Anders Breivik and the Death of Free Speech in Norway

Abstract

On July 22, 2011, Anders Breivik detonated a bomb in Oslo and massacred dozens of teenagers at a Labour Party Youth camp on the island of Utøya. Nearly all the media coverage of Breivik focused on the conservative political views outlined in his Manifesto. The week of the massacre, The New York Times ran a series of editorials which identified Breivik as a part of the counterjihad movement represented by Pete King, Bruce Bawer, Geert Wilders, Newt Gingrich, and Robert Spencer. In Norway, the Norwegian media was quick to blame Siv Jensen of the conservative Progress Party for creating the “climate of hate” which produced Breivik. In the wake of the murders, prominent Norwegian intellectuals began calling for a rejection of American “free speech absolutism” in favor of vigorously enforcing an “anti-racism” clause in Norway’s penal code which criminalizes threatening or insulting speech, or speech that incites contempt for anyone because of his or her skin color, religion, or sexual orientation. However, this would contribute little to public safety in Norway; instead it would stifle the kind of vigorous debate about social issues that one would expect to find in an open society. It would also demoralize moderate Muslims who are working to promote free speech and democratic pluralism in Muslim-majority countries.