Anders Behring Breivik attacks Norway

Devastation in Norway on 22 July 2011.  Death and destruction wrought by bomb blast in Oslo and shooting on the island of Utøya.  At least 87 people killed and many more injured.  It all appears to be a Rambo style attack by one 32 year old man called Anders Behring Breivik.

It seems he planted a bomb in a government building in the Norwegian capital Oslo.  He then travelled south to the island of Utøya where there was a Labour Party youth camp taking place.  He placed several bombs around the island and, dressed as a police officer, he began indiscriminately shooting people, killing at least 80 and injuring many more.

So what was Anders Behring Breivik's problem.  That, I don't know, but his behaviour sounds like one of two things.  Either he was effectively ostracised by his culture and felt the only way to get recognition was by some extreme act or he was entirely screwed up by his parents.  It sounds to me like an understandable extreme attempt to break a double bind.  I will bet that psychologists will speculate that he was a paranoid schizophrenic thereby adding to the general prejudice against this condition.  But if they do I hope they pay equal homage to the fact that he was a conservative Christian conformist.  And he greatly admired Winston Churchill.  Let's have some more reasonable prejudice come out of this one please.  And as for Obama's remarks about terrorism I just think the man is attempting to catch a lift on any passing bandwagon.  I will be very surprised if this event turns out to have anything to do with the concept of terrorism being referred to by old matey Barack Hussein.

Norway tends to keep itself to itself and can afford to.  It is one of the richest nations on earth per head of population and sits on the north west edge of the continent of Europe.  Most famous perhaps for its fjords Norway also shows signs of being a forward looking and rather sensible country.  When oil was discovered in the North Sea in the late 1960s Norway had a large stake in it.  So, incidentally did Britain.  Britain has squandered the wealth but Norway has been very careful with it.  The two main things it did was to invest in the infrastructure of the country thereby laying the foundations for long term stability and security and it invested a large proportion of the money in a multitude of countries and industries around the globe.  The reasoning behind this being that whichever way the world economics go Norway will always have some safe investments.  The politics is a mixture of conservative with a small 'c' and socialism.  They are a kind of soft 'Big Brother' state.  Their taxes are relatively high and the average wage is relatively high.  So overall the wealth of the population is more evenly spread than most places and the general standard of living is good.  The Norwegians themselves are mostly a pleasant easy going bunch.  Having spent much time in Norway there is an undercurrent of parochial authoritarianism.  You wouldn't notice it at first glance but the Norwegians are proud of their way of life and do not happily tolerate dissent.  Given that they are reasonably comfortable they can also afford to be quite nice.  Even I'm nice when I'm well off.

But don't worry folks.  With the onset of the apocalypse you can expect more and more of these bizarre and apparently indiscriminate events as the western world descends into hell.

Me?  I'm just catching band wagons too.  Maybe I should write to Mr Obama about my problems.  He might be interested.  He could send me one million quid and I'd be happy.