Norway's Terrorist in Disguise

[Sofiyya 1,687]

Norway's Terrorist in Disguise

Anders Behring Breivik defied the stereotype about who a terrorist is, and is yet another reminder that extremism knows no racial, religious, or ethnic boundaries. By Tara McKelvey.

Jul 23, 2011 7:45 PM EDT

Anders Behring Breivik, 32, is handsome, green-eyed, and blond—in other words, not a stereotypical terrorist. His good looks worked to his advantage, helping him gain access to the island of Utoya and allowing him to kill scores of people in one of the bloodiest attacks in Norwegian history. The assault that he carried out on Friday was not only horrific; it also exposed a weakness in counterterrorism strategy in Europe and the United States. The commonly held notion of who a terrorist is means people may lower their guard around Breivik and others who look not Arab, but Western, and the results can be devastating.

“Terrorism is theater,” as security analyst Brian M. Jenkins wrote, and in popular lore the cast is made up of young Middle Easterners. Indeed, many Americans expect terrorists to look like the bearded thugs who made life difficult for Jack Bauer in Fox’s show 24. To be sure, the biggest threat to national security comes from radicals who are affiliated with organizations such as al Qaeda and the Africa-based Islamist group Al Shabab, and these individuals may in some ways look like the television thugs. Yet as the Norwegians found out this week, non–Arabic speakers who have no ties with an Islamist extremist group can also inflict damage on a colossal scale.

The United States has its own experiences with domestic terrorism, and yet stereotypes persist in this country, clouding the views of ordinary citizens and of law-enforcement officials. In February 2010, for example, a computer engineer, Andrew Joseph Stack III, flew an airplane into an IRS building in Austin, Texas, killing one person. He left behind a note that showed he was unhappy with tax laws, and in this way he was attempting to use violence to achieve a political outcome. Yet FBI officials chose not to describe him as a terrorist; instead, they handled the case as a criminal matter.

Many experts believe that the FBI’s assessment was based on the color of Stack’s skin (white) and on his non-Arabic-sounding name, rather than on the facts of the case. In other words, he had carried out an act of political violence, but officials refused to recognize him in this way because he did not fit their idea of what a terrorist looks like.

Perhaps not surprisingly, leaders of international extremist groups are now looking for these types of individuals to carry out future attacks. Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical Muslim cleric who lives in Yemen, and other writers for an English-language Qaeda magazine, Inspire, have been encouraging readers to act independently and to come up with terrorist plots in their own countries.

“He is saying, ‘Look, you may be sympathetic to the movement, but don’t come to Yemen. Just do it on your own,’” says Jessica Stern, the author of Terror in the Name of God: Why Religious Militants Kill. “He and his henchmen have figured out that it’s very hard to find a neo-Nazi, a lone Islamist terrorist, or any kind of lone wolf, because they’re not talking to anyone.”

Unfortunately, popular notions about terrorism may blind people to what political violence is, as in the case of Stack in Austin, and may also make it harder to recognize someone who is preparing to carry out an act of violence. Author Ken Ballen interviewed more than 100 extremists in Indonesia, Pakistan, and other countries for his forthcoming book, Terrorists in Love: The Real Lives of Islamic Radicals, and he found that the vast majority “are not psychopaths or criminally insane.” Instead, as he discovered, “these people know exactly what they are doing, and they believe they’re doing the right thing.”

It is easier to see terrorists as the Other, as someone who holds bizarre views, lives in a far-flung country, and is utterly alien. Yet real-life terrorists are not the shadowy figures of 24; they are just like us. They come from a variety of backgrounds and hold an array of views, but they are clear-headed about their actions and, however misguided, have the courage of their convictions. That, combined with their utterly savage behavior, is what makes them terrorists, not their faith, appearance, or ethnic background, and is also what makes them such an insidious threat.

[웃 910]

You are obsessed with Muslim and Christian TERRORISTS!

[Sofiyya 1,687]

You are obsessed with Muslim and Christian TERRORISTS!

Not obsessed. I have a life.

Care to comment on the topic?

[IR5FORMUMSIE 850]

Not obsessed. I have a life.

Care to comment on the topic?

As a stainless steel colander salesman?

Judy in Disguise, Jihadist in Disguise, it's all the same. Murder is wrong and if you murder then there's something wrong with you.

[웃 910]

Not obsessed. I have a life.

Care to comment on the topic?

Terrorists are bad.

[IR5FORMUMSIE 850]

You are obsessed with Muslim and Christian TERRORISTS!

