Since I couldn't sleep, I tried to translate this article by Norwegian author (most recently One of Us about the Norwegian terrorist Anders Behring Breivik) and journalist (Covering the conflicts in the Balkans, Chechnya, Afghanistan and Iraq) Åsne Seierstad. I found it well written and sincere. If it doesn't come across like that it's probably lost in translation. Sorry
The letter was from the sentenced terrorist Anders Behring Breivik, and is the first letter I’ve received from him since my book on him and those he murdered came out two years ago, so it surprised me a little, because a researcher who were going to interview him told me that one of the prerequisites the terrorist had asked before a meeting was that my name was never to be mentioned.
Breivik may receive visits as long as it’s not followers, but he may not continue his terrorist struggle from his cell, as he had hoped. What he sends out is censored. The letter contained several paragraphs blacked out in ink, but if it was him or the correctional facility who had blacked out the paragraphs I do not know.
The letter was, moreover, not personal, but a new post in the terrorist's monomaniac struggle against Islam and for what he calls the Nordic race. He has started a party called the ”Nordic state”, initially with himself as the sole member, just as he was the only member of the ”Knights Templar” before the attacks on July 22, 2011. The terrorist complains in the letter that he is not allowed to have contact with "friends, supporters and the rest of the movement. " He had a dream that an uprising would sweep across Europe, inspired by his initial attack. He envisioned how he would lead a coalition of militant nationalists who would be radicalized in the prisons, to finally implement a "conservative revolution”, which once and for all would drive the Muslims out of Europe. His project failed. I put the letter away.
That same night came the news from Paris.
Mass murder carried out by men who are the Norwegian terrorist's perfect enemy and mirror images. In Norway the attack came from within, in France as well. As of this writing, five of the eight terrorists have been identified. They are all French nationals, one of them grew up in the suburbs of Paris, another in Belgium. They murdered their own fellow citizens, compatriots they - after being radicalized to extreme Islamism - hated and detested. The Islamic state has claimed responsibility, although it is not clear yet if IS has been operational in the planning, or if the terrorists were only inspired by its ideology of hate: subhumans shall be eradicated, some are above others, people should be rectified and there is only one true religion. The victims are dehumanized, referred to as trash and vermin; we have heard it before.
According to eyewitnesses, the terrorists while they were shooting said that it was in revenge of France's bombing missions in Syria. But they did not attack military installations or symbols of French power like ministries and palaces, nor the tourist destinations such as the Champs-Élysées or the elite’s residential neighborhoods. They were not interested in attacking Islam critics or right populists, same as Breivik, who also did not commit mass murder against those he claimed to hate; Muslims in a mosque. No, in both cases the attacks were directed against the young, progressive and tolerant.
For the terrorists knew their victims. They knew to hit where it hurt most - la vie à la française - call it everyday life. The patron café on the corner, the people at the football game, the music lovers. They attacked the 11th arrondissement, on the rive droite, in places where Parisians gathers on a Friday night around a meal or an aperitif on their way to something else, like a concert at the Bataclan. Although the neighborhood has become whiter, like the whole of central Paris, it has retained its progressive character and ethnic mix. Here lives the so-called bobos - which is both bohemian and bourgeois - and here lives the hipster socialists. The neighborhood chose a female Socialist mayor at the last election, and from here came the votes for the Greens. Le Pen, the nationalists and the immigration critics lacked support in these neighborhoods.
Therefore, they were the perfect victims.
Because terrorists always want to divide. They spread fear that society will be turned back, for it to weaken, become polarized, so that it can be knocked from its foundations and values. The terrorist who knows his victims is the most dangerous.
The French national soccer team, and its supporters, was also the perfect victim, the People. The national team is, if possible, France's most successful integration project. Most players have different backgrounds than the ethnic French. Here there are no white preference, unlike the workforce and the French society. The national team is a perfect meritocracy where only the best players get to wear the blue shirt. It has become one of the most unifying national symbols. But the stadium had metal detectors, something that few Parisians want brasseries to have, and this stopped the terrorists.
The gray zone is the Islamic states’ war zone. It’s in Paris, it’s in Stockholm and Oslo. It is what you find between black and white. Between us and them. Between with and against.
The Islamic State knows what they want. The terror organization does not hide its motives. In its own publication, Dabiq, IS wrote in February of this year that their goal is "the destruction of the gray zone." The fight against the gray zone began, according Dabiq, with the attacks of September 11, 2001, which created two camps that mankind could choose from: Islam's camp and the camp of the infidels. The IS publication refers to Osama bin Laden's statement: "Bush was telling the truth when he said that 'you are either with us or with the terrorists’, that is to say either you are with the crusaders, or you are with Islam." IS can easily take over Bush's rhetoric about the axis of evil, only the axis is running between other territories, other states.
Like Bush, IS demands you to be either with or against. The problem, and what they hate the most, is what they call the gray zone. Paris' 11th arrondissement is the perfect gray: here lives the infidels side by side with Muslims, who, incidentally, are not true Muslims but traitors, hypocrites and accomplices that runs the enemy’s errands. Or what we usually call secular or moderate Muslims who lives their life in Europe.
The gray area is the IS's war zone. It exists in Paris, it exists in Stockholm and in Oslo. It is what you find between black and white. Between us and them. Between with and against. You could call the zone gray, or you can call it colorful. In Norway we use the term ”the colorful society". Some people use it as an insult, an example of Norwegian naivety, as something that will bring the country to ruin, destroy the fair and blue-eyed. And, like the extreme right hates the colorful, IS hates the gray. They are only two words for the same thing, because if you mix them, all the colors will be, as familiar, gray.
