The case has triggered long debates
both in Norway and in other countries, about right-wing extremism,
political violence, freedom of expression, xenophobia, police
surveillance, hand-gun control, bomb-making, etc. Media have focused
to a great extent on the dangers of right-wing extremism. Still there
is not much clarity about what is essential in the case, except the
issue of the perpetrator's sanity and whether he can be held legally
responsible for his actions. The court will decide on this in due
time.
My question in all of this is: Could his
actions make his particular attitudes (i.e., right-wing extremism) more dangerous – more attractive to other
psychopaths like him - than previously
thought? And are these attitudes more dangerous than other extremist
views?
My view on both counts is, No. The European Left seems convinced that this mass murderer is only the tip of an iceberg of right-wing extremism. That's as faulty as thinking all terrorists are muslims. The danger lies in the demonstration of method and commitment to goal-oriented political mass-murder, a side-effect and possibly even a conscious purpose in which the killer has subsequently been greatly aided by the media.
Extremist views of whatever nature, which advocate violence and attack democratic values, are all dangerous, and a democratic system has the right to defend itself against them with appropriate means. Extremist movements must all be countered and restrained, by democratic means if possible and by effective and continuous police action if necessary. There is no greater need to watch right-wing extremism than left-wing extremism or religious (including islamist) extremism or animal-rights extremism.
Extremist views of whatever nature, which advocate violence and attack democratic values, are all dangerous, and a democratic system has the right to defend itself against them with appropriate means. Extremist movements must all be countered and restrained, by democratic means if possible and by effective and continuous police action if necessary. There is no greater need to watch right-wing extremism than left-wing extremism or religious (including islamist) extremism or animal-rights extremism.
In other words, I disagree with the tendency in the debate about the Oslo/Utøya case to assign particular blame to right-wing extremism. I disagree especially with the tendency to see this as a simple extension of ordinary conservative and islam-critical views. Indeed, I agree with the view recently put to me by a distinguished former colleague, that in contrast to what many people seem to think, conservatism (at least mainstream European conservatism) is not akin to and is not a more moderate form of right-wing extremism. Conservatism, especially in the tradition of Edmund Burke, is democratic, non-violent, anti-revolutionary and stands for cautious, incremental reform. Granted, there are other forms of conservatism that are authoritarian and reactionary, but they are rarely democratic. In any case, the proper focus of attention here is the violence, not the particular strain of thought.
In our time politically motivated violence increasingly overlaps with religious violence, to the extent that a distinction between the two is becoming meaningless. There is in my view nothing essential that separates this mass killer from the German and Italian left-wing terrorist killers of the 1970s and -80s or from the islamist mass killers (including suicide bombers) of today. It is not the particular type of extremism that is to blame, but the inhuman impulse to kill, and kill on a massive scale.
It is evidently the case that such an impulse to kill often has a theoretical or abstract motivation – political and/or religious – and this is why political surveillance of all kinds of extremism unfortunately is necessary. In my view, the attractiveness of the ideology is much less dangerous than the attractiveness of the methods, which all crackpots can use.
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* See, e.g.: Cas Mudde, «Right-Wing Extremism Analyzed», European Journal of Political Research 1995, 27, 203-224.
http://works.bepress.com/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1018&context=cas_mudde
** Immigrants: Residents who are foreign-born plus their children born in Norway. Only about half of these immigrants are non-European, however. Source: SSB Statistics Norway.
10 comments:
Dear Olav,
Thank you for another interesting blog. I fully agree with you that it the extremism in itself that should be placed in focus, rather then whether it is leftist, rightist, religious or animals rights (as you give as an example). We all know what atrocities that have been committed in the name of various religions and ideologies (whether or not we could imagine a conservative extremism or not, I leave for further contemplation).
However, it seems to me that although extremism/dogmatism is always problematic because of the simple reasons that you could not reason with it and because all arguments building on the argument that means could be defended because of the goals they are said to support always frightens me, it is not necessarily the case that society should be en garde towards all forms of extremism. Arguably, you could be an extremist in almost any sense, being extreme and dogmatic in what you’re eating, your training practices or what have you. This could certainly be harmful to the "extremist" himself, but hardly to others and should therefore not be targeted by a liberal state.
