by Tom Harris
Before the dust had settled on the terrorist attacks in Norway, even before the body count had been completed, some news organisations and individuals drew their own conclusions about the identity of the perpetrators. And got it wrong.
I was one of them.
Having seen an online report identifying islamists as the likely perpetrators, I tweeted that in the aftermath of the attack, there would still be some on the British left who would resume their role of apologists-in-chief for people whose intolerance of others put them firmly in the far right camp.
I got it wrong and I apologise. I should not have jumped to conclusions, especially not so early on in such a terrible sequence of events.
But (and of course there’s a “but” or I wouldn’t be writing this), the palpable relief that swept through the left when the identity of the terrorist was made known – a 32-year-old Norwegian christian fundamentalist – was revealing. Here, thank God, was a terrorist we can all hate without equivocation: white, christian and far right-wing.
Phew.
Since 9/11 the left has been wrestling with its liberal conscience. This “new” terrorist threat (which wasn’t new at all, even then) came from people with a different colour of skin and different religion to us. Weren’t we being racist in condemning them? (more…)
