Thursday, July 28, 2011 11:05:00 PM
Is Anders Behring Breivik a Christian terrorist? Let’s not mince words
Sally Quinn
Jul 26, 2011 5:51 PM
Is Anders Behring Breivik a Christian terrorist? Let’s not mince words.
When a Muslim commits a terrorist act he or she is labeled a “Muslim terrorist.” The explanation? Well, they are Muslim and they are terrorists. Nidal Hasan [ http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/21/us/21hood.html ], the Fort Hood shooting suspect, is a prime example.
So is Breivik a Christian terrorist?
The Norwegian Breivik is a self described “Christian” who killed at least 76 people in the name of Christianity. Some Muslim terrorists kill in the name of religion. Some in the name of politics. Doesn’t it go both ways?
Breivik’s 1,500-page manifest was an Islamophobic, anti-immigration rant. Many of his ideas came from anti-Muslim bloggers [ http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/25/us/25debate.html ] in the United States. With growing Islamophobia throughout Europe and becoming more prevalent in the United States, we, sadly, can probably expect more of this kind of violence.
The anti-Muslim rhetoric in our campaigns is especially troubling. What do voters think when John McCain says he would have trouble voting for a Muslim for president [ http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2007/09/29/2007-09-29_mccain_no_muslim_president_us_better_wit.html ]? Or when Herman Cain says he wouldn’t appoint a Muslim to his cabinet [ http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/03/26/153625/herman-cain-muslims/ ]? Or Rick Santorum goes off on Sharia law [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/guest-voices/post/santorum-gop-continue-anti-sharia-campaign/2011/03/13/ABQzYEV_blog.html ]? Never mind Rep. Peter King and his crusade to stop the “Mosque at Ground Zero” [ http://www.capitaltonight.com/2010/07/king-mosque-near-ground-zero-like-convent-near-auschwitz/ ] (which was not a mosque and not at Ground Zero) or Newt Gingrich warning that we could one day be living in a secular atheist county that is potentially dominated by radical Islamists [ http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20048494-503544.html ].
Impressionable voters who don’t understand Islam have to be affected by this kind of hate speech. Especially when other Republican candidates don’t call their colleagues out on it.
Clearly fundamentalist Christians can be as violent as fundamentalist Muslims. In her excellent piece for On Faith, Christian theologian Susan Thistlethwaite writes [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-faith/post/norway-attacks-when-christianity-becomes-lethal/2011/07/25/gIQAPRw5YI_blog.html (next below)] that these Christian perspectives can be: 1) Making supremacist claims that Christianity is the only truth; 2) holding the related view that other religions are not merely wrong but “evil” and “of the devil”; 3) being highly selective in the use of biblical texts that seem to justify violence; 4) identifying Christianity with a dominate race and/or nation; 5) believing that violence is divinely justified to “cleanse” or “purify” as in a “holy war”; and, 6) believing the end of the world is at hand.”
Do some of these positions sound familiar? Don’t they sound like some Christian fundamentalists and Islamophobes describing the Muslim religion?
If people kill in the name of religion should they be identified by their religion? How would you describe a Palestinian suicide bomber who wants the Israelis expelled from Palestine? Is that a political act or a religious act? How can you know? Isn’t identifying people by their religion if they commit a violent crime bigotry?
We should think more carefully about how we describe people.
Many on the Christian Right have objected to labeling Breivik a “Christian” terrorist, calling it a liberal media term used by those on the Left who don’t like Christians and want people to believe that if a Christian creates a violent act he must be crazy.
Breivik talks about the need for a new cultural crusade to rid Europe of creeping “Islamitization.” He reportedly refers three times to the “Lord Jesus Christ,” and though he admits he is “not going to pretend I’m a very religious person,” he calls himself a “cultural Christian.”
© 1996-2011 The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-faith/post/is-anders-behring-breivik-a-christian-terrorist-lets-not-mince-words/2011/07/26/gIQAOwpPbI_blog.html [with comments]
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When Christianity becomes lethal
Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite
Professor, Chicago Theological Seminary
Jul 25, 2011 3:18 PM
Anders Behring Breivik has now “acknowledged [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/norway-attacks-police-say-suspect-used-car-bomb-two-guns-killing-at-least-92/2011/07/23/gIQAVYeOVI_story.html ]” that he carried out the horrific series of attacks in Norway that have left at least 76 dead. He has been described by police there as a “Christian fundamentalist [ http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,15261515,00.html ].” His rambling “manifesto” calls for a “Christian war to defend Europe [ http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/25/world/europe/25oslo.html ] against the threat of Muslim domination.” Christians should not turn away from this information, but try to come to terms with the temptations to violence in the theologies of right-wing Christianity.
Breivik’s chosen targets were political in nature, emblematic of his hatred of “multiculturalism [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jalees-rehman/why-we-were-attacked-in-n_b_907567.html (second item at http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=65501110 )]” and “left-wing political ideology.” This does not mean that the Christian element in his ultra-nationalist views is irrelevant. The religious and political views in right-wing ideologies are mutually reinforcing, and ignoring or dismissing the role played by certain kinds of Christian theology in such extremism is distorting.
Christians are often reluctant to see these connections between their religion and extreme violence. They will dismiss it as “madness” rather than confront the Christian element [ ] directly. As a woman interviewed in Oslo observed, “If Islamic people do something bad, you think, ‘Oh, it’s Muslims,’ ” she said. “But if a white Protestant does something bad, you just think he’s mad. That’s something we need to think about.”
