Behind the patina of the Scandinavian model, there is something dark. Konsberg’s attack is just the latest, tragic example of something bigger and attacking there Norway (and not only) from several directions: from that of right-wing extremism and that of Islamism, a deadly embrace that conceals a profound unease in a society that for a long time has been elevated to a regional and even global example. A trail of blood that from Utoya passes through Baerum and Oslo to get to Konsberg. It starts from Anders Behring Breivik and arrives at Espen Andersen Brathen via Philip Manshaus.
And to think that October 14 was supposed to be a day full of positive signs for Norway. Right now the prime minister Jonas Gahr Store swore and revealed the composition of the new government, where women are in the majority with ten of the 19 ministries under female leadership and that It also includes two survivors of the Utoya massacre of July 2011. The members of the new executive who survived that terrible massacre are the minister of education Tonje Brenna, 33, and that of Commerce and Industry Jan Christian Vestre, 35. Both young new ministers were on Utoya Island when right-wing extremist Breivik opened fire on the Labor youth demonstration, killing 69 people. Eight other people were also killed in the Breivik on the same day in Oslo.
It is precisely since that day a little over ten years ago, when Anders Behring Breivik killed over 70 people, almost all young Labor militants who were on the island for a summer party initiative, that the dust under the Norwegian carpet has tragically came to light. It was certainly not the only attack suffered by the Norwegians in the last decade. To stay with far-right terrorism, On August 10, 2019, the lone wolf Philip Manshaus opened fire in the Baurum mosque, a suburb about twenty kilometers from the capital Oslo, killing one person and injuring two others. On January 11, 2020, Manshaus was sentenced to 21 years in prison for murder and terrorism.