August 3, 2011
Breivik's "2083"
The Mass Murderer's Manifesto
By ISRAEL SHAMIR
After the tears have dried and the cries of outrage
fallen silent, we may begin to recognise that the
cinematic qualities of the Utoya Massacre were drawn
from trashy horror flicks. It is a recurring theme
within the Friday the 13th Screams at Elm Street
genre that a serial killer must stalk a peaceful summer
camp and murder innocent youths. Friday the 22nd’s
killer effectively brought the celluloid violence to
life, further crystallizing the phenomenon of Man’s
nightmares intruding onto reality. This trend towards
violence began innocently enough with grim dime novels
and gore spattered cinema, but it then began to deaden
the minds of our children with “first-person shooter”
video games of increasing realism. Nowadays those same
children have grown into soldiers directing unmanned
drone attacks upon far-away lands, and at least one of
them has visited a nightmare upon this peaceful island
summer camp.
Shooting people who can’t shoot back is a vile act, the
mark of a mass murderer, a paid executioner, or a NATO
soldier. For two hours the killer professionally,
confidently, and coolly stalked the unarmed youths,
executing them one by one in absolute safety; for one
hundred days the killer’s ex-classmates, now in NATO Air
Force, professionally, confidently, and coolly stalked
unarmed Libyans from the absolute safety of distant
compounds. Breivik hated Muslims, hated Socialists, no
doubt he hated Ghadafi, a Muslim Socialist; but better
than a thousand Ghadafi-dispatched terrorists his deed
should remind the people of Europe that wars abroad will
bring war home, too. There are too many licences to kill
being produced.
Why
did he do it? We can answer the question: the massacre
was essentially a publicity stunt to attract worldwide
attention to the killer’s magnum opus, a 1500-page
compendium entitled “2083”. Breivik’s screed is
no great work of the human spirit; it is rather a
copy-paste hodgepodge of Neocon ravings against Islam
and Communism. In any case it does merit a look, if only
because so many people were killed in order to make us
read it. If this Breivik was a Herostratus, let us see
why he burned down the temples of so many lives.
Moreover, we must pinpoint where he went wrong.
2083
reveals that a new, vicious strain of political virus
has emerged from the genetic engineering labs within the
think tanks of the Neocons. The Masters of Discourse
have long referred to traditional conservatives as
“Nazis” because they oppose unrestricted immigration.
They have made much hay of the fact that Nazis once
considered Jews to be corrupt, once opposed the
weaknesses of homosexuality, and once admired the
spirituality of Muslims. The bad guy was supposed to be
racist, love Adolf Hitler, hate Jews and gays. He did
not have to hate Commies because Communism was a
similar totalitarian ideology according to Karl Popper
and George Bush. The new strain passed through these
filters.
The
long labours of ideologists within the Neocon movement
have borne fruit, and now it is the Jews who are
considered to be above suspicion, the homosexuals who
are considered strong, and conservative Muslims who are
held to be alien to the new conservatism. Today we are
witnessing the rapid spread of many well-financed
political parties and activist groups that connect
far-right ideas with sympathy to Jews, tolerance of
gays, and a rabid hate of Islam. The writer of 2083,
too, is pro-Jew (so long as they are free of
“multicultural taint and pass his muster as right-wing
Zionists), pro-gay, violently anti-Muslim and
anti-Communist. His nearest analogue is Pim Fortuyn, the
assassinated Dutch far-right Judeophile and gay
politician. Breivik marched with the English Defence
League (EDL), a British group set apart by its strongly
pro-Jewish, anti-Muslim militancy.
Breivik’s 2083 is heavily influenced by far-right
Neocon writing. As is often the case with copy-paste
compilations, it is difficult to assign an accurate
lineage to the conglomeration of words and those of
compiled authors. However, if 2083 is ever
published, the copyrights of David Horowitz and Bat
Yeor, Daniel Pipes and Andrew Bostom should be given
pride of place. These are the writers who inspired
Breivik to commit mass murder.
