This is the extended version, with explanation, of a question I just asked on Twitter.
Yesterday an italian journalist wrote, more or less, that the reason why Anders Behring Breivik was able to kill more than 80 people on Utoya island was that “Those youngsters in the island were selfish and incapable”.
You can read a synthetic translation of what he wrote at letteraviola, one of the many italian blogs who are attacking him right now (the English translation is in the lower part of that page).
The answer I have given myself to the question “how is it possible that none of those young people teamed up to stop Behring?” is very different. I do not blame those people.
From what I know now, I assume that almost nobody realized that it was only one person shooting, and above all that nobody reacted simply because nobody could believe that the shooting would continue for such a long time. In other words, I believe that everybody was more or less consciously sure that the attackers had come for an instantaneous attack, that their plan was to leave the island as soon as possible.
Even if I’m completely wrong, I am sure that there are explanations for what happened that make… more sense of what that journalist wrote. However, I and most Italians will probably miss most of those better explanations from Norway citizens and local media in Norway, simply because of language issues. I don’t understand Norwegian and many Italians don’t understand neither Norwegian nor English.
Therefore, if anybody from Norway can provide explanations to that question (possibly quotes with links from Norway web pages and/or summaries from local TV coverage) as a comment to this post (English only, please!), I will do my best to translate them to Italian and publish them online. In that way, people in Italy who only read that editorial will have a possibility to get more information.
Thanks for your feedback, and my sincere condolences to all those who died or were injured, and to their families.
Marco