Norway attacked!!!

I live more than 300 miles from Oslo, but my family and I are in a state of shock.

Doesn't seem like an Al Qaeda attack as first suspected, though. More of a combination between a Tim McVeigh bombing and a high school massacre. The police has arrested a police uniform-clad Norwegian man who as far as the police can tell, placed a bomb at the goverment HQ in Oslo and proceeded by car to a Labor Party Youth gathering on a small island near Oslo where he opened fire at the kids. Confirmed death toll is currently 16, but expected to rise.
I know forum member ProjectM lives in Oslo, I hope you can chime in and let us know you and your family are okay. That goes for any Oslo citizen on this forum I might have overlooked as well.
Sven 

what a f ed up world...

SvenArne


I live more than 300 miles from Oslo, but my family and I are in a state of shock.

Doesn't seem like an Al Qaeda attack as first suspected, though. More of a combination between a Tim McVeigh bombing and a high school massacre. The police has arrested a police uniform-clad Norwegian man who as far as the police can tell, placed a bomb at the goverment HQ in Oslo and proceeded by car to a Labor Party Youth gathering on a small island near Oslo where he opened fire at the kids. Confirmed death toll is currently 16, but expected to rise.
I know forum member ProjectM lives in Oslo, I hope you can chime in and let us know you and your family are okay. That goes for any Oslo citizen on this forum I might have overlooked as well.
Sven 

It sounds like you're correct about the attacker, Sven.  I'm shocked that he appears to be Norwegian!  It's astounding that one guy could do both the bomb and the shooting.  It sounds like they captured him.  I hope he gets what he deserves. 

I have relatives near Bergen, Karmoy and Stavanger. 

I hope they don't have to over-react and institute TSA style tactics that are the focus of another thread. 

Ironically, I'm getting some of the details from Aljazeera on BBC-America.  They're actually doing a little more in-depth reporting than the local stations. 

My best wishes to you, your family and the survivors in Oslo,
Jan

@Sven and ProjectM....my heart goes out to your nation tonight.

I just turned my computer on tonight and saw that...speechless is what I am tonight.

Police: "At least 80 kids killed at the Utøya camp"

I'm really struggling right now...

oh no...

man.  what a tragedy.  my heart is heavy with sorrow for all who were affected by this.

An absolutely shocking tragedy.

Completely heartbreaking for the many families involved, a peace loving nation and the entire world.

There is no adequate justice that reason can return if the suspect being held is the maniac responsible.  I'm just praying for as much comfort and closure as is possible for those affected.

SvenArne


I'm sorry to bump this somber thread back to the top of the happy Coffee House but I just needed to get something off my chest.

I've been reading the NY Times' readers' comments and the kind words of Americans and others are touching. But I can't seem to understand the overblown use of this psycho killer's label as a "Christian Fundamentalist" in American media (as well as in many of the readers' comments). This guy had a Facebook page were he had named himself "Christian", and from what I gather, this is the only source of this label. Right wing disscussion site Document.no has released his whole posting history for anyone to read, and while he's certainly a nationalist and a xenophobic, he doesn't seem to ever evoke God or Jesus in his posts.

I'm a non-religious humanist myself, but I feel this exaggerated media exploitation of his Christian beliefs (probably more a historic European identity thing than actual religious devotion) is unfair to Christians worldwide (the same way which overblown focus on Islam and Judaism in the cases of terror in the Middle East is unfair to Muslims and Jews).

That being said, I'm infinitely more sickened by the comments on European news sites, where a disturbing amount of posters celebrate him as a hero of Europe for killing dirty socialist devilspawn...

I realize that this post is a TOS violation, but I really don't care...

Sven

Hi Sven,

I've seen the Christian reference, too.  I've also seen him characterized as a right-wing radical and that he reads a Swedish Neo-Nazi web site.  I don't know if any of it is true.  I suppose a more complete picture will eventually surface. 

It is very sad and outrageous that the European comments are making him out to be a hero.  And I thought we in the U.S. were way too polarized.  That makes us look pretty happy and contented in comparison--even though we're not.  For some reason, we do focus more on religion.  I'm not sure why.  I guess people still have to have something to complain about and have their prejudices to keep themselves occupied. 

I'm going to try to avoid getting too much more excited or disgusted over the comments or reasons that this devil did these evil acts.  It will take a while for the police and the prosecutors to investigate, so I'm going to concentrate on the victims and survivors for now.  I'll deal with him later on.  In fact, I'm avoiding even learning his name--at least for now--because I don't want to give him any credit or notoriety for his heinous acts.  We, in the U.S. at least, seem to promote this sort of infamy and I don't want to participate in that. 