Exactly right. Christians do need to think about that, both in Europe and in the United States. Examining your own religion in its historic as well as contemporary connection to lethal violence is something Christians tend to shun. Stephen Prothero describes [ http://www.amazon.com/God-Not-One-World-Differences/dp/006157127X ] this dynamic in his students: “When I was a professor at Georgia State University in Atlanta, I required my students to read Nazi theology. I wanted them to understand how some Christian bent the words of the Bible into weapons aimed at Jews and how these weapons found their mark at Auschwitz and Dachau. My Christian students responded to these disturbing readings with one disturbing voice: the Nazis were not real Christians, they informed me, since real Christians would never kill Jews in crematories.” Prothero confesses he found their response “terrifying.”
To get past this Christian tendency to excuse Christianity from complicity in mass violence, I think it is important to understand this is a theological issue, not an indictment of the whole Christian faith, and at bottom a form of temptation. I believe that certain theological constructions of Christianity “tempt” individuals and groups to violence; combined with right-wing political ideologies, these views can give a divine justification to the use of lethal force. As with Islam, or Judaism, or Hinduism or any other religion, this does not make the religion itself inherently violent, but neither does it make the religious interpretations beside the point. They are very much to the point.
When I consider the theological perspectives that “tempt” some Christians to justify hatred and even violence against others, such as, in this case in Norway, the following perspectives seem especially prevalent: 1) making supremacist claims that Christianity is the “only” truth; 2) holding the related view that other religions are not merely wrong, but “evil” and “of the devil”; 3) being highly selective in the use of biblical literalism, for example ignoring the justice claims of the prophets and using biblical texts that seem to justify violence; 4) identifying Christianity with a dominant race and/or nation; 5) believing that violence is divinely justified to “cleanse” or “purify” as in a “holy war”; and 6) believing the end of the world is at hand.
Such theological views, I have found, are more accurate predictors of where political extremism and certain interpretations of Christian theology will mutually contribute to justifying lethal violence. This kind of specificity is more helpful, in my view, than the term “Christian fundamentalism [ http://www.getreligion.org/2011/07/the-atlantic-has-the-terrorist-all-figured-out/ ].” Fundamentalism is a more historical term, dating from the “fundamentalist-modernist” controversy in the early part of the 20th century in the United States, and I find it is less helpful today in understanding right-wing Christianity.
A more comprehensive view of the mutually-reinforcing role of extremist Christianity and extremist political views is essential [ http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/world/europe/24europe.html ], given the spread of right-wing extremism and its lethal capacity “not just in Norway but across Europe, where opposition to Muslim immigrants, globalization, the power of the European Union and the drive toward multiculturalism has proven a potent political force and, in a few cases, a spur to violence.”
The rise of this type of right-wing extremism is not confined to Europe but is also a growing threat in the U.S. It is therefore even more alarming that the Southern Poverty Law Center [ http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/news/splc-urges-dhs-to-reassess-resources-after-key-analyst-reveals-unit-on-domestic-terror-was-scaled-back ] is calling attention to the fact that the Department of Homeland Security has apparently scaled back its department “responsible for analyzing security threats from non-Islamic domestic extremists.” According to Daryl Johnson, the principal author of the April 7, 2009, report “Right-wing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment [ http://www.splcenter.org/images/dynamic/main/homeland_extremism_0409.pdf ],” the focus on domestic, non-Islamic terror threats, was cut back after his report was leaked. The leaked report precipitated a “firestorm” of protest from conservatives who “wrongly claimed it equated conservatives with terrorists.”
Especially in light of events in Norway, it is clear Mr. Johnson was just doing what Homeland Security is supposed to do, namely track dangerous domestic extremism, regardless of the source, in order to prevent violent extremism.
The religious element in terrorist extremism cannot either be ignored or overblown. It is an important part of the whole equation. In this Norwegian case, conservative Christianity and right-wing, nationalist political ideologies mutually reinforced and tempted each other, and the acts of a person like Anders Behring Breivik were apparently the result. Looking closely at theological interpretations can illuminate how the mass killing of people to accomplish a political end can be justified as right and even a moral imperative in the eyes of individuals and groups wanting to impose their political views through violence.
It is absolutely critical that Christians not turn away from the Christian theological elements in such religiously inspired terrorism. We must acknowledge these elements in Christianity and forthrightly reject these extremist interpretations of our religion. How can we ask Muslims to do the same with Islam, if we won’t confront extremists distorting Christianity?
© 2011 The Washington Post Company
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-faith/post/norway-attacks-when-christianity-becomes-lethal/2011/07/25/gIQAPRw5YI_blog.html [with comments]
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from the end of the last text item at http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=54568354 , "List of Hitler quotes — in honor of the papal visit to the UK":
I can imagine a few objections that will be raised.
Objection! Hitler was no true Christian.
Reply: None of them are.
Objection! Christians don't commit genocide.
Reply: Look up the Albigensians, review your history of the Crusades, and what about the Jews of Spain? Did Darwin coin the word "pogrom"?
Objection! Hitler was merely cynically manipulating the German people by using their beliefs in God.
Reply: I'd say something similar of his misuse of scientific theory.
