Killings in Norway Appear to be Racist Response to Immigration

Norway was rocked yesterday by the killing of more than 90 people and the wounding of many others by a single person, identified as a Norwegian.

The man blamed for killing at least 93 people during terrorist attacks on Norway's government headquarters and an island retreat for young people wanted to trigger an anti-Muslim revolution in Norwegian society, his lawyer said Sunday.

The attacker picked targets linked to Norway's left-wing Labor Party. Breivik's manifesto pilloried the political correctness of liberals and warned that their work would end in the colonization of Europe by Muslims.

Such fears may derive, at least in part, from the fact that Norway has grown increasingly multicultural in recent years as the prosperous Nordic nation has opened its arms to thousands of conflict refugees from Pakistan, Iraq and Somalia. The annual Labor Party retreat — which the prime minister, Stoltenberg, fondly remembers attending in his own youth — reflected the country's changing demographics as the children of immigrants have grown increasingly involved in Labor politics.

This is very tragically the same kind of racism that is seen throughout the world and which is why the Greeks long ago created the word xenophobia (fear of strangers). Norway has been a country of emigrants, not immigrants, for most of the past 200 years, so the new immigrants represent a genuine break from the past, but this same kind of racist attitude obviously exists in the US, which is the quintessential nation of immigrants.