History

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the 22nd of July 2011, my family and I were driving from the east coast of Norway
to Oslo. We happened to stop by a road café to have some food, when one of our
daughters got a message on the phone.

There is a bomb blast in Oslo - and not much later - there is someone killing young people at a Labour party youth camp at Utøya.

This, to us and to most Norwegians, was unbelievable. It could happen elsewhere, but
not in our country. Before we found out who this person was, rumours were developing
and spreading. It is a Muslim! And there were even some few incidents where Muslims
experienced harassment because of this Muslim's actions. Luckily, the man was caught
- and it turned out that he was a Christian Norwegian young man. We know the rest of
the story by heart! The number of young people who died at Utøya, the number of
people who died at the Government offices, the explanations given in the Manifest
written by this young man, the trial and the conviction.

Why did this happen? Was it religion or was it racism? Was the man sane or insane?
How can it be possible for a human being to start killing lots of unknown, innocent
people? In the beginning, attempts were made, by media and others, to make this a
religious issue. It was because of his Christian faith he did the killings. 

In Norway, this way of presenting the case, never "caught fire". Most people did not see the connection to the Christian faith as the reason for what happened. Christian leaders - and others - distanced these actions from faith.

Surely, there was a religious element - fighting the people of other faiths coming to Norway - but again it was seen as more of a racist point of view, not wanting people of other colours from other countries to come to our country.

What is happening in Norway? An unspoken agreement developed among people in the
streets, that we will not let the Norwegian "we" turn into a "us" and "them". As a
nation we condemned the actions, and as a nation we wanted to move forward together.

There was one very interesting thing worth noting in this very tragic situation. In
Norway, when sad things happen, a culture has developed where people bring flowers
as a sign of grief and sorrow. Now, when we, the people in Oslo, wanted to show our
grief- and our compassion with the families affected - we did not bring flowers to
the Labour Party offices, we did not go to the Government offices.  We went to the
Cathedral. In secular Norway, where religion has been quite privatised for decades,
this terrible situation was met with thousands and thousands of flowers in front of
the Cathedral.  So, there was a religious side to what happened: when terrible
things happen, we turn to the Church.

Are there lessons to be learned from Norway? One stands out. In a conflict,
religious or other, there is always a "us" and "them". Norway managed through
politicians, religious leaders and the rest of us to hold onto the "we". As long as
there is a "we", it is possible to handle situations without serious conflict - and
to find ways forward where the "we" is strengthened.

Jørn Lemvik

The Tony Blair Faith Foundation Religion & Conflict blog series tackles a theme that
is contested at a number of levels. Some quickly itemise conflicts as religious and
others only when the religious dimension is arguably paramount. What characterises
these early years of the 21st century is that conflicts with a religious dimension
are growing in prominence and geo-political importance, if not in number. In this
series, our goal is to examine some of these conflicts from a variety of
perspectives while offering our readers analysis of possible ways forward to a more
peaceful world.