Also published on Gates of Vienna
Following the tragic events of
July 22 last year, many conservatives in Norway have been subjected to a
Norwegian version of the Spanish inquisition in which prominent public figures
from the political and cultural establishments have been allowed to pontificate
and condemn those that they perceive to be in cahoots with the mentally
deranged terrorist Anders Behring Breivik.
The inquisition has been a long,
dirty drawn-out public affair on which accusations have been made with a
fiendish fervour. For those on the receiving end, it must have be an absolute
nightmare, especially when considering the viciousness and poorly disguised
hatred that seem to fuel some of the accusers. These modern-day inquisitors
have many names, and there are probably many reasons why they have decided to
take on the role of judge, jury and executioner, but in this article I will
only focus on one of these agents of orthodoxy, as ultimately they are really
one and the same and speaking with a collective voice. Their arguments and
accusations all seem to have been taken from the same poorly written
manuscript.
Vidar Enebakk is one of these
inquisitors. He is a 41-year-old science historian who has worked tirelessly
trying to convince a traumatized nation that the essayist and author Fjordman
shares a moral responsibility for the murders of 77 innocent people carried out
in Oslo and on Utøya on July 22, 2011. One would expect that Enebakk — who has
been trying to implicate Fjordman in these grizzly deeds for sixteen months now
by writing a staggering 144 lengthy comments on a major Norwegian online
discussion forum and co-authoring a book in which he puts the moral blame on
Fjordman for the worst-ever terror attacks on Norwegian soil — would have solid
evidence to back up his pernicious allegations, and in particular given that we
know Enebakk himself is a scientist. But unfortunately for Enebakk, his
accusations are just empty shells.
The problem with Enebakk’s
personal crusade against Fjordman is that the evidence he uses simply doesn’t
support his allegations. What Enebakk is doing, and I am going to use a
Norwegian phrase here, is trying to make soup out of carpentry nails. Enebakk and
all the other Norwegian and international inquisitors are acutely aware that
Fjordman was acquitted of any wrongdoing by the Norwegian courts and the
Norwegian police pretty much from the get-go. Enebakk realizes that he
therefore can’t accuse Fjordman of being an actual accomplice in the attacks,
but he has solved this tricky conundrum by instead accusing Fjordman of being
morally responsible for the attacks. It’s a way for him and others to
circumvent and ignore the fact that Fjordman had absolutely nothing to do with
the attacks or the terrorist, and still enable him and others to keep attacking
Fjordman without having to prove any tangible connections between the two.
Enebakk and his allies want to convict Fjordman without having to worry about
such pesky things as due process and proper evidence.
There is of course no such term
as moral guilt in modern jurisprudence. In a court of law a defendant is either
guilty or not guilty, meaning that the law cannot allow that a person be
acquitted in a criminal court case because of lack of evidence, and then
receive a conviction of moral responsibility for the same crime.
If someone is acquitted in a
court of law of, say, rape, then that person can legally sue anyone who in the
lead-up to and after the court case has publicly stated that the accused is a
rapist. That is law at its most basic level, and it should be pretty
straightforward. Unfortunately, however, this message seems to have eluded
Enebakk and his cohorts, as this is exactly the type of activities that they
are engaging in.
I’m surprised that a scientist
like Enebakk doesn’t seem capable of grasping this simple fact, but maybe
deep-down he does. Enebakk should be aware that he could easily be sued for
defamation and slander based on the hundreds of incriminating and highly
offensive statements he has published about Fjordman — and that goes for
everyone else that has slandered Fjordman online and in the press.
So we have established that there
is no such thing as moral guilt in modern law, although I’m sure it’s a term
that Stalin would have appreciated very much. I’m also convinced that Vidar
Enebakk would have had a brilliant career in the Soviet legal system if he had
been around at the time. The logical fallacy of Enebakk’s philosophy is that a
person cannot be innocent and guilty at the same time. But I can see that this
is a possibility in Enebakk’s own universe; he seems to operate with a
completely different set of rules than the rest of us.
Vidar Enebakk is like a rabid dog
chasing a bone. He just will not stop or slow down. He’s running on autopilot.
He has his victim locked in his sights, and he can smell blood.
Furthermore, I maintain that
Enebakk is a nasty character. How else would one describe a person who has no
moral qualms about accusing an innocent individual of being complicit in the
most heinous criminal act committed in Norway in modern history? What type of
person would claim that: “Hey, I’m not saying that you participated in the
crime; I’m merely saying that in moral terms you are guilty of killing 77 young
people who were butchered in the most horrific manner possible on an island
that they had no opportunity of escaping from — but no hard feelings, eh?”
To claim that someone who has
been proven by the courts to be innocent, who hasn’t done anything to aid and
abet the perpetrator in the initial planning stage nor on the actual day of the
attack, was somehow with the deranged perpetrator in spirit when the
perpetrator fired his bullets into the heads and hearts of his young victims
and watched them die by the dozens on the shoreline of Utøya, is absolutely
disgusting and sickening. I cannot understand how such a person can bear to
look at himself in the mirror. Only a truly twisted and vicious person would
accuse someone else of such a horrible thing.
In his defence I would have to
say that I don’t believe that Enebakk has thoroughly grasped the gruesome logic
of his accusations. But if I’m incorrect in my assumption, and he actually does
know what he’s doing, then there is definitely something wrong inside his head.
Has Enebakk ever thought about how it affects a person to be accused of having
contributed to the taking of 77 lives? Most people would go to great lengths
just to clear their name for some minor infraction such as shoplifting if they
felt that they had been wrongfully accused. How does Enebakk think it feels
like to be accused of killing 77 innocent people? What does he think it feels
like for Fjordman’s family and close friends? Has Enebakk no mental boundaries
whatsoever? Is he so mentally corrupt that he doesn’t have a single decent bone
left in his body?
