The World Focused on Oslo

Friday’s tragedy in Oslo and Utøya was as unique in as many ways as it was devastating: its scope (at least 93 people methodically killed in two synchronized attacks), its target (the annual summer camp for Labour party youth) and its cause (radical conservative nationalism, detailed in a 1,500-page hate-filled manifesto). The most distinctive feature of Anders Behring Breivik’s massacre, however, may be the way information and misinformation have spread since the initial explosion in Regjeringskvartalet.

Within minutes, visual accounts of the blast propagated through social media channels. Over the following hours, pundits weighed in, many attributing the attacks to Islamic fundamentalism, and extrapolating the causes and consequences. As rumours turned to blog and news copy, Twitter played a central role in both  disseminating and correcting misinformation.

Then Breivik’s written and video manifestos emerged. The 1,500-page (heavily plagiarized) document is part ideological hate-filled screed, part how-to manual for large-scale terrorist attacks. It is perverse in its detail, and will certainly change the way we view terrorism and terrorists going forward. Analysis of the document has been swift and abundant. Foreign Policy’s Blake Hounshell was the first to get much of the content out, tweeting while he read the report and offering a first summary. The Telegraph and The Daily Mail quickly followed with sober commentary on the manifesto. As the document revealed Breivik’s politics, subject-matter experts began to add context on the state of European right-wing radicalism.

On Sunday, Norwegian columnist Rick Falkvinge conveyed the mood of the victims, while The Globe and Mail’s Doug Saunders reported on a city suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, and many first-person accounts materialized.

Sunday afternoon, we spoke with Kristian Berg Harpviken, the Director of the International Peace Research Institute, Oslo (PRIO). Harpviken’s tone is sombre as he depicts the sentiment in  Oslo, outlines the history of the Labour party and the particular meaning of the Utøya “workers” weekend, dispels misconceptions about the extent of Norwegian conservative nationalism, proposes what might be the real purpose of the manifesto, and discusses the implications of the attacks on how we conceive and understand terrorism.

Taylor Owen speaks with PRIO Director, Kristian Berg Harpviken