Norway’s neo-fascist mass murderer Breivik declared insane By Jordan
Shilton
2 December 2011
Tuesday’s decision to declare neo-fascist Anders Behring Breivik insane was
driven by the political interests of the Norwegian and European ruling
elite.
The man who massacred 77 people in a twin bomb attack in Oslo and a mass
shooting of children on Utoeya Island in July has been deemed unfit to face
trial and his incriminating testimony dismissed as merely the ravings of a
madman.
This decision has nothing to do with concern over Breivik’s mental state.
Rather, it is motivated by the fear in ruling circles that even a limited
investigation of the events leading up to July 22, which a trial would
undertake, would raise uncomfortable questions for those with connections
to Breivik.
This includes not only parties of the far right across Europe, some of whom
had direct links with the Norwegian terrorist, but also the political
establishment itself, which has promoted the reactionary nostrums upon
which Breivik based his fascist ideology.
Considered from a legal standpoint, the decision to declare Breivik insane
is absurd on its face. All the evidence points to an individual with a
clear political programme, who embraced positions identified with fascism
and the far right. He viewed himself as a “crusader” against
multiculturalism and immigrants. In some recent reports, it has become
clear that his aim was to target the leadership of the Norwegian Labour
Party, which he viewed as “Marxist.”
His acts of terrorist violence were meticulously planned and carried
through, as he explains in his own words in his lengthy “manifesto”
published online. These acts were directed towards a definite political
agenda—in his own words, to create a “cultural-conservative revolution”
throughout Europe.
Mere articulation of such views, even in private diaries, is enough for
Muslim extremists in Europe, the US and elsewhere to be hauled up before
the courts. Had Breivik’s professed ideology been Islamic fundamentalism,
there is no question that he would have been put on trial, received
extensive media coverage, and been imprisoned for years.
But clearly the “war on terror” does not apply to fascists.
By dismissing Breivik’s actions as those purely of a psychotic individual,
the political establishment hope to portray him as a “lone wolf”, who acted
without any support.
All available evidence shows the contrary. Ever since Breivik was taken
into custody, details have emerged linking him to far right organisations
within Norway and internationally. Police investigators have confirmed that
Breivik claims to know of 80 “cells” across Europe who share his political
outlook and violent aims.
Breivik remained a member of the anti-immigrant and far-right Progress
party until 2006, having joined its youth wing nearly a decade earlier. His
ties to the fascist English Defence League (EDL) also became known, with
Breivik having engaged in several discussions with leading members. At one
such discussion in London in 2002, he claimed that some of those present at
a meeting of the “Knights Templar” were EDL leaders, whilst others came
from paramilitary groups in the Balkans.
Investigations of these connections have been extremely limited. There has
been no attempt to pursue any of those figures mentioned in Breivik’s
manifesto or subsequently linked to him. Even when a group of individuals
were arrested at a flat belonging to Breivik in the days following July 22,
they were promptly released.
Within the political establishment, notwithstanding initial expressions of
outrage and horror, no investigation is being conducted to examine the
attacks. Norway’s commission of inquiry did not even intend to question the
head of the PST intelligence services. It was compelled to request her
presence before a parliamentary committee only after details emerged
uncovering the PST’s failure to act on information regarding Breivik’s ties
to a Polish businessman who provided the fertiliser for his bomb.
Internationally, no attempt has been made to seriously investigate any of
those with whom Breivik met and discussed his political agenda. These
include Alan Lake, a businessman who bankrolls the EDL, and Paul Ray, a
blogger who writes under the name Lionheart and is referred to in Breivik’s
1,500-page manifesto.
It is not possible to explain this merely as a negligent response: definite
political calculations are at work.
In this context, revelations that a far-right terrorist group in Germany
has been collaborating closely with the state intelligence forces for over
a decade are particularly significant. The group, whose outlook mirrors
that of Breivik, has been responsible for at least nine murders of
immigrants since 1998. State intelligence operatives not only turned a
blind eye to their activities, but actively participated and facilitated
the group’s actions.
There is no reason to believe that similar relations are not replicated
between the far right and state intelligence services across Europe. In
Britain, the EDL has long been recognised as an organisation infiltrated by
informers and intelligence operatives, who assist in the planning and
staging of so-called “demonstrations” that in reality are organised
provocations against Muslims and the immigrant population of Britain.
Placing Breivik on trial raised the prospect of such ties being brought out
into the public arena.
The political establishment is also conscious of the fact that Breivik did
not draw his disturbing ideological outlook out of thin air.
Many of the positions of Breivik and the far right in general have become
standard fare in Europe’s ruling elite. Breivik’s “manifesto” contains the
names of leading political and media figures whose increasingly
anti-immigrant rhetoric inspired his conceptions.
His hostility to “multiculturalism” draws succour from those such as
Germany’s Angela Merkel and Britain’s David Cameron, who have both
announced its failure. More openly, Thilo Sarrazin, a prominent German
Social Democrat, has blamed foreigners, particularly Muslims, for turning
Germans “into strangers in their own country.”
The adoption by the political elite throughout Europe of conceptions
associated with the extreme right is linked directly to the crisis of the
capitalist system.
In every country, the bourgeoisie is moving to discard its traditional
forms of parliamentary rule as it seeks a new base of support against
emerging class struggles.
It is this that accounts for the increasing integration of far-right
parties into the political mainstream. The most recent expression of this
was the inclusion of the neo-fascist LAOS party in the Greek coalition
government imposed by the international financial elite, led by the
European Union and International Monetary Fund.
This process has been exemplified in Britain by the calls made by a number
of Labour party figures associated with the “Blue Labour” tendency for
cooperation with the EDL. Maurice Glasman—an academic who helped initiate
the project, which is said to represent “flag, faith and family”—stated
that he wanted to see “people who support the EDL involved within our
party.”
The Breivik case must act as a warning to working people.
As the world has entered a period of economic crisis not seen since the
1930s, conditions are again being created for the fascist far right to play
a leading role in the defence of bourgeois rule. The massive build-up of
the security apparatuses of capitalist states around the world is not a
guarantor against such a development. Rather, these institutions work to
nourish and cultivate such tendencies to use in the struggle to suppress
the development of a political movement of the working class.
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