As I see it, it is not so much the goals we should place our critical interest in as the means used to reach those goals. When the means threaten other members of society, society has to be prepared to take action.
Btw, a footnote on statistics. It is true that Norway has about 13 percent immigrants (according to Norwegian official statistics). However, about half are immigrants from Europe – most of them from Baltic Sea countries - and only about a fifth of all immigrants that were granted residence during the last 20 years came as refugees, according to the same sources. Considering the fact that Sweden has considerably more immigrants (about 20 percent according to national official statistics), Denmark about the same as Norway and Finland much lower numbers, it is hard to see actual correlations between number of immigrants and degrees of xenophobia as expressed in political movements, extremism etc.
Regards, Björn H
Björn, it seems to me we agree on the goals and the surveillance, if you check what I already said. As for the statistics, my footnote to the blog also says that non-European immigration is only about half of those 13%. Official statistics are not necessarily bad, and in politically charged discussions it is often smart to use official sources. Finally, you raise a big issue – whether attitudes in Norway and Denmark (where immigration is lower) are simply more high-strung (or xenophobic, if you will) about immigration than in Finland and Sweden. In my view that is quite possible. What are your figures from Sweden on that?
While I agree with most of what you have said in this blog (thanks for writing on this very sensitive issue, by the way), I think the cavaets placed on "exremist" actions are too broad and general for a good debate. While extremism is not to be supported, in general, to focus on extremism as actions that "advocate violence and attack democratic values" is too broad. Of course, most of us would oppose that action. But, don't most of us make a distinction between attacking persons who work in an abotion clinic, persons who support protection of the environment, and other such "left-wing" issues from those who are attack persons who support democratic values, in general? Democratic values are, by definition, values that are for the "public good." This action was not for the public good, although the accused would probably argue that his actions were for the public good. I think this is an important action that fall in the "extremist" camp in contrast to those that are consistent with "democratic values."
Okay, I may have left some things less than clear so let me have another try. There is an argument about this case that says the mass killer is simply an extreme version of something normal, and that therefore we can all fall onto to the same slippery slope that starts with ordinary «right-wing» or «conservative» ideas and ends up with an extreme version, as if there is a continuum from the former to the latter, putting us all potentially in the same league as him «if we don't watch ourselves». But, as I try to say in my blog, there is no straight continuum from normal politics to extremism.
That leads directly to your question, what is «extremism»? Is there an «extremism in general»? There is a whole scholarly field out there on this topic, but let me make it less painful. I suggest this simple definition: In politics and public life, extremism is (1) a conviction held with fanatical intensity, that (2) a central aspect of society is fundamentally and dangerously flawed, and therefore (3) drastic action is needed to correct it. One example is Greenpeace. Fanaticism, gross simplification and drastic action, these are the main ingredients. The extremist may or may not consider violence to be necessary to advance his/her cause. Still his/her mode of thinking is dangerous to a democratic system because it claims to have some other justification for going outside the law.
Therefore, non-violent extremism is probably fairly common – though not widespread - in many countries. Moreover, it must be kept in mind that the range of views generally considered to be «extreme» varies between countries, cultures, and social contexts, not least between the United States and Europe.
My target in the blog was more specific and directed at the line of argument in the debate about right-wing extremism to the effect that the mass killer's actions have grown out of the hate speech of right-wingers. Hence, the argument goes, right-wing views are to blame, and – next step – therefore all other views tending in the same direction (to the right) are guilty, by association, of his actions. This, of course, is nonsense, but it is part of the debate in Norway and Sweden about the case.
Dear Olav,
Thanks for all your wise blogs, including this latest one. I very much agree with you that in democratic countries what we need to guard against are people who advocate and/or use violence, be they "common" criminals, religious extremists, ecological extremists or political extremists. By violence I mean the physical sort (some violent leftists used to excuse their violence as legitimate defence against "system violence" and the "repressive tolerance" of "the system").
I can't make any sense of Björn's last comment - maybe he was too tired way past midnight to write or think straight.
New, though related subject:
Statistics: By 1st January 2011, immigrants and 1st generation descendants were a little over 10 percent of the population in Denmark, two-thirds of them from non-western countries (a little less than 7 percent).
