“Democracy and basic rights are the only principles we can rally around”

“His is the face of a fanatic. Someone so deeply convinced about his own ideas that he has ceased listening to anyone else. He is willing to sacrifice himself and others for what he believes to be the one single truth: the dream of a homogenous and monocultural society, a “pure” place to live.

The Oslo killer has searched history, ideologies and racism for legitimacy. He has been able to find like-minded people on the Internet, supporting his utopian idea of being able to exclude all the “others,” those with different ideas and cultures.

Preventing fanaticism takes a democratic tradition with an understanding that all societies are pluralistic. We will never find an idea, a language, or a culture that everybody can agree to. As much as we might feel frustrated about it, our reality is a multifaceted, multicultural world. Democracy and basic human rights are the only principles that we can rally around, that will allow us to manage our different views and find political compromises to ensure that we live with respect for one another.

The most important fight today is against fanaticism and extremism in all religions and ideologies, against prejudices that will bring us back to the darkness of the Middle Ages.

Fear and intolerance are far-reaching weapons and the most important battlefields are people’s minds and thoughts. But we have too many historical examples of violence as a method for fanatics. Even though they might not lead to genocide, ethnic cleansing or other atrocities, propaganda about “cultural purity” creates suffering and fanaticism.”