Breivik Indicted

There is no question of his guilt. There is only the question of his sanity.

And Anders Behring Breivik, a team of psychiatrists in Norway has concluded, is insane. His unprecedented murder rampage of last July was driven, in their opinion, by “paranoid psychosis” and “psychotic rage.” Based on their findings, prosecutors will seek to confine Breivik in a psychiatric hospital rather than in prison.

The verdict "disappointed" Breivik. "He wants to get sentenced to prisong, because he thinks he is sane," said his lawyer, Geir Leppestad. "He feels that he made these actions based on rational considerations." Many others agree, questioning how an insane man could have so painstakingly premeditated the terrorist onslaught that left 78 people dead.  

A barrage of gruesome details emerged at his indictment last week. They began with the two-thousand-pound fertilizer bomb that Breivik detonated outside a government building in Oslo, killing eight. One of the survivors had to have a foot- long splinter surgically removed from her head. Another had to have a leg amputated below the knee. Several others were seriously wounded in the blast.

Prosecutors then described how Breivik drove to Utoya island, the location of the Labor Party youth camp, where he opened fire at terrified crowds with two automatic weapons. “There was panic and fear of death in children, adolescents and adults during the shooting, reinforced by the fact that there were limited opportunities to flee or hide,” said prosecutor Inga Beher Engh.

Brievik, she noted, shot exactly 100 people, some of them up to eight times, 56 of them in the head. One camper drowned trying to escape. Of the 69 who died, all but seven were under the age of 25. Almost half were under 18. The youngest had just turned 14.

Breivik listened calmly as a 19-page summary of his crimes was presented to the court. He is formally charged with “acts of terrorism involving murder, with the intention of destabilizing the basic functions of society.” Although Breivik has admitted to both the bombing and shooting, he has entered a plea of “not guilty,” on the grounds that his victims were traitors abetting the Muslim colonization of Norway.     

A second psychiatric evaluation is due to be published on April 10th, less than a week before Breivik's trial is scheduled to begin. If it conflicts with the first report, prosecutors may decide to seek prison for Breivik after all. Norwegian law allows for a maximum penalty of 21 years, but convicts can be held indefinitely if they are judged to remain a threat to society.

I haven't entirely forgotten about this blog, even if everyone else has. Yet I'm far from finished with my Scandinaivian history project; in some ways, it's more of an obsession than ever of mine. A blog was never the format that I envisioned for my multibiography of history's 81 most influential Scandinavians. I tried it because it was recommended to me--and available for free. Although blogging proved more fun than I anticipated, and has helped focus my thoughts on this undertaking, it has outlived most of its usefulness. Soon, I hope, there will be a proffesional-looking "Scandinaviana" home page. It will link to the Scandinavian 81, in progress, and also to this blog, or another like it, in which I'll continue to report and reminisce about Scandinavian-related news, particularly pertaining to influential persons of Scandinavian descent. Other features will follow as they occur to me.

When I finally bother to learn how to do it, I'll be linking rather than sumarizing most Scandinavian-related stories, offering only the briefest comments to contextualize and tie them together.

Fortunately, I'm far from alone in this brave new world. I have one friend, for example, who's just designed an excellent web page to accompany his recently published book, also excellent, on Seattle history. He claims to be eager to help me design and create a new page for Scandinaviana. I have another friend who's a very talented artist. She has just published an intensely personal graphic novel, and has started working on another; but despite her workload, she has agreed to create a "Jormungandr" logo for me, probably to be used as the "header" for the 81. I saw some of her initial sketches, which were beautiful. I can't wait to see the final rendition and to post it here.

In short, I believe better times are ahead for this project. It might even turn into something someone might actually want to look at!

....Meanwhile, in Scandinavian news....The low level war between Denmark and Somalia continues. Readers of Scandinaviana  may recall that late last year seven Danish citizens, including three children, were released after a capitivy of several months at the hands of Somoli pirates. A $1 million ransom was allegedly paid. Last Tuesday more hostages were freed by a different method as the Danish navy intercepted and attacked a Somali pirate "mothership".  17 suspected pirates were apprehended in the fight, and over a dozen captives liberated. Two hostages, however, were apparently killed during the fighting--by what means, the New York Times did not specify.




Did you know there even was a Danish navy? I'll bet it was the most action it's seen since King Canute the Great invaded England in 1015.

Two more distinct modern countries could hardly be imagined than these two antagonists, Denmark and Somalia. Denmark is a stable industrialized democracy with little unemployment, crime or corruption. Its citizens enjoy one of the world's highest average incomes, and they're apparently among the happiest people in the world. Somalia, by contrast, is a failed state even by African standards. There hasn't been a government to speak of in over twenty years; the country is controlled by brutal warlords, and its people have lived with violence and extreme poverty on a daily basis for decades.   

It's worth reflecting that Denmark was once also best known to the outside world for piracy. For hundreds of years Danish pirates invaded and inflicted untold misery on England, Ireland, Frisia (Holland) and France--burning towns, abducting women, and carrying as much loot back north with them as they could stuff into their fearsome dragon-headed warships. It was a long, long road from Viking times to the age of Social Democracy. The Somalia of this epoch seems to have been a relatively tranquil and civilized place. A sobering reminder of how the fortunes of history can, and indeed must, shift over the long course of time.   

