Horror In Norway

Friends, Close on the heels of the terror attack in Mumbai(13/7) in India, we see the reports of the horrifying blast and killing of the eighty six young students at a youth camp near Oslo last week.While the perpetrators of the Mumbai terror are yet to be identified, the Norway police have arrested Anders Breivik ,a Norwegian, for the attacks and killings. The attacker has been identified as a right wing Christian fundamentalist whose manifesto was anti immigrant, anti Muslim,anti multiculturalism and anti cultural Marxist.Breivik was also courting revenge for the betrayal of the their heritage by the 'indigenous Europeans'.Praveen Swami writing in the Hindu newspaper on 25th July'11 described this as a 'mode of praxis consistent with the periodic acts of mass violence European fascists have been carrying out since World War II'. Mr. Swami, drawing parallels with India, argued that these ideas were firmly rooted in the mainstream right wing discourse. It is in this context that the response of the Norwegian people and the young students who survived the massacre have been noteworthy.The Norwegian PM was emphatic that this tragedy will not take Norway away from the democratic and pluralistic principles for which Norway stands.Speaking on the BBC, a youth leader from the camp affirmed that the youth will move towards more democracy in the face of such an attack. In India too we need to find such ways to affirm our pluralistic and democratic traditions and processes in the wake of these dangers. Jean Paul Sartre the French intellectual had been highlighting such dangers in his writings in the post world War II period. He located the origins of Terror in the static totalizing and schematizing tendencies of ideologies and their practioners in Europe
where whatever was not understood was simply eliminated. It was this according to him which gave rise to extremist trends in Europe. Accompanying this in European history were attempts to reduce as quickly as possible the political to social. As in the case of Praveen Swami's right wing political extremist in India, who wanted to set fire to the society to awaken people, this led to a great deal of violence in Europe. The move towards further exploring democratic options and processes(as in Norway) today will perhaps take us away from static schematisms and quick fix solutions to a more peaceful world.(SFC,PG IGNOU,with the help of Mr.Ajay Mahurkar and Dr. Dolly Mathew)