Gilad Atzmon reports that just a few hours before the
attack Joseph Klein published an
article in
Horowitz’s Frontpage entitled "The Quislings of Norway"
with additional incitement to murder. Klein wrote: “The
infamous Norwegian Vidkun Quisling, who assisted Nazi
Germany as it conquered his own country, must be
applauding in his grave… Norway is effectively under the
occupation of anti-Semitic leftists and radical Muslims,
and appears willing to help enable the destruction of
the Jewish state of Israel.”
These are fighting words, and Breitvik heeded them as he
loaded his guns. The content of 2083 reflects his
admiration of his Neocon sources. Quotes from David
Horowitz’s Frontpage articles contaminate
hundreds of pages with his vitriol. Bernard Lewis has
his own place of honour. The notorious Bat Yeor, an
Egyptian Jewish woman living in Switzerland who coined
the term “Eurabia” (an alleged conspiracy to
subjugate Europe to Arabs) and did much to promote and
grew rich off the fear of Islam, corresponded with the
killer. She “kindly” advised him and sent him her
unpublished texts. She is the only person named in his
Declaration of European Independence, and her advice the
newly independent Europeans should follow, according to
Breivik. Bat Yeor provided “inestimable service” to his
project, and is quoted extensively throughout.
Robert Spencer, a sidekick of Jihad Watch’s Horowitz, is
another great love of the killer, and so is American
Zionist Andrew Bostom, self-proclaimed expert on
“Islamic anti-Semitism”. Daniel Pipes is presented with
his thesis that “The Palestinian phenomenon was created
with the intention to justify Jihad.” Serge Trifkovic,
an anti-Muslim Serb, Melanie Phillips, the British
far-right Zionist, and Stephen Schwartz are all quoted,
along with numerous other activists and scholars who
earn their bread by demonizing Islam.
Politically, the killer’s sympathies lie squarely with
the United States and Israel: “The creators of Eurabia
have conducted a successful propaganda campaign against
these two countries in the European media. This
fabrication was made easier by pre-existing currents of
anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism in parts of Europe.”
Economically, he likes Milton Friedman and Hayek; he
would get rid of taxes and the welfare state.
Breivik hates the Palestinian people, and rails against
the “Palestinian terrorist jihad”. Like every good
Zionist he brings up the Mufti and the Holocaust
whenever possible: “Muhammad Amin al-Husayni, the Grand
Mufti of Jerusalem, Arab nationalist leader, a leading
force behind the establishment of the Arab League and a
spiritual father of the PLO, was a close collaborator
with Nazi Germany and personally met with Adolf Hitler.
In a radio broadcast from Berlin he called upon Muslims
to kill Jews wherever they could find them… he had
visited incognito the gas chambers of Auschwitz.” Among
the first things the newly independent Europeans should
do, Breivik declares, is to stop all support of the
Palestinians. In 2083 he calls on his fellow
Templars to “Assist Israel in deporting all Muslim
Syrians (also referred to as ‘Palestinians’) from the
Gaza strip, the West bank and Jerusalem. These
territories will be included in Israel. However,
Jerusalem will come under joint Christian-Jewish
administration. Demolish the abomination known as the
Al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome of the Rock in Jerusalem and
rebuild the Temple of Salomon – the Third Temple as
described in the Book of Ezekiel, chapters 40-42. The
Third Temple will become a place of worship for both
Jews and Christians. The Dome of the Rock is regarded as
occupying the actual space where the Temple once stood.”
For
Breivik, as for all his Jewish teachers, Adolf Hitler
represents ultimate evil. For this reason, he recommends
that his readers avoid historically ominous words like
“race”. 2083 is largely an attempt to categorize
the other reasons to hate Muslims besides “race”. In the
end, he did demonstrate to the world that he is not
racist: he killed with an even hand, blue-eyed
Norwegians as easily as brown-eyed guests. Breivik even
hates David Duke – for being anti-Jewish. His hatred of
Islam is not limited to the borders of Norway, or even
of Europe – like all proper Neocons he hates Muslims
wherever they are to be found.