Obama is both a Muslim and a Christian, that seems to solve the problem. :rofl:

[Sofiyya 1,687]

As the OP states, stereotyping terrorists is a security concern. If it's easier for a European looking individual to escape the notice of investigators simply because their appearance ethnicity and nationality don't fit a certain type, then violent episodes by them are easier to execute.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Terrorists aren't cartoon characters. Who knew!?

[IR5FORMUMSIE 850]

Terrorists aren't cartoon characters. Who knew!?

Snidely Whiplash was part of an Al Qaeda sleep cell.

Terrorists are bad.

I thought marijuana was bad or was that Michael Jackson? Michael Jackson was bad, so he must have been a member of Al Qaeda.

Edited August 1, 2011 by IR5FORMUMSIE

[Sofiyya 1,687]

If stereotypes don't hold, there's no complaining about searching grandmas in wheelchairs at airport security.

This is a related article from a hijacked thread.

'Christian terrorist'? Norway case strikes debate

Norway massacre exposes Christians to 'terrorist' stereotype Muslims have faced since 9/11

By JESSE WASHINGTON AP National Writer

The Associated Press

Originally Published: 7/31/2011 1:16:00 PM

When the "enemy" is different, an outsider, it's easier to draw quick conclusions, to develop stereotypes. It's simply human nature: There is "us," and there is "them." But what happens when the enemy looks like us from the same tradition and belief system?

That is the conundrum in the case of Norway and Anders Behring Brevik, who is being called a "Christian extremist" or "Christian terrorist."

As westerners wrestle with such characterizations of the Oslo mass murder suspect, the question arises: Nearly a decade after 9/11 created a widespread suspicion of Muslims based on the actions of a fanatical few, is this what it's like to walk a mile in the shoes of stereotype?

"Absolutely," said Mark Kelly Tyler, pastor of Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia. "It clearly puts us in a position where we can't simply say that extreme and violent behavior associated with a religious belief is somehow restricted to Muslim extremists."

"It speaks to cultural assumptions, how we are able to understand something when it (comes from) us," Tyler said. "When one of us does something terrible, we know that's not how we all think, yet we can't see that with other people."

Psychologists say stereotypes come from a deeply human impulse to categorize other people, usually into groups of "us" and "them."

"Our brains are wired that way," said Cheryl Dickter, a psychology professor at the College of William and Mary who studies stereotypes and prejudice.

When Dickter examined brain waves, she found that people process information and pictures about their "us" group differently compared with information about "them" groups. People remembered information better when it reinforced their stereotypes of other groups, she said, and when information didn't fit their stereotype, it was often explained or simply forgotten.

"That's how stereotypes get maintained in the face of all this (contradictory) information," Dickter said.

So during the first reports that someone had detonated a car bomb and then opened fire at a youth camp in Norway, many assumptions clicked into place.

"In all likelihood the attack was launched by part of the jihadist hydra," Thomas Joscelyn, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, wrote within hours on the Weekly Standard website.

The massacre was actually committed, police say, by a blond Norwegian whose photo would not seem out of place in an American college directory. As Breivik's 1,500-page manifesto emerged, calling for violence to rid Europe of non-Christians and those he deemed traitors to Christian Europe, some seized on the religious aspect of his delusions.

Mark Juergensmeyer, editor of the book "Global Religions: An Introduction" and a sociology professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, wrote an essay likening Breivik to Timothy McVeigh, the American who killed 168 people in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. It was the deadliest terrorist attack on U.S. soil until 9/11.

McVeigh and Breivik were both "good-looking young Caucasians, self-enlisted soldiers in an imagined cosmic war to save Christendom . and both were Christian terrorists," Juergensmeyer wrote.

In a column for Salon.com, Alex Pareene said Breivik is not an American-style evangelical, but he listed other connections to Christianity. "All of this says `Christian terrorist,'" Pareene wrote.

Such claims drew strong resistance. "Breivik is not a Christian. That's impossible. No one believing in Jesus commits mass murder," Bill O'Reilly said on his Fox News show.

That makes sense to Joyce Dubensky, CEO of the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding. She said it also makes sense that "millions of Muslims say Osama bin Laden is not a Muslim, that no one who believes in the prophet Muhammad commits mass murder."

"We need to hear Bill O'Reilly, but we also need to hear and understand the voices of the overwhelming Muslim majority around the world who condemn those who are terrorists in the name of their faith," she said.

People have a hard time seeing extremism in their own religion.

For Christians who think of their faith as preaching peace, how to explain the faith-sanctioned killing of the Crusades? For Muslims, what about the thousands of jihadists now following violent interpretations of Islam?

Or consider the Ku Klux Klan's burning crosses. If those were the actions of a misguided minority, shouldn't the same be said of the 19 men who hijacked airliners on 9/11?

