EPTI spent a couple weeks at the family summer cabin this summer. The cabin is a small rustic place, hand-built by my father, before he passed away at an age of 39. It was never meant as a house, but rather a getaway from the town life, and as thus only had primitive facilities - a brick fireplace is the only heating aside from the sun, and the wooden outhouse greets your behind with a cold gust if you need to use it during the night hours . Even electricity and water was a remote concern when he built it - our only water tap is by the outhouse, amd yields cold water only, while we've been having limited solar-powered lamps for lighting up untill last year, when we installed regular power. I love that place though, even with its primitivity - or maybe because of it. I've had my greatest childhood and adolescent memories from that place - it's out in the middle of nowhere, with nothing but close family and friends in the nearest hour's walking distance, lush nature and endless potential for outdoor activities.
I had been there a little over a week when the news broke. My mother, who was staying there with me, came back from a trip to the closest shopping area with one of her sisters, about fourty minutes away by car. It was someplace around 4pm local time. I greeted her as usual as I heard her coming over the deck, and saw her wearing her trademark "worry"-face. I'm pretty desensitized to this face, as this is a face I've seen on her a lot during my upbringing - not that I were an especially unruly child, but rather that she's been wanting to be far more protective of me than I'd let her. Such is the love of a mother, I suppose. Or of any parent.
- Have you been listening to the radio?, she asked. I shook my head. I had been spending the afternoon in front of my laptop listening to music while conceptualizing my fictious RPG world. I turned towards her, curious, as she rushed towards the solar powered stereo and turned it on to get the news in. Judging by her acts and her face, I expected it to be some foreign accident or death of a celebrity or something - one of those far-away acts which one is too desensitized to, and too distanced from, to empathize properly with. Instead, what I heard was something from someplace far more familiar.
I can't recall the words, or exactly what they presented in the first news. There had been a bombing at the center of Oslo, at the governmental block. One person was reported dead, seven injured. Not much information was available, so they repeated a short audio clip between news updates and interviews with experts - I could hear people walking on broken glass, shouting for injured to assist localizing and helping anyone needing assistance, while car alarms and house alarms were constantly chiming in the background, adding a surreal ambience to it all. People being interviewed were describing the scenes as surreal, and that downtown Oslo looked like a warzone. Reporters were mirroring these descriptions, and I felt they were using melodramatic wording in their evaluations, saying that this was the day that Norway was changed forever. I had no idea of the full extent of the events or the truth of those statements untill so very much later.
The gut reaction to the bombing was of course - muslim terrorists! Now, I'm for multiculturalism and consider the xenophobia in the west, especially towards muslim and african immigrants, as based on misinformed fear and media hype. Still, I'm a product of my time, and in my time, islamist extremists have been the most profilated non-governmental terrorists, so my instinctive reaction was to expect muslim terrorists to be the perpetrators.
This struck me as the true fear. Not the death and destruction caused by islamist terrorists, but instead that muslim terrorism had hit Norway, and the consequences that would have for our society. I was eighteen when the two planes hit the World Trade Center, so I've been indirectly experiencing the change that has happened in the american society since that day - stronger political demagoguery, an almost fanatical sense of national pride, more politically accepted extremism, drastically reduced personal freedoms and a population manipulated through fear to desire revenge. Such a change was the last I wanted in Norway, but my deepest fears were that these events would lead to hard-line measures taken to ensure security, as well as increased anti-immigrant fearmongering from politicians, in addition to drastically increased voting portion for our right-wing populist party during this fall's local elections, and potentially the national elections that are to come in two years.
Throwing my worries aside, I instantly texted my friends in Oslo, to make sure they were okay. Of those that are there is also my very best friend over many years - my entire world would have collapsed if she had been taken in that explosion. My mobile soon vibrated repeatedly and gave the "Nuclear Launch Detected"-messaging sound effect I had added half a year ago, dispelling my worst fear as all my friends, including her, had been nowhere near the explosion. Still though, I worried, fearing more bombs. I wanted to be there, with her. Being in the other half of the country was very hard at that moment. I felt extremely powerless, and extremely lonely.
The next half hour was slow. The worry had broken any creative impulses I had, so I was randomly browsing through older concepts, trying to pick out things to improve or elaborate upon, a method I often use when I'm wanting to progress my work but aren't inspired by ideas. On the radio went the repeated cycle of interviews, the audio clip described earlier, as well as updates on the situation. The confirmed death count had increased to two, with ten wounded. Interviewee experts in the news studios adviced against jumping to conclusions on who were responsible. One man in particular, pointed towards similiarities to this bombing and the Oklahoma bombings and as thus moved some suspicion away from islam jihad, but many hinted to, or directly stated that, the likelihood of this being a muslim terrorist act, was very probable.
Then, around half past four, a new news bulletin came in. There had been heard gunshots at Utøya island, where the youth division of the norwegian worker's party AUF held their summer camp. As time snailed on, more alarming stories were reported - youths at the camp had through social media and mobile contact with parents told of a man dressed as a police officer shooting at people. There were people killed, they said, but gave no indiction of numbers. The various news organization were rallying reporters to figure out what had happened, but Utøya is inaccessible without boat or helicopter, so nobody were able to get a good overview of the situation. The police confirmed a potential connection between the government center bombing and the Utøya shooting, although they didn't elaborate on why they thought them connected.