Breivik spends many pages describing the evils committed
by Turkey, including the massacres of the Armenians,
Greeks and Kurds. There is a long chapter on the modern
history of Lebanon, and the wars are presented as a
struggle between Christians and Muslims. His favourite
historical hero is Vlad the Impaler, the Romanian prince
better known as Count Dracula.
His logic is as primitive as it is faulty: “If all
ethnical groups and all cultures are equal, why is it
black Africans, Afro-Caribbean blacks, Pakistanis,
Indians, Chinese, and Eastern Europeans want to abandon
their own lands en masse to live in the lands of the
West?”
The
most obvious explanation: “because the West has robbed
them blind,” does not occur to Breivik.
He
continues his fallacious dialog: “If we're all truly
equal, why does the rest of the world want to live the
Western lifestyle, a lifestyle created in the main by
white people? Just why exactly, do they want to be part
of capitalism, run businesses, work for the white man's
industries, claim the white man's welfare and buy and
use goods created by the creativity and ingenuity of
Western - white - people?”
The
fallacies are opaque to Breivik. His Neocon informers
have not equipped him to understand that the hated
immigrants had once worked in their own successful
industries in their own countries.
By
no means can Breivik be characterised as a Christian
fundamentalist; nor is he a Christian Zionist. His
feelings towards Christianity are lukewarm at best,
little more than a cultural solidarity. He hasn’t
decided whether to call himself Christian. He is still
“struggling with this myself. Some of the criticism of
Christianity…is legitimate.” Like many Jewish activists,
he approves of “the Second Vatican Council from the
1960s …for reaching out to Jews”, an interpretation that
at one time was universally resisted by conservatives
everywhere.
Breivik’s theological liberalism, however, evaporates
when he considers Islam. Though his arguments could be
applied to immigration policies around the world, he
will only speak out against Muslim immigrants. He does
not call upon his country to stop tormenting the Muslim
states even though this is the main reason for Muslim
immigration. He cannot even consider the connection.
In
any case, today, a Norwegian does not have to shoot his
fellow citizens in order to express disagreement with
immigration: this has become the mainstream attitude.
Immigration into Norway has slowed to a trickle. In a
wild swing away from its own liberal policies, the
government of Norway – like many West European
governments – has changed the rules to make immigration
almost impossible. In a famous case, a young girl from
the Caucasus lived for some ten years in Norway,
completed her university studies, wrote a novel in
Norwegian – and ended up being deported as an illegal
alien.
The
Friday 22 Massacre Part Two. Breivik Sees Red
Breivik hated Reds even more than Muslims. The Pakis
should be deported, but the Commies. Shoot them as
traitors, he wrote in his 2083. He fumed against
communism like Hitler in Mein Kampf, but Hitler
had better reasons. Hitler competed against the
Communists for the hearts of German workers, and Hitler
competed against the softies within the
national-socialist movement in Germany, who (notably the
brothers Strasser) were prepared to deal with
communists.
A
long time has passed since then. Communism won in the
titanic struggle of 1945, but suffered a huge setback in
1991 with the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Consequently, anticommunism has lost its meaning since
at least 1991, but probably even earlier. Today, it
could possibly mobilise a few old-timers in Washington
DC, but maybe not even them.
It
is with great astonishment we witnesses of Communism's
defeat read in 2083 that Communism was
victorious:
“The
US but especially W. Europe lost the Cold War due to the
fact that we didn't persecute the Marxists after WW2. If
we had executed each and every Marxist and banned
Marxist doctrines (not only the economical aspects but
the cultural as well – internationalism, extreme
feminism, extreme egalitarianism, anti-elitism,
anti-nationalism) we would not be in the current
situation. Instead, our traitorous and weak minded
post-WW2 leaders allowed the Marxists to gradually
infiltrate many aspects of society after WW2, especially
our universities and the media (see the beginning of
book 1 for a complete overview of how this happened).
