A writer, Gary Bauer, has aptly noted some of the more pertinent points about this: Both the Washington Post and the New York Times have run headlines labeling Anders Breivik, the Norwegian mass murderer, a "right-wing Christian." These are the same two newspapers that go to great lengths to avoid using the word "Muslim" to describe Islamist murderers. They regularly warn us not to jump to conclusions about any jihadist attack, and they lecture us not to reach any conclusions about the role the Muslim religion might have played. All of these "rules" have apparently been cast aside as the two papers, and countless other commentators, try to make Breivik into a conservative Christian. ... Breivik likes violent video games. His favorite TV show is Dexter, a series that glorifies a serial killer. One also finds in his ramblings [in his Manifesto] that he is a follower of Charles Darwin, seldom if ever prays, says it is possible to be a "Christian atheist," and adds, "I'm not going to pretend I'm a very religious person." Breivik doesn't have to pretend he is a religious man--the Washington Post and the New York Times will pretend for him.
Yes and his comments about being a "Knight of the Templar" has no Christian undertones, nor does his desire to launch another Christian crusade against Muslims. He identified himself as a "Christian Conservative" on his website and in his manifesto and he believes in the far right. No one had to paint him as a Christian ringwinger. He did it himself with his writings, his facebook page and in his actions when he decided to launch the new Crusades against Muslims in Europe..
I haven't noticed this - looks like an attempt to manufacture a double-standard through sheer innuendo. I don't see where either outlet has drawn the sorts of broad-brush implications about Christianity as such, that said warnings have been issued against in other cases. I do see a salient cultural difference in the way Christianity, and its political implications, are generally percieved by the primary audience for those outlets, and the case with Islam. And I find it perfectly reasonable that a news outlet would take these features of the audience into account on such questions.
Bells, It appears Breivik just liked the Knights Templar because they seemed to be cool action figures with an Aryan/Teutonic flavor, in keeping with his obsession to play medieval type video war games. And he was obviously more obsessed with fellow Westerners being his Enemy than he was with Muslims -- else he would have gone straight to the heart of the matter (supposedly) and simply targeted the Muslims and mosques in Oslo.
I noticed the word Fundamentalist has cropped up a few times. I think this needs to be qualified further.
James R. It matters as a marker for preventing future similar atrocities. If Breivik's motivation is not "Christian", then a lot of time, resources and money may be spent, or wasted, profiling "right wing" Christians. As soon as I see at least as many atrocities committed by as I have by Muslims, I will be more than happy to be alarmed and write about them on my blog. For now, even the other markers of Breivik are rather vague -- unless we are going to be wary of blonde blue-eyed youngish males who we find out have an inordinate interest in the Knights Templar. The problem with Breivik from his Manifesto was not the references to the Knights Templar, nor even to his ruminations about "cultural Marxism" -- but his self-styled identity as a "resistance fighter". That should set off alarm bells. (I don't know if this "Manifesto" was published or available to intelligence operatives prior to the attacks.)
Woops. I left out a phrase: I'll repost one paragraph from my previous comment with the added pharse: "As soon as I see at least as many atrocities committed by as I have by Christians (and Buddhists, and Taoists, and Zoroastrians, and Wiccans, and Atheists, etc.) as I have by Muslims, I will be more than happy to be alarmed and write about them on my blog."
I don't think it is particularly relevant to his atocities that he is Christian, if that's what he is. But then again, I haven't read his manifesto, so I can't say for sure how religiously-motivated he is at this point. I don't think there's any room to argue that he was not a right-wing radical. That much seems quite clear. I understand why that may make you uncomfortable, with your identifying as a PI MC (Policitically-incorrect monoculturalist) and all. Is that code for white supremacist, by the way? What time-frame are you interested in? You don't have to look too hard to find attrocities committed by self-identified "Christians", for example. You seem quite keen to downplay his right-wing and neo-Nazi affiliations. Why? He published it on the day of the attacks, I think.
He quoted the unabomber a few times. Word for word and didn't give him credit. Why read these "manifesto's"? They may be examples of intelligent people, Kozinski was very intelligent but he was certainly a madman. Too lazy to go check if he spells it with a y, btw.
I agree. The problem is that in our current PC MC climate, anything to the right of the center tends to be considered suspect; i.e., the threshold for extremism right-wing-wise seems skewed by our current standards, because the center has been moved to the Left over the past half century. Retaining our rationality, we would consider a Breivik a true "ultra right-wing extremist" and stop calling Robert Spencer and Geert Wilders (not to mention the liberal gay politician Pim Fortuyn, for Allah's sake!) the same -- else the epithet loses coherence. These days, all one has to do to earn the sobriquet of "right wing extremist" is criticize Islam too much.
Looks like you are just noting what stands out. This is normal but to be honest the media is at least 50% questionable in the way that 50% of what you read or hear from any given outlet is factual and the rest is other.
I wouldn't call myself a PI MC as you define it -- "(Politically-incorrect monoculturalist)" -- because I have no problem with non-Muslim Asians, Africans, Indians, Latin Americans per se and see no systemic problems with their cultures of the magnitude I see with the trans-national trans-cultural Imperialist Super-Culture of Islam; and what I'd like to see is a preferential (intelligent) discrimination in favor of non-Muslim Africans, Asians, Middle Eastern Arabs to immigrate to the West, but not their Muslim counterparts.
Ellie, I wouldn't go that far. It's a matter of what issue is involved. When it comes to Islamic intolerance, hatred, antisemitism, and violence, Western news media seem to have a blueprint to avoid simply reporting the facts and must constantly interject qualifiers to soften the edge of the facts. But otherwise, they are more or less competent (though marginally imperfect, as all things are).
Or maybe your standards of who is "PC MC" are the skewed ones. Maybe you need to recalibrate. You seem quite fixated on Islam. Many people don't define their political affiliation with respect to their religious views. So you're going to give up criticising multiculturalism in general from here on, are you? Good. That's progress. Why not be honest about it and simply say that you're anti-Muslim, and that your issue is not with "multiculturalists" but with tolerance of Islam and its followers?
I agree that it is laziness to ascribe Breivik's actions to Christianity in the same way that it is laziness to talk about "Muslim" terrorism as though religion were the primary reason for the violence and killing. Breivik did not target a mosque or a synagogue, he targeted a government building and Norwegian adolescents who represent his own society, not a religion or an ideology The best analysis I have read on him so far is this one: Anders Behring Breivik is Not a Fundamentalist Christian, He is Something Worse
It will all depend on what we consider to be "Christianity". It is clear that the definition of "Christianity" is neither short, nor clear, nor unambiguous.
SAM: You really think this is good analysis? Somebody equating the killing of innocent civilians in Norway to American soldiers fighting insurgents and Al Qaeda in Iraq? I don't for a moment believe the New York Times ever urged American soldiers to go out and kill civilians.
I don't think that the alterviews post makes any such claims about NT, though. Strange..did I misread it that much?
No they just made up a lot of lies which resulted in the torture and killing of civilians. And yes, I think its an excellent analysis. More relevant to the attacks in Oslo than all the harping on Christianity which is simply more fudging of the real issues. What are they going to do when an atheist ends up at the business end of gun the next time? Besides, what is an innocent civilian? Just like Americans are fighting 'insurgents' and 'al Qaeda', Breivik was targeting the Hitler Youth