I hope you don't take those comments too seriously.  It's probably only a few people that actually feel that way.  At least I hope that's the case.  If it isn't, then we're in for a lot more trouble. 

Sympathies and best wishes to the victims, survivors and all of their families and friends,
Jan

 My sympathies go out to all involved in this tragedy. 

SvenArne


I'm sorry to bump this somber thread back to the top of the happy Coffee House but I just needed to get something off my chest.

I've been reading the NY Times' readers' comments and the kind words of Americans and others are touching. But I can't seem to understand the overblown use of this psycho killer's label as a "Christian Fundamentalist" in American media (as well as in many of the readers' comments). This guy had a Facebook page were he had named himself "Christian", and from what I gather, this is the only source of this label. Right wing disscussion site Document.no has released his whole posting history for anyone to read, and while he's certainly a nationalist and a xenophobic, he doesn't seem to ever evoke God or Jesus in his posts.

I'm a non-religious humanist myself, but I feel this exaggerated media exploitation of his Christian beliefs (probably more a historic European identity thing than actual religious devotion) is unfair to Christians worldwide (the same way which overblown focus on Islam and Judaism in the cases of terror in the Middle East is unfair to Muslims and Jews).

That being said, I'm infinitely more sickened by the comments on European news sites, where a disturbing amount of posters celebrate him as a hero of Europe for killing dirty socialist devilspawn...

I realize that this post is a TOS violation, but I really don't care...

Sven

We need to put labels on things to keep the world seemingly comprehendable. It's feel more safe to know that it's the "fundamentalists", not the nice looking, polite kid next door who just doesn't like people with opinions different from his.

Those disgusting comments praising this deed are only a symptom of the disease internet has created:
Being anonymous you can go how low ever and throw your s**t around in your powerless frustration.
These people are usually either mentally disbalanced or simply the dummest, least educated, and understand nothing about the world, and that's why they believe they have answers to everything.

I have many norwegian colleagues and friends. This has made me speechless. Like the two school shootings in Finland a few years ago, this looks like a deed of a sick solo desperado who wants to be noticed.

Hey everyone.
 
 
It’s a wild world out there, and now it reached Oslo. Thanks for the sympathy towards our little country. I live 3 kilometres away from the government building and can pretty much see it from the part of Oslo I live in.  However, I was out of the country and when the bombing happened I was lying on a beach in Spain, visiting my parents and their friends who go there every summer. We received the news while enjoying the sun and it really didn’t sink in with anyone. Some of my parents’ friends started arguing whether they have gas pipes in the building or not, thinking that it could have been an accident. Then my brother called my mother, about fifteen minutes after the explosion and gave us the outline of the situation. At the time no one really knew what was going on. He works less than a kilometre away from the government building and had of course heard the explosion and quickly realized with all the commotion outside that something was very wrong. We went to the house just after 4pm and turned on the TV and realized that this probably was no accident. The images were insane! I took a nap and woke up to dozens of text messages ticking in on my phone from concerned friends all over the world and some rumours that I seriously couldn’t believe – kids being shot at a camp, 30 something people had been killed and so forth. Not in little Norway! Got up and I realized that the bombing was accompanied by a massacre. But I think I refused to believe that there was a connection. I just didn’t understand the whole picture.
 
I returned to Oslo in the afternoon on Saturday and didn’t quite know what to expect. I had been off line for a few weeks, having a proper holiday without my smartphone, so I wasn’t up to the minute on the news. As I was waiting for the tram from the railway station and to my apartment, I saw fire trucks waiting on the side of the roads, the police were everywhere. However, everyone seemed to enjoy themselves. The sun came out and it was actually a nice afternoon. I realized that most people were tourists. As I sat down on the tram a huge number of police cars came to the area and they started closing off Oslo City, a major chopping centre near the railway station. Apparently there was a bomb threat or something. Better safe than sorry I guess. As I sat on the tram, everyone was quiet and it was unusually few passengers for rush hour on a Friday, even in the summer vacation season. As the tram moved through the city it started to dawn on me. Streets that I walk trough on a weekly basis was sealed off and guarded by armed police and army forces – something that NEVER happens in Oslo. Law enforcement is not allowed to carry guns here. This was serious. People were standing in groups, looking into the sealed off streets and as we went past I saw that there were broken facades, rubble in the streets and traffic and people were gone. Huge veneer boards had been put up to cover broken windows that hadn’t fallen out and containers of broken class were lined up everywhere.
 