Art Markman, a psychology professor at the University of Texas at Austin, said research shows that when people are asked to describe someone else's behavior, they focus on personal characteristics who that person is. But when asked to describe their own behavior, people focus on their individual situation.

"If you're a Christian and you see this Norway murderer, you say, I have these teachings and I haven't murdered anyone, so the teachings can't be the problem," Markman said. "But if you're talking about the `other,' it's different. And if you don't know what the actual Muslim teachings are, it seems like a plausible explanation."

Some Christians say they do know the Muslim teachings, and that they are the problem. "There is a lot of text to justify the link between Islam and terrorism," said Michael Youssef, founder of the Evangelical-Anglican Church of the Apostles in Atlanta. "In the Quaranic text, and in the tradition that was written by the followers."

Many Islamic scholars say violent interpretations are wrong, and Youssef acknowledges that. However, "If your role model is Jesus, then nonviolence will be the way you change things. If your role model is somebody who waged war and killed people, then you say, `I can do that,'" said Youssef, who was born in Egypt to Christian parents.

But Arsalan Iftikhar, an international human rights lawyer and author of the upcoming book "Islamic Pacifism: Global Muslims in the Post-Obama Era," said the Norway attacks "proved that terrorism can be committed by a person of any race, nationality or religion."

Iftikhar, who is Muslim, said one effect of the tragedy would be "to restart a debate on the term terrorism, and who and when the term should be applied."

"Sadly, the last ten years, the term has been co-opted in public discourse and only applies to Muslims," he said. "Now here we have a right-wing Christian extremist who has committed an act of terror, and many people don't know how to react."

___

Jesse Washington can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/jessewashington or jwashington(at)ap.org.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Mass transit security isn't perfect (in some places it's non-existent), that's also a given.

People stereotype because it's expedient for them to do so. That's not to justify it - but it is obvious why it happens.

BTW - Sofiyya, if that thread is "hijacked" - you sure did your part in making that happen

Edited August 1, 2011 by fishdude

[Sofiyya 1,687]

Mass transit security isn't perfect (in some places it's non-existent), that's also a given.

People stereotype because it's expedient for them to do so. That's not to justify it - but it is obvious why it happens.

BTW - Sofiyya, if that thread is "hijacked" - you sure did your part in making that happen

Imagine the nerve of me, posting in my own thread!

[IR5FORMUMSIE 850]

If stereotypes don't hold, there's no complaining about searching grandmas in wheelchairs at airport security.

This is a related article from a hijacked thread.

'Christian terrorist'? Norway case strikes debate

Norway massacre exposes Christians to 'terrorist' stereotype Muslims have faced since 9/11

By JESSE WASHINGTON AP National Writer

The Associated Press

Originally Published: 7/31/2011 1:16:00 PM

When the "enemy" is different, an outsider, it's easier to draw quick conclusions, to develop stereotypes. It's simply human nature: There is "us," and there is "them." But what happens when the enemy looks like us from the same tradition and belief system?

That is the conundrum in the case of Norway and Anders Behring Brevik, who is being called a "Christian extremist" or "Christian terrorist."

As westerners wrestle with such characterizations of the Oslo mass murder suspect, the question arises: Nearly a decade after 9/11 created a widespread suspicion of Muslims based on the actions of a fanatical few, is this what it's like to walk a mile in the shoes of stereotype?

"Absolutely," said Mark Kelly Tyler, pastor of Mother Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Philadelphia. "It clearly puts us in a position where we can't simply say that extreme and violent behavior associated with a religious belief is somehow restricted to Muslim extremists."

"It speaks to cultural assumptions, how we are able to understand something when it (comes from) us," Tyler said. "When one of us does something terrible, we know that's not how we all think, yet we can't see that with other people."

Psychologists say stereotypes come from a deeply human impulse to categorize other people, usually into groups of "us" and "them."

"Our brains are wired that way," said Cheryl Dickter, a psychology professor at the College of William and Mary who studies stereotypes and prejudice.

When Dickter examined brain waves, she found that people process information and pictures about their "us" group differently compared with information about "them" groups. People remembered information better when it reinforced their stereotypes of other groups, she said, and when information didn't fit their stereotype, it was often explained or simply forgotten.

"That's how stereotypes get maintained in the face of all this (contradictory) information," Dickter said.

So during the first reports that someone had detonated a car bomb and then opened fire at a youth camp in Norway, many assumptions clicked into place.

"In all likelihood the attack was launched by part of the jihadist hydra," Thomas Joscelyn, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, wrote within hours on the Weekly Standard website.

The massacre was actually committed, police say, by a blond Norwegian whose photo would not seem out of place in an American college directory. As Breivik's 1,500-page manifesto emerged, calling for violence to rid Europe of non-Christians and those he deemed traitors to Christian Europe, some seized on the religious aspect of his delusions.

