To think those who try to justify the Norwegian bomber are not even as bad as a racist just sick.

[maypole1]

Turned on the radio today, and can't believe how people are trying to put this on the Muslims and justify the crazy bomber.

And even suggesting we should listen to what he has to say, I just wonder why these same people were calling for us to listen to Osama after 9/11

Because by the same logic he might have had a message (god help us)

And I wonder if any of these net mums just have the balls to say I am a racist and what, because I have more respect for that person than someone who uses immigration as a fig leaf for their racism.

Just before we start if any one uses the term English please be clear whom you are talking about

Any one who is born here

Or any one who is white

Also the term immigrant means someone who is in the country legally and can't claim any benefits and who has to work

Asylum seeker is different

Just want to be clear

lady - you always do the same thing, expect the opposer to disect exactly 'what' the english culture is? i can't and won't do that, it is not someting tangiable that you can just label and put on a plate, the same that i wouldn't expect someone from another culture to put on a plate what it is to be them either, put it this way, it is just wanting to be accepted and made to feel part of something by not being made to feel invisable. you are only defensive becaues you were born muslim. there are so many large muslim communites in this country which are closed off, just because you were born muslim and have muslim family members why do you ignore and deny this. for something that you think is in my imagination (the not mixing) it is the 'imagination' of thousands upon thousands of other people that live in this country. and you keep bringing eastern european people into this, do you have a problem with them as well as not particularly liking english culture too? i do not live in an area with many eastern europeans but i have to be honest, from what i have seen they do mix alot more, probably because there is not such a different culture thing going down

Bull - just because i am not happy about living among a culture that doesn't want anything to do with me makes me not a nice person, what a load of absolute bollocks, i am just daring to say what alot of people think,

Really what people do you mean white people or English people because I am English and not white and I don't think like you , thank god

Well you're not doing much for your cause of making people "mix" with your attitude are you? Instead of complaining about it on MN, why don't you do something proactive to change it? People make countries, countries don't make people.

I haven't read all the comments, but just wanted to say I agree with the op. I haven't been listening to the radio, but I've been stunned by some of the reader comments on news websites which are in the same vein. The most common are along the lines of, "Well, he shouldn't have killed all those people, but you can understand why he was led to it." I mean WTF? That, in my book, is certainly not condemning but giving tacit support for murder, full stop.

The insistence in the UK and US press that he was just a nutty lone gunman is starting to unravel. The shooter has stated today there are two other "cells" of activists ready to carry out attacks. Who knows if he's lying, but it would be naive to assume so.

The media coverage in Norway has been completely different. I lived there for awhile many years ago and I'm not surprised that they have approached this completely differently - with sorrow but solidarity amongst all Norwegians (including Muslim Norwegians and Socialist Norwegians), not bent on revenge nor attempting to collude with the gunman. We could learn a helluva lot from them.

i think it a mixture of laughable and somewhat sad that my openly voicing that i would like people to mix more as being shocking and making me this awful person quite ridiculous. enough said, this is going nowhere.

This thread is strange, but now I've read this far a couple of things occur to me:

Why is it only muslim ladies who're being targeted here? Do you mind Hindu women wearing dupattas?

paisley, FWIW, my husband is an immigrant. He fasts during the appropriate seasons of the year, he attends religious services where women cover their heads, he refuses to enter buildings his friends have invited him to when he has moral objections to the 'English' culture on offer (nudity, pornograpic images). In the city where we live there is a strong immigrant community and they have their own food shops and restaurants, send children to language and religious school, and speak their language in public.

None of the above are peculiar to muslims, and I am 100% certain none are hallmarks of people who 'refuse to integrate'. DH is white and Eastern European, btw.

Oh, and FFS can we please stop using 'nutter' and 'nutty' to describe the Norwegian gunman?

It is an offensive term for reasons already explained once on this thread.

To me this man is a terrorist. Evil with distorted views on the world. He may have been acting alone but it appears he has some sympathisers at least among the neo-nazi, ultra-right wing, white supremacist, islamophobic types.
As long as there are terrorists there will be those who support their cause secretly or publicly and who will even try to justify their evil actions.
This man is no different to Al-Quaeda (sp?), the IRA & the Protestant terrorists in Northern Ireland, ETA, Palestinian terrorists and any other group who think it's acceptable to blow up or shoot innocent civillians, politicians, soldiers or police in peacetime.
Sadly he will only get max 21 yrs in jail but then there are NI terrorists (both sides) who killed people & served barely 10 years. (However if you are a Muslim terrorist in Europe they throw away the key - sorry I'm a bit of cynic).

I don't think he is 'mad'.

I think he has acted on his beliefs in order to try to bring home (in his opinion) to the Norwegian population what Islamification means to him.

I think he has tried to make the Norwegian population think more about the Islamification of Europe.

I think what he did was murderous and wrong and bad and awful.

On a certain level I agree with OP and KRIRI. Then, a small part of me classes the people respond to the killings with "well, he shouldn't have killed all those people, but you can understand why he was led to it." in the same group as people who after 9/11 and 7/7 said "well, they shouldn't have killed all those people, but you can understand how they were led to it.".

The latter is a very "mainstream" view that has been expressed pretty freely. The people who are describing his actions as a critical reaction to multiculturalism have probably put up with years of George Galloway, the Guardian et al saying terrorist attacks on the West are just a critical reaction to Anglo-American foreign policy. They're both pretty gross views.

