Numbing grief and profound sorrow; mere words cannot plumb the depths of the loss of a child. Millions of words searching for the “why” behind this heinous act matter little to the precious space that adored child occupied which is forever empty. We wish to extend our expressions of condolence to the families and the people of Norway. And at this moment we must also be aware that every parent who has lost a child to gun violence relives those wrenching moments of their loss for the rest of their lives. We wish to express these thoughts to the people of Norway in their language:
Numbing sorg og dyp bedrøvelse; blotte ord kan ikke legge rør dybdene av tapet av et barn. Millioner av ordene som leter etter det «hvorfor» bak denne heinous loven materien lite til det kostbare området som tilbad barna besatte som er for evig tomt.
Vi ønsker å forlenge våre uttrykk av condolence til familiene og folket av Norge. Og i dette øyeblikk må vi også være klar over at hver mor eller far som har tapt et barn til geværvold gjenopplever de wrenching øyeblikk av deres tap for resten av deres liv.
In a statement shortly after the Norway killings, Virginia Tech shooting survivor Colin Goddard said, “I mourn the horrific and senseless loss of these young lives. Norway is describing the shooting as a ‘national disaster.’ [In contrast] within 48 hours of this massacre there had been at least four mass shootings here in the U.S. – Texas, California, Florida, and Washington – as Americans turn a blind eye to the 80 people killed by guns in our country everyday.”
Norway’s Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said, “This is a national tragedy, an attack on the nation.” To amplify that theme: in America every gun death is not merely an attack on a country that calls itself civilized, but represents a diminishment of our political culture that turns a blind eye to this national disgrace.
An article in CAGV’s Spring 2011 newsletter, Volume 17, No.1, entitled, America: A Nation of Violence? we stated that the factor which contributes most to an image of our society as violent is the media. What we are learning about the 1500 page manifesto written, and in some places copied verbatim by the confessed Norwegian killer, is that he lifted whole paragraphs from the Unabomber. He read and admired anti-Muslim websites, most often American, specifically the sites maintained by Americans Robert Spencer and Pamela Geller. Neo-fascist hate propaganda along with bomb-making recipes are available on the Web. These intense irrational hate-driven people are communicating, encouraging and verifying one another.
It is important to note, as Timothy Egan said in the New York Times (7-28-11), “Breivik cannot be dismissed as a lone crackpot whose xenophobia got the most of him. To call him insane and let it go at that is too easy, for him and for the rest of us. His hatred – of Muslims, immigrants and, most of all, fellow Norwegians elected to lead their country – is a familiar virus transplanted to a peaceful country.”
America’s 1st Amendment must be honored so that print and internet media have open communication. As Timothy Rutten stated in the Los Angeles Times (7-27-11): “If speech is important enough to protect, it deserves to be taken seriously particularly when it is hateful. Wading through this garbage is like swimming in sewage, and (nearly always) unbearably tedious. Oslo, however, reminds us that this propaganda can’t be ignored. It needs to be identified, refuted and denounced. Those who attempt to launder these [hate-filled and violent] ideas into our civic conversations for their own advantage have to be confronted directly. More than ever, it seems, the open society must be a watchful one.”