Mark Juergensmeyer, editor of the book "Global Religions: An Introduction" and a sociology professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara, wrote an essay likening Breivik to Timothy McVeigh, the American who killed 168 people in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. It was the deadliest terrorist attack on U.S. soil until 9/11.

McVeigh and Breivik were both "good-looking young Caucasians, self-enlisted soldiers in an imagined cosmic war to save Christendom . and both were Christian terrorists," Juergensmeyer wrote.

In a column for Salon.com, Alex Pareene said Breivik is not an American-style evangelical, but he listed other connections to Christianity. "All of this says `Christian terrorist,'" Pareene wrote.

Such claims drew strong resistance. "Breivik is not a Christian. That's impossible. No one believing in Jesus commits mass murder," Bill O'Reilly said on his Fox News show.

That makes sense to Joyce Dubensky, CEO of the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding. She said it also makes sense that "millions of Muslims say Osama bin Laden is not a Muslim, that no one who believes in the prophet Muhammad commits mass murder."

"We need to hear Bill O'Reilly, but we also need to hear and understand the voices of the overwhelming Muslim majority around the world who condemn those who are terrorists in the name of their faith," she said.

People have a hard time seeing extremism in their own religion.

For Christians who think of their faith as preaching peace, how to explain the faith-sanctioned killing of the Crusades? For Muslims, what about the thousands of jihadists now following violent interpretations of Islam?

Or consider the Ku Klux Klan's burning crosses. If those were the actions of a misguided minority, shouldn't the same be said of the 19 men who hijacked airliners on 9/11?

Art Markman, a psychology professor at the University of Texas at Austin, said research shows that when people are asked to describe someone else's behavior, they focus on personal characteristics who that person is. But when asked to describe their own behavior, people focus on their individual situation.

"If you're a Christian and you see this Norway murderer, you say, I have these teachings and I haven't murdered anyone, so the teachings can't be the problem," Markman said. "But if you're talking about the `other,' it's different. And if you don't know what the actual Muslim teachings are, it seems like a plausible explanation."

Some Christians say they do know the Muslim teachings, and that they are the problem. "There is a lot of text to justify the link between Islam and terrorism," said Michael Youssef, founder of the Evangelical-Anglican Church of the Apostles in Atlanta. "In the Quaranic text, and in the tradition that was written by the followers."

Many Islamic scholars say violent interpretations are wrong, and Youssef acknowledges that. However, "If your role model is Jesus, then nonviolence will be the way you change things. If your role model is somebody who waged war and killed people, then you say, `I can do that,'" said Youssef, who was born in Egypt to Christian parents.

But Arsalan Iftikhar, an international human rights lawyer and author of the upcoming book "Islamic Pacifism: Global Muslims in the Post-Obama Era," said the Norway attacks "proved that terrorism can be committed by a person of any race, nationality or religion."

Iftikhar, who is Muslim, said one effect of the tragedy would be "to restart a debate on the term terrorism, and who and when the term should be applied."

"Sadly, the last ten years, the term has been co-opted in public discourse and only applies to Muslims," he said. "Now here we have a right-wing Christian extremist who has committed an act of terror, and many people don't know how to react."

___

Jesse Washington can be reached at http://www.twitter.com/jessewashington or jwashington(at)ap.org.

That thread was hijacked? Better start rounding up Norwegians and Muslims.

Mass transit security isn't perfect (in some places it's non-existent), that's also a given.

People stereotype because it's expedient for them to do so. That's not to justify it - but it is obvious why it happens.

BTW - Sofiyya, if that thread is "hijacked" - you sure did your part in making that happen

Of course, it's far easier to deal with vague impressions than with cold, hard facts.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

Imagine the nerve of me, posting in my own thread!

I thought you wanted a legitimate discussion.

[IR5FORMUMSIE 850]

Norway's Terrorist in Disguise

Anders Behring Breivik defied the stereotype about who a terrorist is, and is yet another reminder that extremism knows no racial, religious, or ethnic boundaries. By Tara McKelvey.

Jul 23, 2011 7:45 PM EDT

"Terrorism is theater," as security analyst Brian M. Jenkins wrote,

...

Yet real-life terrorists are not the shadowy figures of 24; they are just like us. They come from a variety of backgrounds and hold an array of views, but they are clear-headed about their actions and, however misguided, have the courage of their convictions. That, combined with their utterly savage behavior, is what makes them terrorists, not their faith, appearance, or ethnic background, and is also what makes them such an insidious threat.

There, that's better. The fear is much more real than an actual threat but it makes for great theatre.