Objection! You're doing the same thing we are, only instead of blaming Darwinism, you're blaming Christianity.
Reply: No, I think humans have done evil throughout their history, and are always willing to grab any convenient rationalization for their behavior, whether it's science or religion or twinkies. Science doesn't dictate morality, and it's also rather clear that religion does a piss-poor job of it, too.
Objection! But evolution is a scientific theory that has more rhetorical and philosophical power than mere religion, and therefore must bear a greater weight of responsibility.
Reply: I don't think the kind of people who blame mass murder on evolution will actually make this argument. Still, I'd just say what is, is. Science describes it and explains it, but doesn't tell us what we should do with it.
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If Breivik was a Muslim he would been branded a terrorist long ago
Anders Behring Breivik ... killed scores of people.
Photo: AFP
Mariam Veiszadeh
July 29, 2011 - 10:17AM
Opinion
It seems the word ''terrorist'' is an exalted term reserved only for a select few.
And, if my reading of the media is correct, it's one that is not being applied to Norwegian gunman Anders Behring Breivik.
It's part of a worrying trend in the Western media to selectively and, on occasions carelessly, employ this word as it sees fit.
Advertisement: Story continues below The Oxford English dictionary defines terrorism as "the unofficial or unauthorised use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims''.
Yet how ironic is it that the media are the very ones that alter its definition in order to suit their own agendas?
And let's not forget that in order for something to be called an act of terrorism by the Western media, quite often it needs to be carried out by someone who is, even remotely, or purports to be a Muslim.
Why not throw in the word ''fundamentalist'' as well, as the media appears to do so readily when it is confronted with an outrage.
Does Breivik's self-confessed crimes not satisfy the dictionary definition of terrorism? Or is it that his skin too white, his eyes too blue and his ethnic and religious background too pedestrian? Perhaps he is just too Anglo-Saxon and belongs to the wrong religion?
Are his actions lacking political controversy and media saleability?
Despite being the man behind the biggest massacre committed by a single gunman in modern times, the media have labelled Breivik a lone, self-confessed mass killer and madman. Nothing more, nothing less.
Amid all of this, Islam has yet again found its way into the middle of this sorry and sad episode as it emerges that Breivik was, among other things, an outspoken Muslim-hater. It has been reported that he carried out his demented mission to save Christian Europe from the invading Muslim hordes that he somehow views as being a significant threat to Western civilisation.
Respect for the sanctity of life is the cornerstone of all great faiths and Islam is no exception. Any acts of terrorism, irrespective of who the actual perpetrators are, are a violation of these sacred teachings. Why is it then that acts of terrorisms are not categorically treated in the same manner?
The Oslo terrorist attacks (I'm calling it that even if the media won't) and the way it's been reported are strikingly similar to those of the 1995 Oklahoma bombings - one of the most destructive acts of terrorism on American soil.
In the wake of the Oklahoma bombings journalists were quick to jump on the band-wagon and label it a terrorist attack carried out by Islamists.
When the dust settled and it became clear that they were wrong, the T word was conveniently swept under the carpet.
The world was shocked to find that the perpetrator of this murderous attack was not a Middle Eastern terrorist but rather a fair-skinned US Army veteran - Timothy McVeigh.
Not much has changed since then as yet again media organisations have come under heavy scrutiny for rushing to judgment by linking the latest Oslo terrorist attacks to Muslims.
For example Britain's best-selling The Sun newspaper published [ http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-07-25/media-rushed-judgment-in-norway-under-fire/2809786/?site=sydney ] a banner headline on Saturday describing the attack as an "Al-Qaeda massacre: Norway's 9/11". By the time the newspaper hit the streets Norwegian police had dismissed any links between the attacker and the extremist group.
Some commentators [ http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/2809244.html ] have said it was yet another example of the entrenched anti-Muslim bias within the Western media that was set in train by the September 11 attacks.
The anti-Muslim bias is alive and well – just ask an Australian Muslim about the impacts of the deeply ingrained culture of Islamaphobia particularly within the media.
As a Muslim, reading about the Oslo terrorist attacks is incredibly disturbing. Breivik claims to be part of a well-resourced and highly motivated network wanting to overthrow Western governments that tolerate Islam.
Not only are we under attack from those who have hijacked our faith and who label themselves devout Muslims and commit atrocious crimes in the name of our faith, we now have the likes of blond-haired, blue-eyed Breiviks also trying to destroy us.
It does beg the question though: who is really to blame here?
We can't demonise an entire faith-based community, like we did following the 9/11 attacks, can we?
Our politicians and policy makers, more so on an international level, but also here in Australia, have collectively helped to create a climate of hatred by engaging in right-wing, dog-whistling political discourse. It seems that we will never learn.
Irrespective of which end of the spectrum you belong to, we seem to be, whether consciously or not, helping cultivate a battleground for those who are literally dying to be soldiers.
Will our governments and the media wake up and realise that the battle that now needs to be fought is the one they essentially helped to foster - a battle against Islamophobia, racism and right-wing extremism?
Mariam Veiszadeh is a lawyer and Muslim community advocate.
