Anders Breivik:The fear of multiculturalism

[Guest kenshi64]

Well the Norway incident has definitely shaken everyone up, 70+ deaths is a lot to digest for everyone, What do you have to say to this heinous crime? Could it be that he was actually islamophobic just because the news says so or was he just a regular terrorist.

I had this as a MUN topic last year, and I was the delegate of Afghanistan a 98%Muslim population, isn't it high time that more attention was given to this since globalisation implies that people travel and set up shop in different countries and produce there, but what if they're not safe there, then the foundations of the current global economy is, safe to say, weak?

Is definitely isn't fair to associate people of such origin or Muslims to terrorists, I mean take the instance from 'You don't mess with the Zohan' in the cab when the soap/soup-fetching-goat-guy is on the phone, and one of the American passenger yells at him and the other whispers "Shh he could be terrorist" or w.t.t.e. Its something that needs serious amounts of attention, there have been enough resolutions on this, but the state is still in need of improvement.

OR is saying that blown out of proportion since he's just one 'hater' and other people don't treat Muslims this way?

Any random comments on the topic too are welcome.

R.I.P. all the victims

Edited July 27, 2011 by kenshi64

[Sandwich]

I think that fear of multiculturalism (which isn't just always Islamophobia, in those who have this issue it often extends to basically any large non-native groups) is definitely a potentially important issue to address, but it is also a minority issue. For instance, some of the groups in the UK that Breivik claimed to have links to - such as the EDL - are viewed as idiot bigots by the majority of people in this country. There are anti-EDL campaigns and those within the groups are monitored by police.

To my understanding it is much the same in Norway and also some of the other Scandinavian countries which have an extreme element within their right-wing politics. It's about the line between punishing people for being intolerant but also protecting the important rights to freedom of speech and freedom of thought, which are in fact already compromised (in my opinion, positively) in the UK with various rulings regarding the incitement of hatred and so on. The incitement of hatred runs both ways - for instance hatred towards muslims AND hatred towards non-muslims.

So to be honest, I don't know what exactly can be done to suddenly transform bigoted thinkers, and in fact I think it's denying some important individual rights to try to control what other people think. However I also think that it's an extremely small minority which is viewed very negatively by the majority, at least in the UK where most people are somewhat disturbed by the thoughts of political parties such as the British National Party.

Global integration is not weak because one crazy man in Norway has bigoted views and decided to go on a murderous rampage, not any more than 4 muslims (citizens of the UK) murdering people on public transport in London in 2005 shows that Islam is primarily a religion of violence. A small number of lunatics exist in this world and they don't represent the majority which, in my part of Europe at least, is quite highly tolerant and also relatively integrated. As for the role of the News - well, it depends which one you watch. In my opinion Islam and Muslims are really quite well represented by, for instance, the BBC, which has to fulfill various points as part of its function and one of those is to programme to represent all groups within the nation. I watched a 2 part episode about the life of the prophet Muhammad a few days ago, for instance, and that had no anti-muslim stuff in it, it was just an interesting documentary. I'm not so sure I'd agree with you that Muslims are misrepresented in the news - they seem decently represented to me!

[C.James]

Although it is against rights to force people to hold views, in my view it is one`s responsibility to use our own rights to call the bigots out and make sure their views are revealed for exactly what they are.