Just kidding. The recent attack in Norway has given us all a shock to the system, and is an unfortunate reminder that our world is not so safe after all. My heart goes out to each and every victim from the horrendous events of the past few days. As distant as wars in the Middle East might seem to the public nowadays, an attack in a European country somehow feels different. This terrorist attack was not, however, executed by any Afghan or al-Qaeda related group. Yet again, a nationalist, anti-multiculturalist rightwing nutjob has taken matters into his own hand by using violence to spread a message. This post is not to give any political sway one way or another on the matter, but intsead, to point out a certain trend across Europe. According to an al-Jazeera article:
"As Mehdi Hasan, editor of the New Statesman, has pointed out, figures compiled by Europol, the European police agency, suggest that the threat of Islamist terrorism is minimal compared with "ethno-nationalist" and "separatist" terrorism. According to Europol, in 2006, one out of 498 documented terrorist attacks across Europe could be classed as "Islamist"; in 2007, the figure rose to just four out of 583 - less than one per cent of the total. By contrast, 517 attacks across the continent were claimed by - or attributed to - nationalist or separatist terrorist groups, such as ETA in Spain."
(Read the full article here): http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/opinion/2011/07/201172482841769458.html
It seems interesting that despite the fact that 100% of media coverage regarding terrorism in the past years has involved al-Qaeda or Middle Eastern groups, only 1% of the violence in Europe has come from these certain groups. It is important to remember that there seems to be a much stronger and growing resistance to multiculturalism throughout Europe. The point of this post is not to persuade the audience that rightwing political groups are more dangerous than Islamic fundamentalists, but that it is important to not get swept up by media 'outrage' or propaganda, and look at the full picture before blaming any certain group. (It is well-known that before any information was gathered about the Norway attacks, that Muslim groups were automatically blamed as the culprits.)
It will be important in the future to learn how to deal with this seeminlgy growing movement of Nationalist groups throughout Europe, that feel threatened by increasing multi-culturalist societies. Especially because it seems to be an increasingly violent trend.
Kai
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