My mother awoke from a nap not much later. She was curious what news updates she had missed while sleeping, and I gave her the info of the Utøya shooting and the possible connection. She seemed as surprised as I had been. I shared with her my worries about it being muslim extremists rather than non-muslims, and she agreed with the worries of a more shackled society, but the actual event at hand - the bombing and shootings - seemed to impact her more than the political ramifications of it all. That's understandable - I'm a pragmatic realist in cases around me, but things that I cannot directly interact with, I treat with political idealism, a different approach to the world than to what she uses.
The gunman at Utøya island was reported apprehended not long after, and was described as a white, nordic-looking man. This, to me, was incredibly relieving to hear, a relief I felt slightly guilty for at the time - that he apparently was a man from the western world, and thus probably not a jihad sympathizer, meant that my worries for increased xenophobia, right-wing political rally and a more controlled society were gone for now. The relief soon passed on into questions - who was this man? How much damage had he caused? What were his motivations for all of this?
As evening passed into night, news of the two events continued to update. I cannot recall the death counts of the bombing, but at Utøya island, ten people were reported killed.
Interviewee reports were a lot different than the press reports we had recieved so far. Locals living around the island, as well as tourists vacationing in the area had heard the shots and seen people trying to swim off the island to the surrounding island and mainland, and had worked hard to find a boat and help as many as possible. Many were brought to safety, but many dead bodies in the water were reported. First hand stories of those that escaped the island also started to appear on the news, reports that made the island sound like the centerpoint of some horror film. Reports of people being shot at indiscriminately, with them fleeing wildly, attempting to hide in the woodlands, on cliffs by the ocean, or braving the cold water to reach some other shore. One boy reporting he had seen at least 25 people dead when fleeing the island. When confronted with the police's official number of ten dead, he said he could only report what he had seen, and that was far more than ten.
25 was an incredibly high number for a single event. As I went to bed, I comforted my mother, saying that the witness hopefully wasn't accurate in his estimations, but even as I lay down on my pillow, I was more worried that the police were the ones not being forward with the actual severity of the situation.
I was awoken at 8am. My mother had just gotten up and turned the radio on. I begrudgingly turned my face back to the wall to keep the light away from my eyes and return to sleep, but my ears focused on the radio broadcast instinctly, keeping me awake. Somewhere in my half-daze, I heard that the official casualty count of Utøya island had been increased to 80.
... wait, what? 80?!
That number was ridiculous. I got out of bed and sat down at the living room table, listening to any other reports from the radio. I had expected the initial count of ten dead to be wrong, but THIS high?
I spent the rest of the day pretty much inactive, sitting in front of my laptop playing some random games while listening to various news updates and repeats, interviews with experts and politicians, as well as witness accounts. The survivors from Utøya island were graphic in their descriptions, telling stories of increasing horror. Stories of running in terror, hiding breathlessly in fear. Stories of them seeing their friends get killed and bullets straying them. Stories of how the killer had tricked them again and again, claiming he was a real policeman and that the murderer had been apprehended, only to coldly shoot them down after they had left their hiding spots and moved on up to the killer for safety. Of how the survivors had panicked when they saw the real police men, not knowing if they were real or accomplices of the killer. The event which had started it all - the bombing of the government center - now seemed as a small event compared to the slaughter that had happened on Utøya island.
I talked to a friend later that day. I was out taking a walk, and randomly met him as he was heading to work. We of course got to discussing what had happened, and among the things he said, was that the guy looked pretty familiar, and was curious if he had served in the army with him. It would be a morbid coincidence if so, news also had reported that the terrorist got his army duty suspended to treat an ailing mother, implying he never had taken the military duty at all. Of course, if it's miscommunication between the military and the press or my friend's just being his usual addle-brained self I do not know, and it really doesn't matter. It was a detail that made the event feel that much more real for me, though.
Some of the worries that sit in me now, are based on some of the behavioural descriptions of the terrorist and the psychological evaluations conneted to these. He was described as charming and friendly on the outside, with a much darker world hidden on the inside, a world he kept feeding through his alternate internet personas. This is very familiar to me, as I've always had a tendency of hiding my emotions and making sure that I've seemed okay rather than seeking emotional support or discuss my issues, thus creating a sort of shadow-side of myself that I only show when I'm alone. The concept of alternate internet persona is also very central in this, as for about seven years ago, I was in a very rough emotional period. Through WoW, I dealt with this by reinventing myself, presenting a much more agressive, blunt, confident and confrontational me, compared to the anxious, sociophobic, self-concious and emotionally broken reality. Over time, this persona has become a part of me, and while I feel these changes have been for the better, it does at the same time show the potential of psychological transformation through proccesses like these. I feel I ended up a better person. The terrorist did not. But the proccesses were not at all unsimilar. This is the terrifying aspect.
That's pretty much it. I've lost nobody as far as I know, and neither has any of my friends and family that I've asked, so I haven't been directly affected by the deaths. I appreciate the way this has been handled, from our politicians and central governing bodies, as well as how the population have reacted. The support from foreigners everywhere is touching. We will return to our regular bickering and carelessness soon enough, but for now, things aren't as bad as they could have been.
This little rendition of the events is unimportant, but maybe some of you will enjoy the point of view.
Thanks for reading.
![[image loading]](http://i.imgur.com/6jKCz.jpg)
