Heart Against Stone: the story of a survivor from Utøya

Adrian Pracon and Erik Møller Solheim 19 April 2012

This excerpt is the first English translation of a remarkable account of the experience of one of the young survivors on Utøya. The 21yr-old was shot and wounded after the events related here. He wants to tell his story to honour the dead and show that terror cannot defeat political engagement.  

The far right takes root in Europe

Mariano Aguirre 18 April 2012

Anders Behring Breivik’s attacks are part of a worrying trend in Europe of the far right’s rise within mainstream politics. From the Netherlands and Germany to Britain and France, immigrant communities are on the defensive.

Europe’s radical right: recognising and managing the ‘threat’

Vidhya Ramalingam 9 February 2012
Safeguarding communities and nations from the potential threats of radical right narratives is not about controlling or prohibiting their political parties: but about bridging gaps between political leadership and communities.

Neo-Nazi terror and Germany’s racism problem

Michael Rothberg 16 December 2011
A failed bank robbery on November 4 this year, exposed a cell in eastern Germany calling itself the “National Socialist Underground”, apparently responsible for the murder of at least ten people, most of them immigrants, among other acts of violence over the last decade. Together with the murder of dozens last summer by a Norwegian right-wing extremist this case has focused a spotlight on the presence of a new right-wing terrorism. Until the media and the population at large start recognizing immigrants and others marked by ethnic or religious difference as belonging to Germany, a deep-seated, everyday racism will provide fertile soil from which such acts of extremism will continue to grow.

Europe beyond Utøya: addressing a crisis

Umut Özkirimli 18 November 2011
The slaughter of citizens in Norway in July 2011 was more than the act of an individual: it emerged from a political and intellectual atmosphere that now pervades European public life. This deeper reality must be understood and addressed if Europe is to save itself by living up to its own ideals, says Umut Özkirimli.

Bolts from the blue: method and madness in the West

Jeffrey Stevenson Murer 12 October 2011
The Norwegian massacre and the gun attack on a US congresswoman were both dismissed as the work of deranged loners. But instead of signifying nothing, they were extraordinarily expressive of current political life. The author trawls through a host of supposedly pathological murders in the richest societies of the West to find deep and recurring patterns.

The national Us: the Norwegian idea of togetherness

Jena Habegger-Conti 21 September 2011
Ingen Utenfor is the very successful anti-bullying campaign run by Save the Children in Norway. In English it means “No one outside.”

The net of hatred: after Utøya

Thomas Hylland Eriksen 6 September 2011

The public debate in Norway following the massacre of 22 July 2011 is taking shape. A key focus is the obsessional and hate-filled language that pervades and dominates online discussion, says Thomas Hylland Eriksen.

Breivik: killing the left

Markha Valenta 31 August 2011
However nuanced, it is striking how little extant interpretations attend to the fact that Breivik’s most grotesque violence was not directed at Muslims or immigrants as such but at the youth members of the Norwegian Social Democrats.

Let's unite! a wake-up call from Norway

Dag Herbjornsrud 30 August 2011
The deadly attacks in Oslo are not only about Norway: they are about all of us. Ten years after the 9/11 terror, we face a common threat from extremism. Let's confront it together.

Norway: terror and Islamophobia in the mirror

Sindre Bangstad 22 August 2011

As Norway ends its first month of mourning, media soundbites tell us that there is a desire to draw a line and move on. But there are lessons to be learned about the consequences of institutional ‘hate speech’ and prejudice in high places. Can Norway lead the way in learning these lessons?

Why let facts ruin the story? Norwegian comments on US coverage of the Norway terror

Magnus Nome 8 August 2011

Instead of getting the facts, the US media seemed most concerned making reality fit their pre-fabricated narrative.

Confronting ‘extremisms’: the cautious way forward from the Norwegian tragedy

Vidhya Ramalingam 6 August 2011
It is too easy to brand terrorists with labels. We need to consider, in depth, the reasons behind people’s actions - remembering that psychology can play as much of a role as ideology

The far right are the masters of network politics, not the 'internationalist' left

Deborah Grayson and Ben Little 4 August 2011
While the left presume they are the internationalists, it is the far right who have mastered network politics, by scaling seamlessly from the local to the national to the civilisational

The roots of Breivik's ideology: where does the romantic male warrior ideal come from today?

Mattias Gardell 1 August 2011
Breivik should be understood as an ideologue driven by reasons and not just as a psychological case. A careful reading of his 2083 manifesto reveals four distinct influences we need to understand: contemporary Islamophobic ideologies, cultural conservative/neo-Confederate traditions, elements of modern White Power thinking, and anti-feminist thought

This week's editor

Heather McRobie


Niki Seth-Smith is a freelance journalist and co-editor of OurKingdom.

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