Copyright © 2011 Fairfax Media
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/if-breivik-was-a-muslim-he-would-have-been-branded-a-terrorist-long-ago-20110728-1i1od.html
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A Blogosphere of Bigots
By JOSTEIN GAARDER and THOMAS HYLLAND ERIKSEN
Published: July 28, 2011
Oslo
IT is tempting to view Anders Behring Breivik, the self-described Christian crusader behind the July 22 massacre [ http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/23/world/europe/23oslo.html ] in Norway, as an isolated case of pure evil. Yet history has taught us that such acts of violence rarely occur independent of their social and cultural surroundings. The assassination of Sweden’s prime minister, Olof Palme, on a Stockholm street in 1986, like the January shooting of Representative Gabrielle Giffords [ http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/us/politics/09giffords.html ] outside a shopping mall in Arizona, took place at a time when caustic antigovernment rhetoric was widespread.
Mr. Breivik managed to commit two terrorist attacks in a single afternoon. But the hatred and contempt from which he drew his deranged determination were shared with many others throughout the international right-wing blogosphere.
The racism and bigotry that have simmered for years on anti-Islamic and anti-immigration Web sites in Norway and other European countries and in the United States made it possible for him to believe he was acting on behalf of a community that would thank him. As John Donne famously put it, “No man is an island ... every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.”
Norway’s security police had estimated that only a small number [ http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/67999/oyvind-strommen/violent-counter-jihadism ] of Norwegians belonged to domestic right-wing extremist groups in 2010 and that they did not pose a security threat — an estimate that clearly has turned out to be erroneous. There may be only a few known members of ragged and powerless white-power groups, but the thousands of right-wing extremists who don’t belong to recognized groups are harder to pin down.
The global Islamophobic blogosphere consists of loosely connected networks of people — including students, civil servants, capitalists, and neo-Nazis. Many do not even see themselves as “right-wing,” but as defenders of enlightened values, including feminism.
The Islamophobes of Norway have no manifesto, but they share three fundamental views: that Norway is in the hands of a treacherous, spineless, politically correct elite that has betrayed the pure spirit of Norwegian culture by permitting demographic contamination; that Muslims will never be truly integrated (even if they pretend to be); and that there is a Muslim conspiracy to gain political dominance across Europe.
Hatred of Muslims and resentment of the left — one of us has repeatedly received resentful diatribes against the “multiculturalist elite,” and was mentioned in Mr. Breivik’s own writings — is not confined to Norway. Mr. Breivik has praised Gates of Vienna [ http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/ ], a Web site that compares contemporary Europe to long-ago wars with the Ottomans. He has praised writers like Bruce Bawer, the American author of “While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within,” and Bat Ye’Or, the pseudonym for the British author of the conspiratorial “Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis.” He is an enthusiastic reader of the virulently anti-Islamic blog [ http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/ ] of Pamela Geller, an American who leads the group “Stop Islamization of America” and gained notoriety for her opposition to an Islamic center near ground zero in Manhattan.
Europe’s new right is, in other words, not neo-Nazi; it has swapped anti-Semitism for Islamophobia. After a hiatus of several hundred years, fear of Islam reemerged around 1989, as the Cold War was ending and Iranian mullahs issued a fatwa against the British writer Salman Rushdie. It gained popularity as increasing numbers of Muslims entered Europe as immigrants in the 1990s, and became widespread in the aftermath of 9/11. Traditional racism may actually be waning in several European countries, but hostility toward Islam and animosity toward Muslim immigrants and their children is on the rise.
Norwegian society is changing, and rapid immigration has no doubt led to tensions. In a country of under 5 million people, the number of immigrants and their children has doubled to over 550,000 in the last 15 years. Many of them are Poles and Swedes seeking work, and their presence is uncontroversial. Others have arrived as refugees and asylum-seekers from countries like Somalia, Iraq and Bosnia. And a substantial number have come to Norway to join relatives or spouses already in the country. About 200,000 — including more than 30,000 Pakistanis — have roots in Muslim countries.
Because of our healthy economy, fueled by North Sea oil, controversies over immigration tend to concern culture rather than economics. The perception that immigrants are patriarchal and insular has sparked controversies over everything from school excursions to swimming lessons to disrespect for female teachers. Yet many “new Norwegians” fully participate in society. Indeed, some of them were at work in the government buildings destroyed last week; others were taking part in the Utoya summer camp.
Conceding that a culturally diverse society raises knotty and complex social and political questions is one thing. It is quite another to state that a multicultural society is impossible, or that Islam is incompatible with democracy. Yet the blogosphere to which Mr. Breivik belonged took these views as a basic premise.
It is too early to tell if anything positive can emerge from this tragedy. In the upcoming elections, Norway’s Labor Party will likely receive many sympathy votes and the right could be adversely affected by its associations with Islamophobia. In the long run, the situation is less certain. In other Scandinavian countries, Social Democrats have been pushed to the right by anti-immigration parties. We hope that Norway’s longstanding consensus about immigration and integration policies will not be eroded.
Until last week, Norwegian authorities did not see the far right as a security threat. Mr. Breivik has now shown that those who claim to protect the next generation of Norwegians against Islamist extremism are, in fact, the greater menace.
Jostein Gaarder is the author of “Sophie’s World” and many other books. Thomas Hylland Eriksen is a professor of social anthropology at the University of Oslo.
© 2011 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/29/opinion/Gaarder-Eriksen.html
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(linked in) http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=53931868 and preceding and following
Sally Quinn
Jul 26, 2011 5:51 PM
Is Anders Behring Breivik a Christian terrorist? Let’s not mince words.
