OSLO, Norway- Norway will never be the same after last week’s bombing and mass shooting but it shouldn’t change the way the suspect wants it to, the prime minister said Wednesday. He called on his country to react by more tightly embracing, rather than abandoning, the culture of tolerance that Anders Behring Breivik said he was trying to destroy.
“The Norwegian response to violence is more democracy, more openness and greater political participation,” Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg insisted at a news conference.
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Friday’s bombing outside Stoltenberg’s offices in Oslo and the shooting that followed at a camp organized by the youth wing of his Labor Party killed 76 people and battered the psyche of a nation that prides itself on openness. Breivik confessed but has pleaded not guilty, claiming the attacks were necessary to fight what he called Muslim colonization and multiculturalism.
“I think what we have seen is that there is going to be one Norway before and one Norway after July 22,” Stoltenberg said. “But I hope and also believe that the Norway we will see after will be more open, a more tolerant society than what we had before.”
Stoltenberg strongly defended the right to speak freely — even if it includes extremist views such as Breivik’s.
“We have to be very clear to distinguish between extreme views, opinions — that’s completely legal, legitimate to have. What is not legitimate is to try to implement those extreme views by using violence,” he said.
Stoltenberg said an independent commission will be formed to investigate the attacks and determine what lessons can be learned from the response. The commission also is to help survivors and relatives cope with the aftermath. Parliament said it is willing to help pay for funerals, and a monument will be built to commemorate the victims.
The prime minister, perhaps mindful of many Norwegians’ reserved ways, urged the country to fully grieve: “I have cried, and I have told many people that they should not hesitate to cry.”
The national sense of heartbreak is being renewed daily as police slowly release names of the dead.
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