The first ML pioneers (Marxist-Leninists) were allowed
to indoctrinate the '68 generation, those who run things
today.”
Breivik arrives at the unexpected conclusion that both
the EU and the US are, in our present age, “socialist”
or even “communist” states, “EUSSR and USSR” organised
in accordance with Marx’s teachings. I did not know that
Karl Marx envisaged a society with hundreds of
billionaires and millions of paupers. One would have to
be mad to describe the contemporary US and EU as
“communist dictatorships” – these societies are
extremely inegalitarian -- workers are on the bottom,
while the super-wealthy have an ostentatious lifestyle
unheard of even in the Medici’s Florence.
The
reason for this unexpected conclusion is that Breivik
intentionally confuses Marxism-Leninism as the ruling
ideology of the Soviet Union and Maoist China, with the
neo-Marxist western ideology of Fromm and Adorno,
Marcuse and Lukacs. With all due respect, the Cold War
was NOT a war with them, but a war against the USSR and
its allies, a war with its geopolitical as well as
ideological components. Western neo-Marxists were rather
the allies of the capitalist West in that war,
and their contribution to the fall of the Eastern
citadel of Communism was enormous, as they successfully
undermined the Russian elites’ belief in their own
ideology.
Though Breivik quarrels with the Western Marxists, he
finds it convenient to connect them with the Gulag and
with mass murders in the USSR. This is dishonest: the
Western neo-Marxists were against Stalin, and they
called their Eastern brethren “Stalinists”, at least
since Khrushchev’s denunciation of Stalin in 1956.
Nowadays President Medvedev is talking again about
de-Stalinisation; probably this talk will prevent his
re-election. The people of Russia have differing views
about Stalin, but the majority were and are against
de-Stalinisation, for to them it symbolises the
breakdown of the national masculine heroic paradigm.
Breivik accuses the Communists of supporting “extreme
feminism”. This is odd. Joseph Stalin was the ultimate
symbol of masculinity: the great Yugoslav director
Dushan Makkaveev depicted him in his Mysteries of the
Organism in priapic form. De-Stalinisation can be
viewed as an attempt to unman the Father-figure of the
Communist world. Again, Breivik’s ridiculous claim can
be explained by his desire to gather all the Reds into
one big heap: from grim NKVD commissars to California
sociologists to the Norwegian teenagers he shot. He
learned this nasty trick from his Neocon teachers: they
paint every nationalist by the same brush as Adolf
Hitler.
But
not every traditionalist and nationalist is a Breivik or
a Hitler; the Communists take differing positions on
tradition, with Eastern Stalinists being quite
conservative, traditional and mildly nationalist, while
Western neo-Marxists rejected the bourgeois nationalism
which caused two world wars.
Breivik stresses the Communist origins of the Frankfurt
school's founders, of Theodor Adorno and Georg Lukács –
but the neocons, too, were red-diaper babies or even
active Trots before switching sides. Gramsci indeed
dreamed of cultural hegemony as the means of arriving at
socialism. He thought that a new “Communist man” might
be created before any political revolution. However,
Gramsci was mistaken. This theory of Gramsci was used to
preach a reformist, non-revolutionary way, avoiding a
violent takeover of banks and factories. The idea was
played up by the Euro-Communists and, after the collapse
of the Soviet Union, disappeared with the Euro-Communist
parties.
Lenin was right, and Gramsci was wrong: you have to take
away from the capitalists both their chequebooks and
their factories, their weapons and their newspapers,
their parliament and their government, otherwise they
will turn every agenda of yours to their benefit. The
Frankfurt school and other Western neo-Marxists stood by
the West in the Cold War.
The
Western neo-Marxists behaved like the proverbial man who
searched for a lost coin under the lamppost. Though he
knew he had lost the coin elsewhere, there was more
light under the lamppost. They did not know how to
interact with workers, and so preferred to work with
minorities, students, feminists. It was easier, but led
nowhere, as we now see. The workers of Spain and Greece
rose up last month, but the neo-Marxists were nowhere to
be found. They did not lead this real popular revolt, as
they were only used to their toy revolutions in the
field of semantics.