When a Muslim commits a terrorist act he or she is labeled a “Muslim terrorist.” The explanation? Well, they are Muslim and they are terrorists. Nidal Hasan [ http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/21/us/21hood.html ], the Fort Hood shooting suspect, is a prime example.
So is Breivik a Christian terrorist?
The Norwegian Breivik is a self described “Christian” who killed at least 76 people in the name of Christianity. Some Muslim terrorists kill in the name of religion. Some in the name of politics. Doesn’t it go both ways?
Breivik’s 1,500-page manifest was an Islamophobic, anti-immigration rant. Many of his ideas came from anti-Muslim bloggers [ http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/25/us/25debate.html ] in the United States. With growing Islamophobia throughout Europe and becoming more prevalent in the United States, we, sadly, can probably expect more of this kind of violence.
The anti-Muslim rhetoric in our campaigns is especially troubling. What do voters think when John McCain says he would have trouble voting for a Muslim for president [ http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/2007/09/29/2007-09-29_mccain_no_muslim_president_us_better_wit.html ]? Or when Herman Cain says he wouldn’t appoint a Muslim to his cabinet [ http://thinkprogress.org/politics/2011/03/26/153625/herman-cain-muslims/ ]? Or Rick Santorum goes off on Sharia law [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/guest-voices/post/santorum-gop-continue-anti-sharia-campaign/2011/03/13/ABQzYEV_blog.html ]? Never mind Rep. Peter King and his crusade to stop the “Mosque at Ground Zero” [ http://www.capitaltonight.com/2010/07/king-mosque-near-ground-zero-like-convent-near-auschwitz/ ] (which was not a mosque and not at Ground Zero) or Newt Gingrich warning that we could one day be living in a secular atheist county that is potentially dominated by radical Islamists [ http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20048494-503544.html ].
Impressionable voters who don’t understand Islam have to be affected by this kind of hate speech. Especially when other Republican candidates don’t call their colleagues out on it.
Clearly fundamentalist Christians can be as violent as fundamentalist Muslims. In her excellent piece for On Faith, Christian theologian Susan Thistlethwaite writes [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-faith/post/norway-attacks-when-christianity-becomes-lethal/2011/07/25/gIQAPRw5YI_blog.html (next below)] that these Christian perspectives can be: 1) Making supremacist claims that Christianity is the only truth; 2) holding the related view that other religions are not merely wrong but “evil” and “of the devil”; 3) being highly selective in the use of biblical texts that seem to justify violence; 4) identifying Christianity with a dominate race and/or nation; 5) believing that violence is divinely justified to “cleanse” or “purify” as in a “holy war”; and, 6) believing the end of the world is at hand.”
Do some of these positions sound familiar? Don’t they sound like some Christian fundamentalists and Islamophobes describing the Muslim religion?
If people kill in the name of religion should they be identified by their religion? How would you describe a Palestinian suicide bomber who wants the Israelis expelled from Palestine? Is that a political act or a religious act? How can you know? Isn’t identifying people by their religion if they commit a violent crime bigotry?
We should think more carefully about how we describe people.
Many on the Christian Right have objected to labeling Breivik a “Christian” terrorist, calling it a liberal media term used by those on the Left who don’t like Christians and want people to believe that if a Christian creates a violent act he must be crazy.
Breivik talks about the need for a new cultural crusade to rid Europe of creeping “Islamitization.” He reportedly refers three times to the “Lord Jesus Christ,” and though he admits he is “not going to pretend I’m a very religious person,” he calls himself a “cultural Christian.”
© 1996-2011 The Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-faith/post/is-anders-behring-breivik-a-christian-terrorist-lets-not-mince-words/2011/07/26/gIQAOwpPbI_blog.html [with comments]
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When Christianity becomes lethal
Susan Brooks Thistlethwaite
Professor, Chicago Theological Seminary
Jul 25, 2011 3:18 PM
Anders Behring Breivik has now “acknowledged [ http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/norway-attacks-police-say-suspect-used-car-bomb-two-guns-killing-at-least-92/2011/07/23/gIQAVYeOVI_story.html ]” that he carried out the horrific series of attacks in Norway that have left at least 76 dead. He has been described by police there as a “Christian fundamentalist [ http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,,15261515,00.html ].” His rambling “manifesto” calls for a “Christian war to defend Europe [ http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/25/world/europe/25oslo.html ] against the threat of Muslim domination.” Christians should not turn away from this information, but try to come to terms with the temptations to violence in the theologies of right-wing Christianity.
Breivik’s chosen targets were political in nature, emblematic of his hatred of “multiculturalism [ http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jalees-rehman/why-we-were-attacked-in-n_b_907567.html (second item at http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=65501110 )]” and “left-wing political ideology.” This does not mean that the Christian element in his ultra-nationalist views is irrelevant. The religious and political views in right-wing ideologies are mutually reinforcing, and ignoring or dismissing the role played by certain kinds of Christian theology in such extremism is distorting.
Christians are often reluctant to see these connections between their religion and extreme violence. They will dismiss it as “madness” rather than confront the Christian element [ ] directly. As a woman interviewed in Oslo observed, “If Islamic people do something bad, you think, ‘Oh, it’s Muslims,’ ” she said. “But if a white Protestant does something bad, you just think he’s mad. That’s something we need to think about.”
