A week ago, people around the world were shell shocked when they learned of the brutal terrorist attacks in Norway. A deranged madman, Anders Behring Breivik, first detonated a bomb outside of government office buildings in the capital city of Oslo, killing 8 people. Then, Breivik travelled 25 miles northwest to the island of Utoya and began slaughtering a Labor Party youth camp that was located there. After about 90 minutes of unrelenting shooting, an additional 69 people were killed on Utoya, bringing Breivik's death toll to a sickening 77 people, most of whom were children. It was the worst terrorist attack in Europe since the 2004 Madrid train bombings, and the worst single violent event in Norway since World War II.
Once news of the attacks broke, speculation almost automatically began to focus on Islamic extremism. Of course, that's an understandable reaction, but at the same time it is a misguided one. Since 9/11, Islamic terrorism has been in the forefront of people's minds. In modern history, the majority of high-fatality terrorist attacks have been carried out by Islamic extremists. However, terrorism is hardly exclusive to Islam, as we have seen with the Norway attacks.
Anders Behring Breivik is the polar opposite of Osama bin Laden. The blond haired, blue eyed 32 year old is a Christian extremist who hates Islam with a passion. In his manifesto, he expressed a strong belief in Norwegian nationalism. In other words, he wants Norway to be a purely Christian nation devoid of immigrant culture and opinion. He also describes himself as a "modern day crusader" who wants to battle Islam and remove "illegitimate" Christian leaders, such as Pope Benedict XVI, from power because they have consistently encouraged friendly relations with Islam. However, for all of Breivik's self proclaimed Christian nationalism, he was quite the secular individual. Whereas Muslim radicals such as bin Laden and Ayatollah Khomeini railed against modernism, Breivik embraces it. He played video games such as Modern Warfare 2 regularly, watched TV and movies, and supported non-christian political movements such as Zionism, a position that would horrify any true-blooded Islamic militant.
It's not like the world needed Breivik to remind them that brown people aren't the only group of people on the planet with a radicalized segment either. Over the last ten years, we have become ignorant to the fact that terrorism is practiced by people of all religions, all skin colors, and all nations. It's a sobering fact, but it's simply the truth. It may be nice to develop an "Us vs. Them", Christians vs. Muslims attitude in relation to terrorism, but that does nothing to make us safer. Have we already forgotten about the IRA, the Irish Catholic terrorist organization that killed hundreds, perhaps thousands of people during The Troubles in Northern Ireland? What about Timothy McVeigh? McVeigh, who was agnostic, was highly sympathetic towards the right-wing militia movement that was poisoning political discourse in the United States during the early 1990's. McVeigh's deep hatred for the Federal government culminated in the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah building in Oklahoma City in 1995. At the time, it was the deadliest terrorist attack in U.S. history, killing 168 people.
Terrorism has also reared it's ugly head in other less recognized areas too. Take, for example, the Cave of the Patriarchs massacre in Israel. On February 24, 1994, a Jewish man by the name of Baruch Goldstein killed 29 Muslim worshippers in the West Bank. He killed the worshippers simply because he hated Muslims. After the massacre, many radical Jewish leaders praised Goldstein, one even going as far to say that Goldstein was "the greatest Jew alive, not in one way but in every way". Although the extremism of Hamas has been well documented, the extremist corners of the Jewish community in Israel have gone mainly unnoticed.
Another example can be found in the Sarin gas attacks on the Tokyo subway system in 1995. The attacks, which killed 13 and injured thousands more, were carried out by a religious cult known as Aum Shinrikyo. Apparently, the cult carried out the attacks because they wanted to bring about the apocalypse. The group's leader, Shoko Asahara, believed he was Jesus and that he had to warn the world of a coming apocalypse instigated by the United States. While East Asia is generally considered a less-radicalized region of the world, this incident proves that even they are not immune to ignorance, hatred, and insanity.
Fanaticism is a global problem. For as long as humanity has been around, there have always been pockets of psychopaths that have been hell bent on exterminating freedom and happiness, and these psychopaths cannot be pinned onto one particular group. The truth of the matter is that radicals can be found everywhere. It doesn't matter if you are black, white, brown or yellow. It doesn't matter if you are Muslim, Christian, Jewish, or Buddhist. It doesn't matter if you are an Iraqi, Israeli, or American. There will always be somebody in your cultural clique who tries to pervert what you are really about. And they cannot be solely defeated through wars and far-reaching security policies. You can kill Osama bin Laden, but his successor is only waiting in the wings. You can grope every man, woman, and child at an airport, but that does nothing to defeat the ideologies we are trying to protect ourselves from. The only way to defeat fanaticism is to speak out against it. Condemn it for the garbage that it is. Christians should loudly condemn the actions of Anders Behring Breivik, and Muslims should condemn the actions of Hamas, Al Qaeda, and other terrorist networks.
Common sense is the only thing that can defeat fanaticism, and having common sense means that we must first realize how widespread hate mongering has become on our planet.
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