Hate stuns Norway
This past weekend Oslo, Norway was rocked by a terrorist attack orchestrated by one of its own countrymen.
The suspect in the attacks, 32-year-old Norwegian Anders Behring Breivik, bombed government buildings in the capital city on Friday before moving to Utoya Island where a youth camp of the political elite was taking place. In total both attacks have left approximately 93 people dead.
Headlines of the massacre appeared across the world with news outlets scrambling to piece together a time line of the attacks and the motives of the gunman.
Some of the most chilling articles told the stories of the survivors of the youth camp as they fought to survive the shooting spree.
Dart Society Member Moni Basu provided the first-hand account of Adrian Pracon, who pretended to be dead and survived with a gunshot to the shoulder. Her CNN article captures the fear of the moment, as she describes Pracon’s encounter with the gunman:
Pracon clung to the dead. Tried to play dead. It was the only way he knew to survive.
Pracon clung to the dead. Tried to play dead. It was the only way he knew to survive.
He heard footsteps getting closer. He could hear the heavy breathing of the man. Then, “boom!”
Pracon’s world fell silent. His hearing was gone. But he could feel intense pain on the back of his left shoulder. He bore it, lay face down, and kept perfectly still.
Alongside the survivor stories, many newspapers like the Los Angeles Times featured articles profiling Breivik, describing his Christian right-wing agenda and obsessive blogging all alongside a portrait of the blond man.
While darkly intriguing, stories like this beg the question, what is our fascination with the killer and do we need to know his back-story? Does the coverage give him media attention he desired?
And though the attacks appear to be over, they’ve also left behind a changed country trying to comprehend what’s happened and how to move on.
Many Norwegians are seeking comfort in the church and attending a memorial service today. But, as Anders Romarheim, a fellow at the Norwegian Institute for Defense Studies said in a NY Times article, it’s hard to find an outlet for grief.
“With 9/11 in America, people could ask, ‘Who are they?’ and could pour their rage out on someone else,” he said. “But we can’t disavow this person, he’s one of us.”
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