The
neo-Marxists gave up on revolution, gave up on
socialism, gave up on the workers, and instead preferred
to work “so no future Holocaust would be possible”.
Breivik just intones that what these men did IS
communism. Actually, many texts in 2083 are old
anti-Jewish screeds with find/replace Jews by Marxists.
Regretfully Breivik was wrong: the communists did not
win. We did not move even one step closer to communism
by promoting gay marriages and multiculturalism.
Fighting against Christianity and family does not help,
either. All these steps were appropriated and used by
Capital and against workers.
The
proof that Breivik speaks nonsense (even in his own
terms) can be found in his 2083, where he rates
European states according to their acceptance of what he
calls “cultural Marxism”. Not surprisingly, Russia and
other countries of the Communist block are the freest
from this dogma, while Germany, Sweden and Norway are
the most subservient. Indeed, destructive western
neo-Marxist theories were never popular in the East,
where capitalism was dismantled in the real sense and
there was no need for a make-believe pseudo-communist
ideology to paper over a capitalist economy.
As
for the West, 1968 was not, as Breivik says, V-day for
Marxism, but the beginning of a turn towards the Iron
Heel. Our freedoms peaked just after the long-gone year
of 1968. 1968 was a turning point in America. In 1968,
the richest Americans contributed 90% per cent of their
income to the state, while now they pay less than 30 per
cent (never mind that they do not pay even that much by
cleverly exploiting tax shelters, exempt funds and other
tricks). It was in 1968 that the American worker’s
minimum pay peaked in real terms. Looking back, 1968 was
the moment in history when mankind was nearest to the
stars.
As
children of the defeated ’68 revolution, we were free to
love, smoke, think and act. We could travel and fly
without being stripped at the airport, and our booze was
not confiscated. We could make love and smoke in cafés.
Since then, it has been downhill all the way: smoking
has been banned, free thought has been incarcerated by
Political Correctness, and political action has been
reduced to joining a Facebook group.
In
the US, as Noam Chomsky has instructed me, the U-turn
coincided with the 1968 teachers’ strike in New York
which reminded the Jews that their narrow interests are
not necessarily best served by progressive and
revolutionary tactics.
Support of dubious gender politics and retreat from the
class struggle changed the Left. While the Left had
always pushed for equality between the sexes, this
equality leaned rather towards the masculine pole:
whether it was a worker building the barricade, sailors
storming the Winter Palace, cigar-smoking barbudos of
Castro, they were all manly symbols of the Left. During
the epic confrontation of the first half of 20th
century, the Red Guards were not more feminine than the
Stormtroopers, and Ernst Thaelmann was not less
masculine than Ernst Roehm.
The
present misbalance of male/female factors in the
developed world was caused by technological developments
(man’s physical strength is less needed), by ideological
shift and by capitalists’ desire to maximise profit by
employing women. As a result, men are frustrated. Their
old traditional role of providers is over; their jobs
went away to China, fighting is done by drones.
Breivik’s massacre bears the mark of a frustrated and
marginalized Norwegian man.
Breivik felt his manhood threatened by “television,
where nearly every major offering has a female 'power
figure' and the plots and characters emphasize the
inferiority of the male and superiority of the female…
by government-mandated employment preferences and
practices that benefit women and use 'sexual harassment'
charges to keep men in line, [by] colleges where women’s
gender studies proliferate and 'affirmative action' is
applied in admissions and employment.”
Yes,
the killer is a psychotic man whose vision is hardly
adequate, but his point should be considered. Even his
hatred towards Muslim immigrants could be traced to the
threat to his manhood presented by virile,
unencumbered-by-fear-of-harassment-charges Southerners
successfully competing for the charms of the Nordic
girls. This massacre and its possible follow-ups might
well have been averted if this European man did not feel
his manhood threatened in so many ways.