Exactly right. Christians do need to think about that, both in Europe and in the United States. Examining your own religion in its historic as well as contemporary connection to lethal violence is something Christians tend to shun. Stephen Prothero describes [ http://www.amazon.com/God-Not-One-World-Differences/dp/006157127X ] this dynamic in his students: “When I was a professor at Georgia State University in Atlanta, I required my students to read Nazi theology. I wanted them to understand how some Christian bent the words of the Bible into weapons aimed at Jews and how these weapons found their mark at Auschwitz and Dachau. My Christian students responded to these disturbing readings with one disturbing voice: the Nazis were not real Christians, they informed me, since real Christians would never kill Jews in crematories.” Prothero confesses he found their response “terrifying.”
To get past this Christian tendency to excuse Christianity from complicity in mass violence, I think it is important to understand this is a theological issue, not an indictment of the whole Christian faith, and at bottom a form of temptation. I believe that certain theological constructions of Christianity “tempt” individuals and groups to violence; combined with right-wing political ideologies, these views can give a divine justification to the use of lethal force. As with Islam, or Judaism, or Hinduism or any other religion, this does not make the religion itself inherently violent, but neither does it make the religious interpretations beside the point. They are very much to the point.
When I consider the theological perspectives that “tempt” some Christians to justify hatred and even violence against others, such as, in this case in Norway, the following perspectives seem especially prevalent: 1) making supremacist claims that Christianity is the “only” truth; 2) holding the related view that other religions are not merely wrong, but “evil” and “of the devil”; 3) being highly selective in the use of biblical literalism, for example ignoring the justice claims of the prophets and using biblical texts that seem to justify violence; 4) identifying Christianity with a dominant race and/or nation; 5) believing that violence is divinely justified to “cleanse” or “purify” as in a “holy war”; and 6) believing the end of the world is at hand.
Such theological views, I have found, are more accurate predictors of where political extremism and certain interpretations of Christian theology will mutually contribute to justifying lethal violence. This kind of specificity is more helpful, in my view, than the term “Christian fundamentalism [ http://www.getreligion.org/2011/07/the-atlantic-has-the-terrorist-all-figured-out/ ].” Fundamentalism is a more historical term, dating from the “fundamentalist-modernist” controversy in the early part of the 20th century in the United States, and I find it is less helpful today in understanding right-wing Christianity.
A more comprehensive view of the mutually-reinforcing role of extremist Christianity and extremist political views is essential [ http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/24/world/europe/24europe.html ], given the spread of right-wing extremism and its lethal capacity “not just in Norway but across Europe, where opposition to Muslim immigrants, globalization, the power of the European Union and the drive toward multiculturalism has proven a potent political force and, in a few cases, a spur to violence.”
The rise of this type of right-wing extremism is not confined to Europe but is also a growing threat in the U.S. It is therefore even more alarming that the Southern Poverty Law Center [ http://www.splcenter.org/get-informed/news/splc-urges-dhs-to-reassess-resources-after-key-analyst-reveals-unit-on-domestic-terror-was-scaled-back ] is calling attention to the fact that the Department of Homeland Security has apparently scaled back its department “responsible for analyzing security threats from non-Islamic domestic extremists.” According to Daryl Johnson, the principal author of the April 7, 2009, report “Right-wing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment [ http://www.splcenter.org/images/dynamic/main/homeland_extremism_0409.pdf ],” the focus on domestic, non-Islamic terror threats, was cut back after his report was leaked. The leaked report precipitated a “firestorm” of protest from conservatives who “wrongly claimed it equated conservatives with terrorists.”
Especially in light of events in Norway, it is clear Mr. Johnson was just doing what Homeland Security is supposed to do, namely track dangerous domestic extremism, regardless of the source, in order to prevent violent extremism.
The religious element in terrorist extremism cannot either be ignored or overblown. It is an important part of the whole equation. In this Norwegian case, conservative Christianity and right-wing, nationalist political ideologies mutually reinforced and tempted each other, and the acts of a person like Anders Behring Breivik were apparently the result. Looking closely at theological interpretations can illuminate how the mass killing of people to accomplish a political end can be justified as right and even a moral imperative in the eyes of individuals and groups wanting to impose their political views through violence.
It is absolutely critical that Christians not turn away from the Christian theological elements in such religiously inspired terrorism. We must acknowledge these elements in Christianity and forthrightly reject these extremist interpretations of our religion. How can we ask Muslims to do the same with Islam, if we won’t confront extremists distorting Christianity?
© 2011 The Washington Post Company
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/on-faith/post/norway-attacks-when-christianity-becomes-lethal/2011/07/25/gIQAPRw5YI_blog.html [with comments]
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from the end of the last text item at http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=54568354 , "List of Hitler quotes — in honor of the papal visit to the UK":
I can imagine a few objections that will be raised.
Objection! Hitler was no true Christian.
Reply: None of them are.
Objection! Christians don't commit genocide.
Reply: Look up the Albigensians, review your history of the Crusades, and what about the Jews of Spain? Did Darwin coin the word "pogrom"?
Objection! Hitler was merely cynically manipulating the German people by using their beliefs in God.
Reply: I'd say something similar of his misuse of scientific theory.
Objection! You're doing the same thing we are, only instead of blaming Darwinism, you're blaming Christianity.