Let’s take a look at the
arguments that Enebakk seem to think are so rock-solid that there can be
absolutely no doubt about Fjordman’s moral guilt. Let’s examine the logic
behind his accusations. Is it possible to discern the sharp logic behind the
thought process that prompted the scientist to reach the conclusion that
Fjordman is actively encouraging people to commit violence?
Enebakk’s main justifications for
incriminating Fjordman are as follows:
As posted at Verdidebatt.no August 14 2012:
“Both Fjordman and Breivik
directly advocate arming the populations — Breivik by including the last of this
quote by Fjordman in his compendium (Chapter 2.58):
“In Praise of the First and
Second Amendments” (The Brussels Journal 20. July 2006):
“If their governments are no
longer capable of protecting them and their freedom of speech, Europeans may
have to arm themselves to do this on their own.”
“Civil War in Sweden?” (Gates of
Vienna 2. July 2008):
“In general, if you live in any
Western European country, you should arm yourself very soon, one way or the
other.”
“Will Holland Survive the 21st
Century” (Gates of Vienna 9. September 2009):
“My advice to Westerners in
general is to arm themselves immediately, first of all mentally with knowledge
of the enemy and pride in their own culture and heritage, but also physically
with guns and the skills to use them.”
Posted at Verdidebatt.no August 5 2012:
"It isn’t Fjordman’s criticism of
Islam that is the problem, but rather his repeated calls for arming the
population and to use violence. The problem is not that he is against Islam or
favors deportation, but his rejection of our democratic system and the support
of violence against political leaders."
As we can see from the above
quotes, Enebakk bases his arguments on Fjordman’s defence of the Second
Amendment of the American Constitution, which is an absolutely remarkable
display of logic. I am also a supporter of the Second Amendment; does that mean
that I’m also responsible for the Utøya massacre? It’s amazing that a scientist
can justify his arguments on such preposterous and highly illogical basis.
Maintaining that people have a
right to defend themselves doesn’t mean supporting the idea that people have
the right to indiscriminately start killing innocent humans on a tiny Norwegian
island. Being positive towards a principle doesn’t mean that one is an
accomplice to a crime if someone decides to carry out a criminal act and then
justify this act with a reference to said principle.
Suggesting that people should arm
themselves in order to protect themselves if civil unrest breaks out isn’t
advocating or condoning violence; it is common sense. It’s also an argument
which is espoused by nations and armies all over the world. No one would in
their right mind claim that supporting the idea of having a national army is
the same as being a supporter of war — unless, of course, you’re using the same
logic as Enebakk.
If Enebakk believes that
Islamophobia is a despicable act, is he then ideologically responsibility for
the murders of Islamophobes in the Muslim world?
Or what about vocal opponents of
high taxes — are they guilty of ideologically influencing tax evaders?
Or what about pro-gun Americans,
do they share moral responsibility for every single gun crime committed in America,
solely on the basis of their opinions?
Enebakk has also stated that he
believes that Fjordman is morally guilty because Breivik republished 45 of
Fjordman’s essays in his manifesto:
As posted at Verdidebatt.no June 13 2012
Then I would suggest that in
addition to Fjordman’s 45 republished essays in Breivik’s manifesto, that you
take a look at page 1405 one more time. Here it is stated explicitly that
Fjordman is Breivik’s favorite writer and that, according to Breivik, they both
share the same view of the world, but that Breivik alone takes the leap from
attitudes to actions: “Our views are quite similar with the exception that I’m
an actual armed resistance fighter.”
Breivik’s mother pointed out the
same thing in police interrogations: “Fjordman was number one for Anders.”
How do you then justify your
claim that Fjordman simply hasn’t inspired Breivik? Who else in the manifest do
you think inspired Breivik if Fjordman is as innocent as you suggest?
It’s amazing to see a scientist
who so readily uses guilt by association in an attempt to booster his own
arguments. What Enebakk is doing is implicating and accusing Fjordman based on
something that Breivik has done and which Fjordman had no knowledge of. The
“reasoning” behind such remarkable logic is equivalent of a modern day
Kafkaesque process in which the defendant has no possible way of clearing his
name, as all the normal principles of defence have been taken away from him.
Enebakk places a big
responsibility on ytringsansvar, ‘decorum’, and accuses others of
ideologically contributing to crimes by the mere utterance of words that have
no relations to the crime, but then again Enebakk is also oblivious to the fact
that if we apply his twisted logic, his own words also have consequences.
How would Enebakk feel if any
harm ever came to Fjordman as a result of his personal crusade against him?
Would he be willing to admit any guilt?
Many of the inquisitors in Norway
have also made a big point about the terms “quisling” and “traitor” being used
by Fjordman and others in the Counterjihad community to describe those
responsible for the disastrous mess that the West is currently in. Many of them
are so outraged by this that they jump to the conclusion that the traitors in
question would be dealt with in the same swift manner that Breivik used when he
killed all those youths on Utøya. But what they fail to realize is that
Quisling and all the other traitors in Norway were tried in a court of law, and
that they had their sentences meted out only after lawful convictions were
reached. The same thing is true with the Nuremberg trials.
A nation is certainly entitles to
rid itself of its traitors and tyrants. It’s considered a noble goal throughout
the world, and it is something that Norway has recently helped Libya,
Afghanistan and Egypt to achieve.
Are Norwegian authorities
therefore morally responsible for the massacres in Norway? Well according to
Enebakk’s brilliant logic, they are.
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