In Breivik’s case, we have an obvious example of how anti-Islam, far right rhetoric inspires terror (the same goes for any extremist rhetoric). While it would be senseless to blame a whole political movement for the acts of an individual, his enablers and idols should be held accountable.

Not only anti-Islam discourse should be tackled on formal grounds, there needs to be a persistent effort to diffuse prejudices, through, for instance, reframing “Muslim questions” as questions of social exclusion/inclusion, while maintaining the secular and liberal-democratic perspective. Same goes with migration – we need to facilitate a shift of the focus of the debate from security issues to the challenges of integration and social cohesion (and target both the immigrants and the native population). Moreover, we need individualization of the discourse – meaning departure from debating religions, cultures and communities as if they were strictly bound and homogeneous actors (a self-critical remark is that this should be applied when discussing the far right as well). Finally, we need to agree with Breivik’s assessment that the current political order is ideologically colored, and moreover, that it is tailored to discourage hatred towards individuals and whole categories of the population. In order to make this less outrageous and more plausible for far right extremists, we need to repeat the fact that it is in order to protect their comfort as well.

My take on the July 22 terror that took place in Norway, published today at the Nationalities Blog.