Norway massacre: Trial of a fanatic who killed 77 people

The trial of a fanatic who killed 77 people in Norway last summer has started in Oslo. Anders Behring Breivik, 33, rejected the authority of the court, but has pleaded not guilty and claimed he acted in self-defence . He will not apologise for his actions. This 10-week trial will mainly deal with the state of his mental health and whether he should be sent to prison or put into psychiatric care. “I don’t recognise Norwegian courts because you get your mandate from the Norwegian political parties who support multiculturalism,” said Breivik in his opening statement. [caption id=“attachment_277680” align=“alignleft” width=“380” caption=“If Breivik’s crimes were not so chilling, his background would perhaps sound like that of a life lived in the computer world. Reuters”] [/caption] He spent much of his time in a suit and was shaven except for a thin beard along his jaw line, unresponsive to evidence being listed by prosecutors, occasionally smiling to acknowledge pictures of himself and his manifesto for his crimes. If Breivik’s crimes were not so chilling, his background would perhaps sound like that of a life lived in the computer world. The prosecutor said he played the game World of Warcraft “full-time” between the summer of 2006 and summer 2007. When a picture is shown of a character Breivik adopted in the game, Breivik smiles. He smiles too when pictures are shown of him in a military uniform. The image of him holding a large weapon includes badges photoshopped onto the uniform, saying “Marxist hunter England”, changed to read “Marxist hunter Norway”. It also says “Multicultur [sic] traitor hunting permit”. Breivik bought 36 items from eight countries to make his uniforms. He described his current job as writer, currently working from prison. He claimed the attacks were necessary to protect Norway from being taken over by Muslims - and just the reading of his July 22 crimes took an hour. The militant may not recognise the court but he recognises the free publicity for his views, which is perhaps why he didn’t kill himself after his rampage; he wanted to be caught and the spectacle of a trial, where his far right ideology is transmitted to every corner of the globe. However, despite a closed-fist salute when he entered the courtroom, he will not have a full TV platform. Norway’s NRK station will broadcast parts of the trial but is not allowed to show his testimony. It would be easy to assign blame to violent video games, or the Internet for feeding and facilitating his opinions and crimes, but for such an unusual and unique event, conclusions should be perhaps cast aside. The hard part of watching major events like these is avoiding the declaration that their criminal actors are simply “evil”. That is a really easy way out of trying to explain how Breivik could have so much hate and could kill so many innocent children. . . or even that he did not view the children as innocent. Breivik is not some supernatural demon; he is a human being who committed demonic and evil acts. That’s an important but difficult distinction, one that has troubled humanity for centuries and confronts rapists, murderers, war criminals and, sadly, too many others. In Hannah Arendt’s 1963 work, Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil, she coins that phrase to suggest ordinary people can believe in a normality of their evil actions. It is not without criticism as a position, particularly if the normality is, in itself, evil. And these are not just academic questions. They are important for us to understand horrible crimes, and better appreciate the beauty and good in humanity the majority of the time. A recent psychiatric report found Breivik “sane”. He may be feeding off the attention his crime has granted him, but we must not turn away from such trials. We need to understand the evil so we can better see the good.