As far as I know, during the past 20 years not a single person has been killed by political or religious extremists (disregarding a handful of so-called honour killings), and not a single mosque or koran has been set fire to, though an attempt was made on the old synagogue in Copenhagen by some young Palestinians. And the number of organized neo-nazis is 100-200.
As far as I know, the Swedish record is rather worse on all these counts. And the record on integration is not great either. Might that have something to do with the almost complete absence of a public discourse immigration and integration and a refusal to recognize that there are inevitable problems connected with a rapid influx of large numbers of people with different social, cultural and religious backgrounds and few formal and employable skills?
One major problem is that this type of immigration collides with the Nordic labour market model which prevents employers from paying wages low enough to match low skills. This contrasts with traditional immigrant countries who tend to cherry-pick, give a warm welcoming handshake and then leave immigrants to fend for themselves - which many then manage to do, albeit mostly at levels unacceptable in he Nordic countries.
Thanks for a well-directed challenge to Swedish readers, though I believe it was not Björn who was up past mid-night to write. Thanks also for the statistics on Denmark. Can we use these figures to make more sense of what is going on in terms of extremist violence? My sense is that such acts are governed more by chance than it seems off-hand. The Norwegian killer was methodical but was often not certain about whether or when. Maybe you could also say more directly what you mean when you refer to the poor Swedish record on integration.
I have not done any research on the subject of immigrant integration in Sweden. But when a critical journalist last week pointed out to Swedish prime minister Reinfeldt that unemployment is now back at 7.3 percent as in 2006, Reinfeldt defended himself by pointing out that for ethnic Swedes the unemployment rat is very low (in the age group 25-54 years it is only 3.4 percent, while for non-Swedes it is 20 percent and presumably even higher for non-Swedes from non-western countries and higher still if youth and seniors are included).
From the realm of anecdotal evidence one might mention the steady flow of stories about life in Malmö and its large suburb Rosengård, where the firebrigade sometimes can't operate without police protection.
I think you may be right, and the unemployment figures cited speak for themselves. But Denmark is also involved in this, since most of the immigrant people in Malmö's Rosengård have come there via Denmark, where they were denied entry. This is all indicative of the untenable state of affairs in the EU, where different countries are allowed to pursue different policies - and do so partly because of the excessively liberal EU policy in place.
Dear Olav, It is with great interest and pleasure that I followed the exposition of your thoughts about right-wing extremism. I agree with you that adherence to democratic principles is normally the decisive distinction between mainstream conservatism and right-wing extremism. The impulse to kill or eliminate an enemy by force commonly borders on the criminal.
That said, I still have two contentious issues:
1. How do you define and determine a movement or action as democratic or not?
2. How connected or disconnected is mainstream conservatism from right-wing extremism? Is there a gradual built-up of dissention to the point where action is justifiable?
On the answering of those two questions hinges my falling in with your views.
Firstly you present yourself as democrat in the Burkean style, but what I know about him, does not make him a full-blooded democrat. Judge for yourself:
“Burke was a leading skeptic with respect to democracy. He opposed democracy, since government required a degree of intelligence and breadth of knowledge of the sort that was very uncommon among the common people.” (Wiki-pedia)
Edmund Burke was in his time (ca 1800) a sharp observer of society, but he must have known that the ‘uncommon’ intelligence of the ruling class not so much stands for strong character and breath of knowledge, as for greed and pliability towards big money.
Olav, I know you agree with that famous democrat, Lenin, that it would be unpractical to consult the people on every little decision in a row, but how otherwise one fulfills the democratic concept of “ruling by consent of the people”?
“Liberty and democracy cannot be preserved without a general knowledge of the people”, but what to do when the people do not honour their obligation to be well-informed and the misinformation industry of the mainstream media does everything in its power to keep them uninformed?
And who are “the people”? All the people outside the powerframework of the government, or exclusively the ones who bother to get informed? We take for granted that a party has a mandate to govern for 5 yours if it gets 51% of the vote, but that leaves a huge black hole in the representation?