Reply: No, I think humans have done evil throughout their history, and are always willing to grab any convenient rationalization for their behavior, whether it's science or religion or twinkies. Science doesn't dictate morality, and it's also rather clear that religion does a piss-poor job of it, too.
Objection! But evolution is a scientific theory that has more rhetorical and philosophical power than mere religion, and therefore must bear a greater weight of responsibility.
Reply: I don't think the kind of people who blame mass murder on evolution will actually make this argument. Still, I'd just say what is, is. Science describes it and explains it, but doesn't tell us what we should do with it.
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If Breivik was a Muslim he would been branded a terrorist long ago
Anders Behring Breivik ... killed scores of people.
Photo: AFP
Mariam Veiszadeh
July 29, 2011 - 10:17AM
Opinion
It seems the word ''terrorist'' is an exalted term reserved only for a select few.
And, if my reading of the media is correct, it's one that is not being applied to Norwegian gunman Anders Behring Breivik.
It's part of a worrying trend in the Western media to selectively and, on occasions carelessly, employ this word as it sees fit.
Advertisement: Story continues below The Oxford English dictionary defines terrorism as "the unofficial or unauthorised use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims''.
Yet how ironic is it that the media are the very ones that alter its definition in order to suit their own agendas?
And let's not forget that in order for something to be called an act of terrorism by the Western media, quite often it needs to be carried out by someone who is, even remotely, or purports to be a Muslim.
Why not throw in the word ''fundamentalist'' as well, as the media appears to do so readily when it is confronted with an outrage.
Does Breivik's self-confessed crimes not satisfy the dictionary definition of terrorism? Or is it that his skin too white, his eyes too blue and his ethnic and religious background too pedestrian? Perhaps he is just too Anglo-Saxon and belongs to the wrong religion?
Are his actions lacking political controversy and media saleability?
Despite being the man behind the biggest massacre committed by a single gunman in modern times, the media have labelled Breivik a lone, self-confessed mass killer and madman. Nothing more, nothing less.
Amid all of this, Islam has yet again found its way into the middle of this sorry and sad episode as it emerges that Breivik was, among other things, an outspoken Muslim-hater. It has been reported that he carried out his demented mission to save Christian Europe from the invading Muslim hordes that he somehow views as being a significant threat to Western civilisation.
Respect for the sanctity of life is the cornerstone of all great faiths and Islam is no exception. Any acts of terrorism, irrespective of who the actual perpetrators are, are a violation of these sacred teachings. Why is it then that acts of terrorisms are not categorically treated in the same manner?
The Oslo terrorist attacks (I'm calling it that even if the media won't) and the way it's been reported are strikingly similar to those of the 1995 Oklahoma bombings - one of the most destructive acts of terrorism on American soil.
In the wake of the Oklahoma bombings journalists were quick to jump on the band-wagon and label it a terrorist attack carried out by Islamists.
When the dust settled and it became clear that they were wrong, the T word was conveniently swept under the carpet.
The world was shocked to find that the perpetrator of this murderous attack was not a Middle Eastern terrorist but rather a fair-skinned US Army veteran - Timothy McVeigh.
Not much has changed since then as yet again media organisations have come under heavy scrutiny for rushing to judgment by linking the latest Oslo terrorist attacks to Muslims.
For example Britain's best-selling The Sun newspaper published [ http://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-07-25/media-rushed-judgment-in-norway-under-fire/2809786/?site=sydney ] a banner headline on Saturday describing the attack as an "Al-Qaeda massacre: Norway's 9/11". By the time the newspaper hit the streets Norwegian police had dismissed any links between the attacker and the extremist group.
Some commentators [ http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/2809244.html ] have said it was yet another example of the entrenched anti-Muslim bias within the Western media that was set in train by the September 11 attacks.
The anti-Muslim bias is alive and well – just ask an Australian Muslim about the impacts of the deeply ingrained culture of Islamaphobia particularly within the media.
As a Muslim, reading about the Oslo terrorist attacks is incredibly disturbing. Breivik claims to be part of a well-resourced and highly motivated network wanting to overthrow Western governments that tolerate Islam.
Not only are we under attack from those who have hijacked our faith and who label themselves devout Muslims and commit atrocious crimes in the name of our faith, we now have the likes of blond-haired, blue-eyed Breiviks also trying to destroy us.
It does beg the question though: who is really to blame here?
We can't demonise an entire faith-based community, like we did following the 9/11 attacks, can we?
Our politicians and policy makers, more so on an international level, but also here in Australia, have collectively helped to create a climate of hatred by engaging in right-wing, dog-whistling political discourse. It seems that we will never learn.
Irrespective of which end of the spectrum you belong to, we seem to be, whether consciously or not, helping cultivate a battleground for those who are literally dying to be soldiers.
Will our governments and the media wake up and realise that the battle that now needs to be fought is the one they essentially helped to foster - a battle against Islamophobia, racism and right-wing extremism?
Mariam Veiszadeh is a lawyer and Muslim community advocate.
