mainstream political leaders, and the desire to see not Breivik also claimed to be greatly inspired by the defence only the deportation of all Muslims from Europe, but leagues springing up across Europe. He supported the also from ‘the West Bank and the Gaza Strip’. He Norwegian Defence League and seemed particularly described himself as a supporter of ‘pro-Zionism/Israeli keen on the English Defence League (EDL) - which was nationalism’and one of his key intellectual influences as funded by Christian fundamentalist millionaire Alan Bat Ye’or, who first coined the term Eurabia and identi- Lake5 who, following the murders, wrote on his fied the threat of Dhimmitute, or Western subjection to 4Freedoms website that Breivik ‘did this attack to protest Islam. Several neoconservative political commentators against the way that Islam is taking over large parts of and think-tanks also draw, to varying degrees, on the Europe. By attacking the leftist politicians that are notion of Eurabia as do the Christian Evangelical Pax enabling this, the chickens have actually come home to Europa, which is behind many anti-mosque campaigns.9 roost’.6 One of its German founders, René Stadtkewitz, has As the Guardian’s online religious editor Andrew launched the Freedom Party in Berlin to contest the Brown has pointed out, counter-jihadist websites pro- September 2011 elections and to provoke an ‘uprising’ mote a ‘rolling cauldron of stories from all over the world by people across Europe against ‘growing Islamic influ- to illustrate the treachery and violence of Muslims, and ence’. 10 the criminal weakness of liberals’.7 They also provide In a 2008 study of counter-jihadism for the Royal ammunition for neo-Nazis and violent ultra-patriotic United Services Institute, Toby Archer described it as a defence leagues (such as the EDL) which, in turn, run spectrum: thousands of websites. (In Germany alone, far-right ‘At one end are the most shrill voices, with their groups run some 1,000 websites and thirty-eight online dystopian fantasies of mayhem and civil war enveloping radio stations.8) The views promoted by counter- Europe as the continent becomes incorporated into a jihadists and neo-Nazis are also nourished by move- new Caliphate. They resemble the writers of the ments such as Stop the Islamisation of Europe (SIOE) and American neo-fascist militia movement, forever waiting America (SIOA, run by Pamela Geller and Robert for the beginning of the race-war and the chance to Spencer) – which bears the motto ‘Racism is the lowest fight the “New World Order.”At the other end of the scale form of human stupidity, but Islamophobia is the height are mainstream writers and politicians whose views are ERA BRIEFING PAPER NO.5 - SEPTEMBER 2011 P2 not dissimilar.’11 Jerusalem Declaration12 in support of more illegal settle- Breivik’s views, as outlined in his manifesto, resem- ments in the West Bank and greater commitment to ble those of the American neo-fascist militia movement, Israel as ‘the centre of the fight against Muslims’, on the only culture and religion replace race. He, too, predicted basis that ‘if Jerusalem falls, Athens, Rome, Amsterdam a European civil war in three stages, ending in 2083 with and Nashville will fall’.13 An ardent defence of Israel is the execution of ‘cultural Marxists’ and the deportation also very much part of the DNA of neoconservative com- of all Muslims. But whereas Breivik saw himself as a mentators such as Douglas Murray, Baroness Cox, political soldier in a revolution against Muslims, multi- Melanie Phillips and Henryk M.