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
The first ones that were shot were the adults in the main house when you enter the island. Most of the others were kids 10 – 16 years old. I really can’t understand how a grown up person like this journalist really expect kids to organize in front of someone with a gun. We live in a country where not even police are seen with guns in evry day life.
There are any stories of people that were facing him and asked him to stop etc, he shot them right down. So the rets of them tried to take care of each other and helped injured and tried use their cellphones to calm each other, text for help etc.
May God forgive this journalist calling this kids selfish. He clearly does not know what he is talking about and are therefor not to blame.They took care of each other and helped wounded when they self were wounded.
Thanks Mette, this is exactly the kind of info I am trying to gather. Please spread the word around, the more I get, the better.
Here is just 3 of the translated – several are to be founf taped from various new channels such as CNN BBC etc.
http://pastebin.com/sm5mqm9t
http://www.reddit.com/r/worldnews/comments/ixc7a/atleast_80_people_killed_in_ut%C3%B8ya_massacre/c27f6rf
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/25/eyewitness-account-utoya-shooting?intcmp=239
This little video and song describes very good what we are here in Norway and is used a lot thhese days _ Spread this to your Italian fellowmen and women that belive in love and democrazy – http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xg-YQsXNfeo
This journalist is thinking like an old man that has seen to many action movies: We are talking about innocent kids here and their rections. I would like to se his reactions when he was 15 facing a gunman that just sjot your bestfriend head into pieces.
theese are from eye witnesses. More on youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fUr-nuPIIBI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_nWNfGa75o
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kEyBeRlU8Y
Hi Marco,
I will second the view laid out by Mette. Understand the setting we’re talking about. 600 kids on a tiny island, organizezd by a handful of grownups. Everybody already shook by the news from the Oslo Bomb.
The first ones to be killed were the grownups, the guards, the policeman present. All fearlessly attempting to stop the coward gunman. All shoot down in cold blood. Without any ample means to stop the terrorist, the options you face are few. Run to save your life.
Hearing someone calling them selfish breaks my heart. Their account tell stories of unselfish youth, the olders helping the younger, no one left behind. Freinds seeking shelter together, trying to rescue the wounded.
Many started to swim ashore. Too many of them were killed while swimming. The survivors helped each other, encouraging each other as they became exhausted. It is a long way to swim, even for the calm and fit. This was kids in panic, experiencing hell on earth. Unselfish, empatic, scared to death.
A kid, only 11, saw his dad getting shot right before his eyes. In shock, he still faces the killer crying out. “You have killed my daddy! I am too young to die – go away”. In a rare glimpse of empathy, the killer walked away to seek other victims. The kid survived.
No one knew the magnitude of the force of the attacker(s). No one knew he only one. What they knew, was that they were unarmed, he was not. They knew he could not be rasoned with. Many tell of seeing comrades begging for their lives, being shot at point blank rage. Being shot twice so that the terrorist would be sure they were dead.
In this terror, freindship and unselfishness found its way to save many lives. This night we found so many brave heroes amongst our young ones. And their tales will live on even if not all of the heroes survived.
Hopefully, the world will understand their tales, not call them selfish. We, the people of Norway, do not. They are our heroes. We try our best to comfort the living while we weep over our dead.
The scale of this is hard to imagine. Compared to population, this would equal a US killing of 5000 americans. In Norway, this tragedy is twice as big as 911 was for the US. The largest gunman massacre in peacetime in the world.
I hope you journalist colleague will grasp the stories told an dnot expect some fiction “Red Dawn” response from innocent, untraing, unprepared, unarmed youth. I do take comfort in knowing that he himself would be the first to heroicly throw himself in the line of fire should he – heaven forbid – experience a similar scenario.
Thanks to Mette and Geir. The translation of your comments is already online in the italian version of this blog: http://tips.zona-m.net/it/2011/07/feltri-accusa-i-norvegesi-rispondono/
Thanks in advance to everybody else who will want to add further info here, I will translate that too!
Vi alla kan bara säga “förlåt”. Denna är inte Italien, denna är bara dumhet.
Erika,
Google Translate tells me that what you wrote means “We can all just say “sorry”. This is not Italy, this is just stupidity”. I agree. As I wrote in the update I added earlier tonight, the complete story is bit different, or at least more articulated, than it looks from the lettera viola excerpt. However, there is still… lots to criticize, so to speak, in that article. So I am grateful to Mette, Geir and all the others who will help us in Italy to understand better what happened.
I just want to clarify that in Italy the article from Vittorio Feltri is receiving loud critics by virtually everyone that has read it. On social networks (twitter and facebook) people are commenting in terms of how shameful and idiotic is such a critic to innocent and helpless young victims.
What is quite shocking is that, despite a massive rebellion of average citizens on social networks, the two other major Italian newspapers La Repubblica and il Corriere have kept so far silent about this article.
I would have expected other Italian journalists to take distances from such a obvious misinterpretation of reality. Instead, I fear they are keeping silent because of corporative reasons. That’s probably the biggest shame for Italian press, not responding with counter-critics to this abberation. Just remember is them, the press guys, not Italians in general.
Sincerly,
Luca