The government district in central Oslo has been a major construction site for a few months. Ten years after the attacks of July 22, 2011, when the right-wing extremist Anders Behring Breivik first set off a car bomb in front of the Prime Minister's office in the Norwegian capital and then a massacre among the participants of the Norwegian Jusos summer camp on the island of Utøya, around 40 kilometers away caused 69 fatalities, the construction of the ministries, which at the time was affected by terrorism, has begun. Finally, say many Norwegians, tired of long debates about the pros and cons. Terrible, say others who wanted to know more about the old, demonstrated against the demolition of the damaged buildings and in the plans for the new buildings an all too smooth,Recognize history-forgotten architecture.
Sebastian Balzter
Editor in the economy of the Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung.
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How the memory of the attack and its victims will one day find a place here, in the middle of Oslo, has still not been decided.
It was the worst outbreak of violence in Norway since World War II.
When the leaders of the state and society, survivors and bereaved come together this Thursday for commemorative events on the occasion of the tenth anniversary, the talks will also revolve around this.
Remembrance is a political matter to this day
The open question of the design of a future national memorial, which in principle has long since been decided, reflects the fact that the official form of commemoration of that day ten years ago in Norway is still a political matter and is therefore controversial. This is not least due to the fact that the assassin was specifically targeting the Social Democratic Labor Party and its members. He saw them as pioneers of unrestricted Muslim immigration to Norway. The Labor Party, which immediately after the attacks met with a wave of sympathy and sympathy, was voted out of office two years later. Jens Stoltenberg, then Prime Minister and admired all over the world for his clever, moving words immediately after the attacks,lost his post and moved to Brussels as Secretary General of NATO. Speechlessness spread.
“The Social Democrats traditionally see themselves as a party that supports the state and unites the whole country,” says the Norwegian political scientist Hallvard Notaker. “That is why they believed they had to hold back with accusations after July 22nd, instead of demarcating themselves much more clearly from their opponents on the right, with whom Breivik had sympathized.” This primarily means the Progress Party with its often populist criticism of Islam. Long before the attacks, Breivik was a temporary member of the party; The Progress Party was a member of the governing coalition in Norway from 2013 to 2020. The Social Democrats, on the other hand, are still in the opposition to this day. “At the same time, they were clearly the victims of the terror, which is why no one else dared to speak publicly about the acts and their causes,” says Notaker."The result was a balancing act that literally tore the party apart."
The trial of Breivik, at the end of which the terrorist was sentenced to a maximum sentence of 21 years with subsequent preventive detention, fueled hope in Norway that the crime would be dealt with constructively: more tolerance, more peacefulness should be the answer to the violence. In the meantime, films have been made about the double attack in Oslo and Utøya, and there is also a television series. But only now is a cross-party conversation slowly starting about the deeper background of the attack, notes the political scientist Notaker, about the widespread acceptance of xenophobia and xenophobia; The top politicians are less interested in it, the younger generation from all parties is more open to it.