Trollhunter

I finally saw Trollhunter, the Norwegian monster mockumentary notable for having achieved some box office success last summer in the U.S. (at least here in Seattle). Trolls, the terrifyingly mishapen griants out of Norse mythology, are real; the Norwegian government, like the American government in the Xfiles, conspiratorially keeps this secret from the public. Occassionally, the monsters stray from their remote wilderness territories, threatening human and animal life. It then falls to Hans (Otto Jespersen), the government's designated troll hunter, to track down and exterminate them--humanely, if possible, but above all discretely. Under no circumstances are the people to discover the truth, that trolls are real. Human fatalities of troll attacks are blamed on bears. But, disgruntled by the thankless task of "troll management," Hans permits three determined college students to observe and film him at work. After all, the people "have the right to know."

Though I found Trollhunter a satisfying blend of horror, humor, science fiction and satire, it left me slightly disappointed. The word-of-mouth recommendations I received were all glowing. I let my expectations get high. It's a good movie--unpretentious, funny and fun. Early on, it achieves genuine suspense. It just didn't live up what I wanted to see.

Sadly, an American remake of Trollhunter is already in production. Americans are a parochial people. Like baby birds, we need our cinematic fare chewed up and regurgitated for us: Americanized. Scandinavians watch Holywood movies all the time.They don't require, as we seem to require, their own specially-tailored versions of even the pulpiest of motion pictures. What's the matter with us?      

I predict the American Trollhunter will

(1) have twenty times and budget of,

(2) and be less than half as good as the original.




    

One century ago today five Norwegian explorers, led by Roald Amundsen, were the first human beings ever to set foot on the South Pole.

Utoya Massacre Update

Confessed mass murderer Anders Breivik, self-described "military commander in the Norwegian resistance movement and Knight Templar Norway," had his first public court hearing in Oslo on Monday. "I acknowledge the acts, but I do not plead guilty," he said, adding that the court had no legitimacy because it was sanctioned by multiculturalism, "a hateful ideology that aims to destroy Norwegian society." The judge remanded his custody through early February. Breivik's lawyer, Geir Lippestad, has asked that his client be freed. He must also be insane.

Brievik requested permission to address the relatives of his victims, who had been permitted in the courtroom with him for the first time. What might he possibly have said to the mothers and fathers of the children he slaughtered? The judge denied Brievik's request, and ruled that he is to remain in solitary confinement. He will be allowed access to newspapers and visitors next month. His "sadistic torture" continues.

Breivik's trial is tentatively scheduled to begin in April. Before then, the courtroom will be restructured to double its current capacity, and include a press center for the hundreds of journalists expected to be covering the trial. Breivik faces up to twenty one years in prison. That's not a typo. It's not a sick joke. The man who murdered 77 people, most of them teenagers, in a record three hour killing spree last June, could be a free man under Norwegian law by the time he reaches his mid fifties. If additionally charged under "crimes against humanity" he could be out by his early sixties.

I can't honestly imagine that, law or no law, Anders Brievik will ever walk free. Some loophole, even in liberal, rights' vigilant Norway, surely will be found to keep him locked up in a cage forever. In a perverse way, it's unfortunate. If by some miracle he ever was released, vigilante justice presumably will quickly, finally, end his life. But I believe he'll spend the rest of his existence confined within and provided for by the very maternalistic state that he railed against.

Maybe that was his deepest intention of his apocalyptic rampage. To crawl back into the symbolic womb of the state.

Axel Axgil

Axel Axgil, the gay rights activist instrumental in making Denmark the first country in the world to legalize same sex marriage (1989), has died. He was 96.

Originally named Axel Lundahl-Madsen, he and his partner, Eigil Eskildsen, defiantly amalgamized their first names into the shared last name of "Axgil." They were in prison for distributing pornography at the time. 

In 1948, Axel organized "the Association," one of the earliest gay rights groups, upon being terminated from his job for being a homosexual. Forty one years later, he and Eigil were the first gay couple to be legally married in European and, I presume, modern world history.



 

Nordic 9/11

The government buildings that were ripped open in last July's bombing are still cordoned in Oslo. Nearby Utoya, the island where the bomber then slaughtered scores of children, remains riddled with hundreds of hollow point bullet holes. The scars of a devastating terrorist attack are fresh on the Norwegian landscape.

They're also fresh on the Norwegian national psyche. "We haven't got to the stage where people have gotten mad yet," said Norway's king Harald in a rare interview. "I think we'll go through that as well. That has to come and go before we finish with this. And we have to let that happen."

According to the New York Times, King Harald is widely percieved by his nominal subjects to have performed adaquately in the aftermath of the attack, giving a moving speech on television, and weeping at the national memorial service for the 77 victims Norway's homegrown, right wing Christian terrorist.

His Majesty referred to the attack, predictably, as Norway's 9/11.

King Harald, the first native born Norwegian king since the 14th century, is scheduled to arrive in these United States later this year, with his wife, Queen Sonja. The royal couple will visit Manhattan's ground zero for a second time, before heading off to Minnesota to address the American Scandinavian Foundation.