Copyright © 2011 Fairfax Media
http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/if-breivik-was-a-muslim-he-would-have-been-branded-a-terrorist-long-ago-20110728-1i1od.html
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A Blogosphere of Bigots
By JOSTEIN GAARDER and THOMAS HYLLAND ERIKSEN
Published: July 28, 2011
Oslo
IT is tempting to view Anders Behring Breivik, the self-described Christian crusader behind the July 22 massacre [ http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/23/world/europe/23oslo.html ] in Norway, as an isolated case of pure evil. Yet history has taught us that such acts of violence rarely occur independent of their social and cultural surroundings. The assassination of Sweden’s prime minister, Olof Palme, on a Stockholm street in 1986, like the January shooting of Representative Gabrielle Giffords [ http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/09/us/politics/09giffords.html ] outside a shopping mall in Arizona, took place at a time when caustic antigovernment rhetoric was widespread.
Mr. Breivik managed to commit two terrorist attacks in a single afternoon. But the hatred and contempt from which he drew his deranged determination were shared with many others throughout the international right-wing blogosphere.
The racism and bigotry that have simmered for years on anti-Islamic and anti-immigration Web sites in Norway and other European countries and in the United States made it possible for him to believe he was acting on behalf of a community that would thank him. As John Donne famously put it, “No man is an island ... every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.”
Norway’s security police had estimated that only a small number [ http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/67999/oyvind-strommen/violent-counter-jihadism ] of Norwegians belonged to domestic right-wing extremist groups in 2010 and that they did not pose a security threat — an estimate that clearly has turned out to be erroneous. There may be only a few known members of ragged and powerless white-power groups, but the thousands of right-wing extremists who don’t belong to recognized groups are harder to pin down.
The global Islamophobic blogosphere consists of loosely connected networks of people — including students, civil servants, capitalists, and neo-Nazis. Many do not even see themselves as “right-wing,” but as defenders of enlightened values, including feminism.
The Islamophobes of Norway have no manifesto, but they share three fundamental views: that Norway is in the hands of a treacherous, spineless, politically correct elite that has betrayed the pure spirit of Norwegian culture by permitting demographic contamination; that Muslims will never be truly integrated (even if they pretend to be); and that there is a Muslim conspiracy to gain political dominance across Europe.
Hatred of Muslims and resentment of the left — one of us has repeatedly received resentful diatribes against the “multiculturalist elite,” and was mentioned in Mr. Breivik’s own writings — is not confined to Norway. Mr. Breivik has praised Gates of Vienna [ http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/ ], a Web site that compares contemporary Europe to long-ago wars with the Ottomans. He has praised writers like Bruce Bawer, the American author of “While Europe Slept: How Radical Islam is Destroying the West from Within,” and Bat Ye’Or, the pseudonym for the British author of the conspiratorial “Eurabia: The Euro-Arab Axis.” He is an enthusiastic reader of the virulently anti-Islamic blog [ http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/ ] of Pamela Geller, an American who leads the group “Stop Islamization of America” and gained notoriety for her opposition to an Islamic center near ground zero in Manhattan.
Europe’s new right is, in other words, not neo-Nazi; it has swapped anti-Semitism for Islamophobia. After a hiatus of several hundred years, fear of Islam reemerged around 1989, as the Cold War was ending and Iranian mullahs issued a fatwa against the British writer Salman Rushdie. It gained popularity as increasing numbers of Muslims entered Europe as immigrants in the 1990s, and became widespread in the aftermath of 9/11. Traditional racism may actually be waning in several European countries, but hostility toward Islam and animosity toward Muslim immigrants and their children is on the rise.
Norwegian society is changing, and rapid immigration has no doubt led to tensions. In a country of under 5 million people, the number of immigrants and their children has doubled to over 550,000 in the last 15 years. Many of them are Poles and Swedes seeking work, and their presence is uncontroversial. Others have arrived as refugees and asylum-seekers from countries like Somalia, Iraq and Bosnia. And a substantial number have come to Norway to join relatives or spouses already in the country. About 200,000 — including more than 30,000 Pakistanis — have roots in Muslim countries.
Because of our healthy economy, fueled by North Sea oil, controversies over immigration tend to concern culture rather than economics. The perception that immigrants are patriarchal and insular has sparked controversies over everything from school excursions to swimming lessons to disrespect for female teachers. Yet many “new Norwegians” fully participate in society. Indeed, some of them were at work in the government buildings destroyed last week; others were taking part in the Utoya summer camp.
Conceding that a culturally diverse society raises knotty and complex social and political questions is one thing. It is quite another to state that a multicultural society is impossible, or that Islam is incompatible with democracy. Yet the blogosphere to which Mr. Breivik belonged took these views as a basic premise.
It is too early to tell if anything positive can emerge from this tragedy. In the upcoming elections, Norway’s Labor Party will likely receive many sympathy votes and the right could be adversely affected by its associations with Islamophobia. In the long run, the situation is less certain. In other Scandinavian countries, Social Democrats have been pushed to the right by anti-immigration parties. We hope that Norway’s longstanding consensus about immigration and integration policies will not be eroded.
Until last week, Norwegian authorities did not see the far right as a security threat. Mr. Breivik has now shown that those who claim to protect the next generation of Norwegians against Islamist extremism are, in fact, the greater menace.
Jostein Gaarder is the author of “Sophie’s World” and many other books. Thomas Hylland Eriksen is a professor of social anthropology at the University of Oslo.
© 2011 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/29/opinion/Gaarder-Eriksen.html
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(linked in) http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=53931868 and preceding and following
Greensburg, KS - 5/4/07
"Eternal vigilance is the price of Liberty."
from John Philpot Curran, Speech
upon the Right of Election, 1790
F6
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