All these questions come to mind, when I read your statement that “Greece” knew what they did by joining the Euro-zone. Did the Greek leadership around 2002 have the interest of the land or the people in mind? Could they know what kind of accountancy tricks were used to bring the national debt back to passable levels? How much of that debt should be nullified as “odious debt”? The creditors (North-European banks and big investors) knew pretty well the risks they were taking in loading Greece up with their loans. Knowingly doing what they did – they are as much to blame, but they are in power and demand their full pound of flesh. By means of naked threats and intimidation the people bowed in desperation for austerity and staying in the Euro, although with a referendum it might have been a no-vote. Is this in the interest of the nation/people? The creditors got some breathing space, while the people are going to suffocate under a spiraling debt and no solution in sight.
As to point two, it is of course self-reassuring to dismiss out of hand the ravings of a right-wing extremist ‘loner’ like Breivik as completely disconnected from mainstream conservatism. But not all political right-wing extremist actions are so easy to dismiss, if they are fed by the discontentment of a bigger group or section of society. Think for instance about the lynching mobs of USA just up to 1950?! Or the hysteria of the McCarthy-period? Or the the South-African violent Apartheits Regime? At that time it was a kind of mainstream conservatism with violent ridges.
Is every violent political action always criminal crackpottery? If democracy is rigged, should the protest movement stay pacifist at all times? Look at what the “only democratic” country in the Middle-East Israel does to Palestinians?
Charles Rodijk, 27/06/2012
You ask:
1. «How do you define and determine a movement or action as democratic or not?» I have already answered this, I believe. Let me then just briefly add the obvious. A movement is undemocratic if it does not accept representative democracy as the governing system of the country, or if it advocates violence or the abrogation of basic human rights. Beyond that, we must accept all kinds of movements, regardless how weird they may seem.
2. «How connected or disconnected is mainstream conservatism from right-wing extremism? Is there a gradual built-up of dissention to the point where action is justifiable?» Good question. Mainstream conservatism is different in different countries. While what I cited as mainstream conservatism is typical of most large-scale conservative parties in Westerm Europe since the 1950s, I know European countries where commonly held conservative views are not clearly disconnected from right-wing extremism: Lithuania, Latvia and to some extent Estonia. In these countries nationalism is very strong, and their sense of national identity has helped them survive long periods of harsh foreign oppression, hence their sense of limits to nationalism has perhaps been blunted. An active leadership role for the state is natural to these conservatives, both in social affairs and economics. Here the strong leadership idea is key, and here they resemble the kind of conservatism that existed in the rest of Western Europe a century ago and that still survives in pockets of opinion in many places. Still, they accept democratic principles and function as normal democratic parties.
Then there are the neo-nazi or neo-fascist movements which are still around in most of Europe, especially Austria, Southern Germany and Northern Italy, and xenophobic parties like LePen's Front National in France and similar parties in the Netherlands, Britain and elsewhere. In the Nordic countries there are the Progress Party (Norway), Dansk Folkeparti (Denmark), Sverigedemokraterna (Sweden) and The True Finns (Finland). These Nordic variants are parties of protest against immigration, taxes, governmental guardianship and political correctness. As long as they stay within the bounds cited above they must be tolerated. We cannot start hunting down potential extremists by looking for the start of a «slippery slope». This is where the Oslo case is relevant and where I disagree with many of my countrymen. If I cannot criticize the immigration policy of my country, then there is already a limit to democracy there.
As for Edmund Burke, I cited his conservative priciples, not his views on representative democracy. He feared the latter because of the possibilities of misrule, as you point out, and he based these views on the experience of the British parliament in the century before his time. Today Burke is still relevant because of his views on tradition and reform.
Finally, you ask «what to do when the people do not honour their obligation to be well-informed and the misinformation industry of the mainstream media does everything in its power to keep them uninformed?» I ask you the same. We can only – being presumably a minority of better informed citizens – do our best to remind the people's elected representatives of the fact that they are answerable to us, exhort them to inform themselves better, and especially to grasp that they cannot run the country instead of the dreaded «experts».
Politicians must perform better. I am about to digress here, but let me say at least that the fear of expert rule has driven western parliamentary democracy into a dead end of politicians' ignorant misrule, with detailed legislation meddling in all sorts of matters that are better left to – exactly – those who have been educated to do the most qualified, specialized work.
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