My peaceful, sleepy, safe little Scandinavian dream has just been severely damaged, tore up and devastated. We live a peaceful life here. Most of the evil of the world simply passes us by, while we can keep up the illusion that ‘things like that’ only ever happen elsewhere, in ‘those other parts of the world’, and though wars, famines, bombs and mayhem in any part of the world is horrible, it still never inspires the same genuine, deep feeling of angst, helplessness, anger and fear as having something happen in ‘your own back yard’.
Today, 22 July 2011, at 3.26pm local time a bomb went off in central Oslo, Norway. A little while later (and all the details seem unclear as of yet) there were also reports of a killing spree taking place on an island not far away from Oslo where a camp was being held for a political socialist youth movement. So far reports are that a total of eleven people have been killed, a number that is estimated to keep rising.
Compared to car bombs, suicide bombers, famines and everything else that goes on in the world, this may sound like something so minor it might not even make the news where you live, but… Norway used to be part of Sweden! Norway is our ‘brother’ and not just in the sense that we originate from the same branch of the linguistic and historic tree, but in the sense that Norway is our ‘baby brother’, and a young one at that! Their language is similar to ours, their culture is similar to ours and so much of Norway is intertwined with Sweden that we even have the obligatory sibling rivalry going between us. You can read all this on Wikipedia yourselves, but I’ll try my hand at a brief summary:
Norway is the second least densely populated country in Europe with its 4.9 million inhabitants and shares borders with Sweden, Denmark, Finland and Russia. The country is not a member of the European Union but does have a democratically elected government, a constitutional monarchy and is a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO). If I were to hazard a guess as to what Norway might be associated with in the eyes of the world it would be fjords (many and beautiful) and stunning landscape, The Nobel Peace Prize (which is the only Nobel Prize not awarded in Sweden), Vikings, oil (North Sea oil), music (I have a friend who would kill me if I didn’t mention 1980′s pop-terror-boy-band A-ha) and various distinguished sports efforts. I’m sure I’ve forgotten many things, but that is what came off the top of my head. The country was first united in 872 AD, got their own constitution in 1814, became independent from Sweden on 7 June 1905 and was occupied by German forces during World War II.
Frankly, it’s a quiet little country, on the outskirts of nowhere, just like Sweden. Regardless of this, today someone, somewhere decided that Norway is an enemy and that a city, totally unprepared for hostilities, was to be shattered by a bombing. Innocent people were killed. Yes, it might be the work of a single mad man (who might even be Norwegian, protestant and socialist to boot), but it is more likely turn out to be an act of terror and of aggression. An act of anger against a country that has troops in Afghanistan and Libya, that has previously sided with ‘The Great Evil’ across the Atlantic Ocean and that might not see the world exactly as some people would want them to. It is still despicable.
Norway is Sweden’s baby brother and ‘our’ baby brother just came home from school, crying, with a broken arm, a black eye and a bloody nose. ‘We’ may just be the big sister, someone who has already left home and is no longer as involved in raising him, but even so… Sweden may be ever so sanctimonious and neutral in matters of war, but at the moment I feel like walking straight down to that school yard, grabbing the bully that beat my baby brother up by the scruff of his neck and beat the living daylights out of him! I am one pissed off Swedish broad right now and NOBODY messes with my baby brother Norway!
Update: This is an article from The New York Times concerning the bombing and the shootings in Oslo, Norway today.
I know what you mean. I don’t believe that violence solves anything but some savage part of me wants to kick the shit out of whoever is responsible.
Violence doesn’t solve anything, but suppressing feelings of acute anger is also not good. I’ve been thinking of getting one of those boxing sandbag thingies…
I’m going to hammer away at the exercise bike for a while. It may help
[...] While the attacks took place in Norway, Sweden is shaken as if the bombs were on Swedish soil. Norwegians are readily regarded as brothers and sisters to Swedes (as described by blogger CC Champagne this evening — link to entry). [...]
Thank you for this, CC. I’m too broken up about this right now to write anything. For what it’s worth, I do not believe this was an act of radicalized Muslim extremest terrorism. Yet it was an act of terrorism nonetheless. There is more than one kind of terrorism. How else can one describe the act of mowing down dozens of teenagers at a summer camp?
First off: *big warming hugs*! When I wrote this piece the whole Utöya massacre was not yet as well publicized as it now is, and my initial shock was built up by the bomb going off in central Oslo. Today, we know better… Or worse as the case may be, but somehow the knowledge that the perpetrator of the Utöya massacre was not a muslim extremist doesn’t lessen my shock, rage or my sadness… It makes the rest of the world a slightly safer place (since the terrorist seems to have been home grown), but it is still a despicable, horrible, inexplicable event regardless of the perpetrator’s identity.
Thank you for taking the time to read and comment, Miss Kitten. It’s good to see you on here! *more hugs*
[...] more thoughts on this tragedy, please see CC Champagne’s article here. This entry was posted in News and Current Events, Politics and tagged Anders Behring Breivik, [...]
From the reports I have seen, I gather the perpetrator is a white supremacist, behind whatever other masks he chooses to try and dress that up in.
If nothing else I hope this serves to heighten the stance of zero tolerance against individuals and groups with that type of agenda, whereever it rears its ugly head.
It does seem to be the work of a white supremacist nutcase, yes… Madness is madness wherever it rears its ugly head! *shudder*
[...] reference was a bit out-of-order on my part, but considering the original article was about the Oslo Bombings… I simply could not find the correct word, the word to describe a band that you heard so [...]