I too would like to add please stop calling this terrorist a 'nutter'. Firstly it is an offensive word for a mentally ill person. Secondly many terrorists aren't mentally ill - they have strong beliefs which lead them to commit atrocities in the name of those beliefs. If this man is a 'nutter' then for example; do you consider the Real IRA to be mentally ill too?
Are Catholic or Protestant terrorists 'crazy' or is it just 'the Muslims'?!! FGS. People need to accept the fact that terrorists can be any religion or culture; & to accept the uncomfortable fact that the people who commit atrocities can be perfectly sane. They can also seem very 'normal' despite being capable of evil.
Just as an example look at certain minor Nazis who escaped conviction or served very light sentences after WW2 for terrible crimes against civillians. They returned to being family men - many with successful careers! So it seems that they weren't mentally ill either.
My point being - commiting atrocities does not mean someone is mentally ill. It means they are capable of evil and we need to accept that.

I agree with Kallista he is not mentally ill or 'crazy' but just pure evil. Terrorist in every sense of the word. I hope there is some loophole in the Norweigan law that will prevent him from getting out in as little as 21 years, think of the damage he could go on to do and the heartache it will cause to the families of the victims

No it's religion that worries me, 'brown' says nothing about a person, religious belief and culture says a great deal.

An important part of British/English culture is that people can voice their opinions without looking over their shoulders or expecting to be hanged or stoned for them. I don't think that freedom exists in any Muslim led country. LOTM, you take this for granted despite your smartarse sneering. You enjoy living here and the freedoms you get, you know they don't exist in many other countries.

Anyway, everyone is keen to integrate with the British benefits, council housing and health services even if they don't contribute anything to the country.

Creighton, I suggest you tread very carefully.

"You enjoy living here and the freedoms you get, you know they don't exist in many other countries."

I'm sorry, did I mention what country I was originally from? Do you have any IDEA what culture I was raised in? Or do you presume, that because my father is a Muslim that I too, must wear a hijab and go out of my way to make good ol' British people feel uncomfortable? YOu have NO idea about freedoms. You think women have freedom in the UK? You think that women are not slaves here but merely to different things?

If you genuinely believe that you are a "free" woman because you live in the UK, then you are highly, highly mistaken.

Please don't patronise me by saying I "enjoy the benefits and freedoms here". I work damned hard.

I can tell from your post that you're British, which is great, but so am I.

Lady...We do have freedoms in Britain and many more than most, if not all, countries. Please feel free to tell us all which countries you have in mind when you dispute this fact.

My god there's some drivel being espoused on here!
Creighton you do realise that Muslim countries where people are likely to be stoned for their beliefs are in the tiny minority?
There are plenty of non-Muslim countries that are oppressive too - I wouldn't be too quick to sound off in North Korea, for example. Or China for that matter.
It's currently a "Muslim" news service that is probably about the best example of free press available - Al Jazeera, which seems a pretty shining beacon compared to the disgraceful corruption of large sectors of the British press that has just been exposed.

I'm sure 'free press' is reference to 'without state control'.

The huge difference between autocracies without religion, whilst just as frightening and inhumane, is that they do not do it under the 'rule of God'. Although I must agree that North Korea and China are horrific countries that have replaced 'God' with 'country'.

LOTM I responded to your sneering about British culture. You spoke as if all that happens here is the wearing of short skirts and lots of drinking. You know full well that that is not the sum total of the culture here.

I said that you enjoy the freedoms that exist here. I know that life here is far from perfect. I am the child of immigrants. I try to be reasonable about what I take in from the news. When I first heard about the bombings in Norway I heard Al Qaeda mentioned, but I did manage to resist falling into the trap of assuming it was them.

The mention of benefits was me sneering about the rejection of British culture. No one, even the people who despise the British and refuse to integrate, manages to reject the social welfare system set up by people in this country. That is an important part of the culture here, trying to share resources and look after each other.

As for telling me to tread very carefully, that sounds like a threat, I don't need to tread carefully, you need to think before you sound off in your unpleasant manner. I don't know where you come from or what you wear. It is of no import to me but I do object to people who know how hard it is in the rest of the world complaining about how rotten it is here, or that there is nothing here to admire. I don't think that the queue of people trying to get into this country is diminishing, do you?

LOTM- in what way are British women not 'free' (any less than British men that is)?

Op - The problem is, there are 1000's ( if not millions ) of people across Europe who will justify his actions. - that's why I'm worried for the future of Europe and for my childrens future.

Well, fuck my old boots: a thread on which I am in total agreement with LOTM.

Looking at this whole argument perversely, perhaps the ONLY even slightly positive thing that may come out of this whole appalling shitstorm is that the sneery Muslim-haters who are so quick to write off an entire religion and its people as blood-thirsty and barbaric have some actual proof that white christians are just as capable of awful, AWFUL things. Bad people come from all places. We need to stop pointing fingers at entire communities and realise that people are cunts, sometimes.

It is awful that some people are effectively trying to justify what the gun man did in Norway. I can understand criminologists and forensic psychologists trying to understand him - this isn't the same as condoning. It is trying to work out why people do awful criminal acts so that hopefully some of these can be prevented.

There is an English culture and it is naive to suggest otherwise. If you live abroad as I have you begin to see the often subtle ways cultures are very different.

It is easy to ridicule people's views when they aren't as articulate as you LOTM. However I would be more impressed if you actually responded to the points people raise.

I'm reading this thread with tears in my eyes.
I'm a muslim and proud to be one, I converted 6 years ago and feel happier and more free than ever before in my life. I am white, european. It was my choice, of my free will to convert, no-one forced me in the name of islamification of Europe.
Why has the actions of a norwegian, extreme right terrorist led to another witch hunt on muslims. Why do muslims are getting the blame...
Why can't people differentiate islamic fundamentalists from the actual religion of islam. No-one is blaming christianism for the actions of the killer even though he identifies himself as a christian.
Islam does not teach to hate, please please don't judge the religion based on news stories. Ask us, talk to us and we can tell you what Islam really is.
This just really makes me sad.