Extremists on each side of the axis has the same goal - polarization. Therefore they attacked the communities that work. Islamophobes and IS are each other's perfect enemies, they feed on each other and their ideology that we can not live together. The world should be cleaned of the gray zones, and the colorful societies.
IS wants Europe to fear Muslims, to become suspicious, for racism to increase, so that it will be even harder to be a young Muslim in Europe. Thus, a greater proportion frustrated, alienated young men will turn to the fraternity of Islamism. It is IS’s stated objective and strategy. It is up to us whether the plan is working or not. Breivik failed. His hope was that the attacks would lead to attacks on nationalists, who would rise up in protest. Inspired by him, independent cells would carry out attacks that would eventually turn into civil war, which he predicted would begin in France, where the polarization was the strongest.
What IS’s and Breivik's ideology have in common is the pure fascism. Placing one people and one religion at the top above all others, and the desire to eradicate or suppress other people. For IS it is the Sunnis who are at the top, for Breivik is the white, Christian men. Breivik wanted to wipe out Islam in Europe, Muslims would be killed if they did not convert. The same choice has the Islamic State also given to minorities, since they become either beheaded or get to live if they pay jizia taxes to the State for its protection. The Norwegian terrorist wanted to erase all traces of Islam in Europe, all mosques and all memorial sites. The Islamic state is now planting their black flags on the burnt remains of churches, while ancient pre-Islamic buildings are exploded into pieces. Breivik wanted to ban languages such as Arabic, Somali, Farsi, Urdu; Muslim names would also be banned. IS wants to wipe out whole populations, people they do not consider humans but spoils of war, like the Yazidis. The list is long of the extremists commonalities; women's hatred, the talk of glory, martyrdom, the thirst for power.
In Friday's letter Breivik proved himself as the apparent fascist he is, as he described the plans to establish a "state breeding establishment which with the use of surrogate mothers can secure a steady supply of 100 percent pure infants for adoption clinics so that the Norwegians are no longer limited to Adopt non-Nordic children ".
But his letters led to barely a shrug, just as his threats against the authorities do. When he recently threatened a hunger strike because he was not allowed easing of security procedures, the prison authorities answered that it was in order; to starve to death is a human right in Norway.
On Friday evening the threat felt stronger from elsewhere.
The terror in Paris is just the beginning, IS wrote this weekend. There will be new attacks. New innocent victims. How can we defend ourselves? More bombs on Syria? Do we still believe that our bombs can reduce terror? If there is something the ”war on terror” should have teached us, it is that it is not working. Unfortunately, we see only more bad solutions in Syria. And it could get worse. On Twitter the jihadists are cheering over the terrorist attacks in Paris. Alongside scenes from Paris they post pictures of Syrian children in bits and pieces, children with open bellies, crushed skulls, charred bodies. For IS sympathizers the killings in Paris are justified by those dead. More bombs will inevitably also lead to more civilian casualties.
IS can be combated militarily in Syria and Iraq, at least temporarily, but bombs can not stop terror. IS has always made clear that the war for the caliphate must also extend to Europe and the West. Spokesmen have urged their supporters to carry out attacks on their own, driving vehicles into crowds, shootings in shopping malls.
Now that IS has experienced a string of military losses in Syria and Iraq since the bombings intensified, they can transition their activities toward more terror. So that we continue to talk about them with fear, so that they can continue to attract individuals on track to radicalization, vulnerable young adults who hesitate to join an organization in decline.
The attacks in Paris was not carried out by amateurs; they were well-coordinated and supported by a larger machinery than the eight terrorists who carried them out. Just constructing eight suicide vests requires a team of bomb knowledgeable people, and not least the leaders who ensure that no one loses faith, repent or betrays. The plan to strike at France's civil life has been clear for a long time. Already in August this year an arrested fighter from Syria confessed to the French intelligence services that IS had asked him to strike against one or more concert halls in Paris.
It will be interesting in the coming days to see how the secret service explains why they have not intercepted these preparations, and how it will influence the public opinion on surveillance. One problem is that the technology is on the terrorists' side. A plethora of encryption tools and software makes it increasingly difficult for security services to monitor terrorist communications.
One of the French national team players in recent years has continually had to deny in the media that he would be an Islamist. A rumor went around that he supported IS and had been fighting in Syria, something he denied and called absurd accusations. So how did these accusations crop up against Lass Diarra, a midfield player with a background in Mali? Well, he is a practicing Muslim, he fasts during Ramadan, he respects the prayer sessions and at gatherings with the national team, he asks the waiters to remove the wine glasses placed in front of him.
On Friday night he played in the friendly against Germany, when two suicide bombers were stopped by security guards at the entrance to the stadium. The players did not get to know about the terror attack until after the game was finished. When it was over Paris was on its knees, hit in the heart. Also Diarras family had been hit. His cousin Asta Diakite, which he called his base of support and his sister, became one of the jihadists victims, killed by their bullets. The devote Lass Diarra opted to use exclusively French, secular concepts in his remembrance of her, and concluded thus: "Let us collectively defend love, respect and peace. Take care of each other. #FranceUnie. "
"May Allah give her a place in his paradise," replied friends online.
For us here on earth, our strongest defense against the violence is this: The kinship in our open democracies. The diversity, the respect. And as Diarra writes, the love and the peace. Here on earth, we all have a responsibility to make space.
IS wrote after the attacks that this is just the beginning. Let us say the same thing: This is just the beginning. Here in the gray zone there is space for all colors.
Åsne Seierstad, Dagens Nyheter 17/11/2015