Back in business - by Richard... Monday, July 25, 2011

Back in business - by Richard... Monday, July 25, 2011

Now having had time to scan, albeit briefly, the "manifesto" offered by Anders Breivik (under his Anglicised name of Andrew Berwick), what leaps from the pages is his grand proclamation of, "What you need to know, our falsified history and other forms of cultural Marxist/multiculturalist propaganda".

What Brievik has concluded, like many of us, is that the history fed to us as the record of fact is largely false, so distorted as not to represent in any way a true or reasonable account of our past. And thus aware, he has sought to rewrite history in his own fashion, telling us what he believes to be the truth.

Then, by way of a publicity stunt to launch his book, he detonates a large bomb and then shoots over ninety people on a remote Norwegian island.

Well, if the intention was to grab our attention – and it clearly was – then Mr Breivik has succeeded. But as a way of selling his ideas, this is probably less than effective. Such good sense as he might have offered is now so tainted that anyone now seeking to promulgate his version of history will find it more difficult than ever before.

The deeds perpetrated by Breivik, therefore, are the hallmarks of failure. One does not need to make moral judgements – and neither can one resort to high moral imperatives, declaring all killing to be wrong. If that is your way, step forward Messrs Blair, Brown and Cameron – three men with blood on their hands in far greater quantity than Breivik.

Simply, if Breivik wished to communicate a message, this was not the way to do it. He will be remembered for his deeds rather than his words, the latter being rejected – which rather defeats the object of the exercise.

The great problem for us though, as Breivik correctly identifies, is that our history remains false, and it was the pursuit of that idea which has kept me quieter than usual for nearly a week.

What started the process was my going through my existing newspaper archives, page my page, checking to see if I had missed anything of great importance for my book. And I had, a brief reference in the Daily Express of 26 October 1940, to an article in the Sunday Express (pictured - click to enlarge to readable size. The article underneath is also interesting), with reference to many more. It was acquiring the microfilm, converting the film to readable format and then doing the rewriting which took the time – all against another of those impossible deadlines.

The thesis, which has emerged in the book that I have written, will now be published by a reputable publishing house. The book will be distributed and sold. There will be reviews, some serialisation, broadcasts and television (I hope), and I plan to do a series of talks and road shows, plus my blogs and other material, all to spread the word.

And that is how you do it. If the ideas are sound, they will be picked up and spread. With driving minds behind them, they will prevail. And that is the way you communicate ideas – not by killing people. The latter is what fundamentalists do, and that is why they always fail in the end. We have to succeed. And there are no short cuts.

So I'm back in business - tired ... in fact almost dizzy with fatigue. But I'm back.

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The threat of the individual? - by Richard...

With the bodies still warm, The Guardian is not on the trail of "far right" followers, using Nottingham University lecturer Matthew Goodwin as its foil.

He argues that the "tragedy in Norway" this weekend may prove to be a watershed moment in terms of how we approach "far right" followers, groups and their ideology.

Until now, he says, European democracies and their security services had focused almost exclusively on the threat from al-Qaida -inspired terrorism. Right wing extremist groups and their more violent affiliates, he says, were dismissed as a disorganised, fragmented and irrelevant movement.

One does not need to read much more to see the direction of travel. The demons of the left now have a face and a name – and (at last count) 93 martyrs to inspire what looks suspiciously like a pogrom in the making.

What seems to have spooked the Left most, however, is that Breivik acted on his own, without fellow conspirators or even outside assistance. He is what Goodwin calls one of the right wing "lone wolves".

Of course, to the "collective", the idea anyone actually acting individually is almost incomprehensible. And when they tot up in their fevered imaginations the number of putative "right wingers" (meaning those with ideas different from their own), this becomes the stuff of nightmares.

As opposed to the crowd, individuals now become the threat. No longer is there that feeling of safety that comes from being part of a perceived majority. If one man can do all this, as an individual, think what thousands of individuals can do.

Yet, even as Goodwin sprays around his "right wing" epithets, he concedes that Breivik was "far from what we might term a traditional rightwing extremist". While he was profoundly concerned about the effects of immigration, multiculturalism, Islam and the growth of settled Muslim communities, he was also dismissive of crude racial supremacist and neo-Nazi ideas and parties that espoused these ideas.

With that, the imagination soars. Even people who are not actually "right wingers" could still be right-wingers. The world is full of them, all of them heavily disguised as individuals.

Even then, Goodwin cannot quite handle the concept. Despite acknowledging the "lone wolf" threat, he reverts to the standard demonology of the collective, and the threat that the next wave of terrorism in Europe will come not from al-Quaida-inspired groups, but rather right wing groups that want to respond to this threat and reassert the position of their wider group.

It is far too early to tell whether Breivik's actions will inspire copycat attacks, says Goodwin. But one thing remains clear: the threat from right wing extremist groups and ideas deserves far greater attention.

Someone should perhaps point out the inconsistencies here. Either it is groups, or is it "lone wolf" individuals? The latter is a lot more scary to the likes of Goodwin, as there are a whole lot more of them than groups.

But, if individuals are to be identified as the threat, there will be no stopping the collective. Just to be different will be enough to invite suspicions and countermeasures. We could indeed be looking at a watershed ... and it ain't pretty.

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