Nothing could have prepared the Scandinavian countries for what happened in Norway five years ago on 22 July 2011, when Anders Behring Breivik exploded a car bomb near government building in Oslo, killing eight people, then travelled to the nearby island of Utøya and gunned down 68 young people attending a Labor Party youth rally.
The 2011 Norway attacks conducted by a lone wolf terrorist on 22 July 2011 claimed a total of 77 lives.
In his 1,500-page manifesto, “2083 – A European Declaration pf Independence”, Breivik claimed he had carried out the killings to precipitate a revolution against Islam and multiculturalism.
The massacre led to much soul-searching across the region, shaking as they did the traditional image of the Scandinavian countries as places of tolerance, liberalism and hospitality.
In Norway, hundreds of thousands of people expressed their revulsion at the killings by demonstrating their support for democracy and unity.
As the prime minister Jens Stoltenberg, put it, “If one man can show so much hate, think how much love we could show standing together.”
Norwegian Massacre, written by Tor Kjolberg
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