by Jack Campitelli | July 24th, 2011
It’s too early to draw too many conclusions from the mass killings in Norway last week.
But it’s not too early to ask how a civilized society is suppose to deal with deliberate acts of mass killing and mayhem. Whether they are from a whacko or a terrorist organization.
People, youth, on an island for peace and tranquility become the target of a killer. It’s a bad movie. And yet it happened To prevent it in the future we do what?
Strip everyone of guns. No. Then only the criminals and terrorists will have guns.
Surround all “events” with “Gestapo” security? That will surely bring a sense of peace and tranquility.
The killer seemed to be making a political statement about allowing Muslims to immigrate to Norway or the EU – by killing people who had nothing to do with the policy.
I’m one of those people who think that immigration opportunities for Muslims needs to be slowed to a crawl until we understand why and how second generation Muslims are radicalized and turned into terrorists. Just as there are Christians who are prepared to kill to support their beliefs (such as bombing abortion clinics) there are Muslims who have been taught to believe all evil starts in America. There are even Jewish extremists who will kill for their beliefs.
The belief that “my religion says I can kill you if you don’t believe what I believe” is not what freedom of religion is supposed to mean. It’s not even what the religion says. The problem with “Holy Books” is that they can be interpreted just about any way one wants to. Further, few religious fervent believers are willing to admit that neither God, nor Moses, nor Jesus, nor Muhammad actually wrote one word of the “Holy Books”. Instead these religious icons inspired others to write the sacred words. And sometimes these words are attempts of early theologians to grapple with man’s relationship with God, while other words are thinly disguised political rhetoric to give the religion glue to make sure it had the necessary “us versus them” psychological point of view that all politics, religious or not, seem to prosper on.
In the end, the mass murders in peaceful Norway, should be mourned and then not become the basis for reactive politics or legislature or hate mongering. That is what 9/11 did to America. And that’s not worked out all that well for us as a people. In an instant we abandoned all we stood for as a people in our hunt to rid ourselves of something we can’t even find. We reacted precisely as Osama bin Laden predicted we would.
A fundamental irony with ridding ourselves of terrorism – politics using guns against innocent people – is that we have to become terrorists ourselves to do it. You can condemn it or condone it, but something like water-boarding/torture makes us lesser humans for using it. When intelligence officials say it doesn’t work, and they’re the ones you’d expect to support it, then the only conclusion is that we like to be terrorists, too.
While Norway may need to re-think some of its policies, it is far and away one of the societies and cultures that works. It had a terrible incident. But nothing that Nazis didn’t do in World War II.
It appears that no country is exempt from the new God-given right of terrorism that some citizens hear the voice of. But random acts of violence make big news. Random acts of kindness are rarely seen or acknowledged. Norway, largely a Lutheran country, practices its Christianity on a day-to-day basis as early Christians would have.
I hope they will grieve and pray and not change their culture or laws in reaction to something that is akin to an asteroid hitting the small island.