At home I called a few friends and was relieved that no one I know seemed to have been victims in the explosion. I turned on the TV and heard the latest number of people that had been killed on the Utøya camp and learned that one person had done it all. I couldn’t believe it! It’s insane! He walked around and coldly killed almost a hundred kids who had nowhere to escape! It was pure slaughter! And I for the first time I started realizing how close and how significant this whole situation was. By then they had started writing about the killer and identified him in the press. I heard the speculations about who he was the night before. I am so happy the media called him an Ethnic Norwegian all the time. I was worried that our new country men would suffer after this. However, my worst fear – believe it or nor – was that he would be a single right-winged extremist arsehole who disagreed with the immigration politics and that turned out to be the case. I may be paranoid about this tho…
Last night I went to my best friends’ house for a few beers and whisky. I hadn’t seen him for three weeks as we have been travelling to different parts of the world. The guitar player in one of my bands was there too and we got to talk for a bit about this and I realized that I started to get angry over the whole tragedy, especially the massacre. And learning more about this guy, I got increasingly worried. I hoped he was a raving lunatic but it turns out he is actually an intelligent and calculating guy who’d been working on this for a decade. We decided to spend the evening looking at photos from our journeys and tell stories while drinking some nice beverage before going out. Around 1am we caught a taxi down town and got off just outside the Oslo Cathedral. People had already started lighting up candles and laying down flowers so we went over there and stood there in silence with a small number of other people of all ages. Some were crying and some were praying and I felt a huge lump in my throat for the first time. This really feels like an attack on us as a nation and despite my massive disagreements with this country, I am and will always be a Norwegian and this tragedy took the lives of people who could have been my friends and neighbours. For all I know, maybe some of them are? We still don’t know the identity of the people killed. The atmosphere in the city was very different to what we are used to. But the pubs were somewhat crowded, people were out talking to each other and I was very happy to see this. Norwegians are a reserved people who stick to them selves most of the time but in the midst of all this, at least we all could be friends. We went to the famous Elm Street and sat down. People were mostly laughing but of course some was talking about yesterday’s events. After ten minutes the bouncer came through the pub telling everyone to get out. Outside, police and fire trucks had lined up and were ordering everyone across the streets and away from the building. Some people got really scared and I felt a little uneasy there my self. It was a fire in the next building so nothing significant or related to the bombing. But I saw that people was really uncomfortable and scared. Everyone was a little on the edge. But it wasn’t until I got home and caught a very dear friend of mine in Canada on Skype that I shed the first tears. I described to her how it felt, what it was like in Oslo, and I finally managed to reflect on it to myself. And it’s difficult.
 
Today I went down town to try to look at the damages – or at least get as close to them as I could. An hour earlier it had been a memorial service in every church and the Prime Minister, the King, Queen, all the politicians and who ever else they could fit in had been in the Oslo Cathedral. When I got there I saw TV trucks and reporters from all over the world, still broadcasting and recording and a thousand or so people were there to mourn and pay their respect to the victims. I’m not a church goer but I felt it necessary to enter the cathedral… for no reason really. It just felt right. Outside again I found my self in an emotional turmoil. Young people were crying loudly in the streets, old and young were hugging each other, an Asian looking girl was praying loudly with a thick US accent while holding hands with someone. It was raining and I was cold and wet. People were balancing their umbrellas, making sure that people who wanted to lay down flowers would get through, No cars were honking their horns to people standing in the road and it was a very different Oslo. A mourning Oslo and something we haven’t seen in sixty years or so. I certainly had never seen it like this and it was a bizarre feeling of happiness over the unity and sadness and anger of the tragedy. The tears were pushing and I needed some time to my self. I went for a walk and away from the closed streets and away from the churches, things were different. People seemed happy, they were taking photos. Armed military were near every significant building like the parliament and the castle. The traffic was almost none existent. The town hall bell towers played psalms and hymns. People were having a beer in the pubs and a coffee in the cafes. It was sort of normal but an eerie atmosphere was hanging over the city. I called my brother and spoke for a while. He said one thing that is surprisingly agreeable to me:
If one good thing comes out of this, then it is that people in Oslo can be nice to each other now.
 
Nordahl Grieg said it best:
Her er ditt vern mot vold, her er ditt sverd: Troen på livet vårt, menneskets verd
-          ”Til Ungdommen”, 1936 
Here is your battle plan, here is your shield: Faith in this life of ours, the common weal
-          “To the Youth”, 1936. Translated by Rod Sinclair 2004
 
 
Sorry for the long post – but thanks for reading

Bless you and your countrymen, Marius.  that's a great thing for your brother to say and for people to believe. 

It is so very sad, pitifully so.  My heart goes out to Marius, Sven and the people of Norway, that innocent beings should fall victim to this type of lunacy.  It make me very angry.

It`s hard to find any words to what have happened, it`s just terrible.

Yesterday there were parades against hate all over the country, it was very emotional. In the words of the Norwegian Crown Prince: "Today the streets are filled with love."

Johannes