The recent attacks in Norway were a tragedy – there’s no question about that. What has been pretty questionable though, has been the mainstream press’ reaction to them and the fairly explicit links between themselves and the attacker.
As soon as the first details of the bombing in Oslo began to come in, pretty much every outlet of the mainstream media leapt in to declare it the work of Islamic extremists – even after details of the shooting came out, making it look a lot less like a typical ‘Al-Qaeda’ attack, most of them stuck with this assumption. The Sun even ran a headline calling the events ‘Norway’s 9/11’ and even name checked Al-Qaeda on their front page (but they put it in quote marks, so they can’t be accused of jumping to conclusions…) just to drive home the fact that a Muslim must have done this. Which is frankly just racist (and another reason to boycott Murdoch’s empire, just in case you hadn’t heard enough lately!)
Things started to get ridiculous after the facts emerged that the attacker was in fact a blonde Norwegian man with ‘piercing blue eyes’ (that every paper seems to have been obsessed with), at which point the ‘experts’ began to suggest he must be a zealous convert to Islam. It looked like the papers and the TV news wanted it to be linked to Islam so badly that they’d clutch at any straws they could get. When it emerged the person responsible was actually a right-wing anti-Muslim Christian, all mention of religion disappeared from the analysis; words like ‘insane’ started flying around instead – apparently people from other religions can’t be extremists.
Then there came the analysis of the attackers rambling manifesto and online writing and an attempt to pin down his ideology – the media decided on ‘right-wing fanatic’ or, in the case of the Daily Mail, ‘neo-Nazi’ (despite the attacker’s explicit rejection of Nazism – but the Mail never did let facts get in the way of sensationalism). All of this ignored (or covered up) the uncomfortable truth that his thoughts were actually a lot closer to the kind of thing these very papers have been ramming down the public’s throat for years now. Last year, the Mail asked “Will the white British population be in a minority in 2066?” – in his manifesto, the Norwegian gunman claimed that in “…a few decades…our major cities… [will be] demographically overwhelmed by Muslims”. See the similarity? In fact, direct quotes from Daily Mail columnist Melanie Philipps appear in his manifesto.
A lot is also being made of the attacker’s links to the English Defence League (EDL) – he posted on their forums, praised their strategy and might even have attended some of their demos. Which their leadership is keen to deny any involvement and to distance themselves from everything that has happened, it’s the same anti-Muslim, anti-multicultural, super conservative views that motivate both of them – views that are being fuelled by the mass media’s obsession with Muslims and violence. It’s not difficult to imagine that there could be some in the EDL camp celebrating what has happened – and it’s important not to forget that it could happen again. The EDLs next major outing is September 3rd in Tower Hamlets – anti-fascists will be counter-mobilising.