Birds on the Brain

22 July is a date which haunts Norway; a date it would like to forget, but never will - the date of the twin attacks carried out by Anders Behring Breivik…. The car-bomb in Oslo designed to kill the leadership of the country, and the shootings on the island of Utoeya designed to destroy the next generation of Labour party politicians, left 77 people dead, the majority of them teenagers. It was one of the worst acts of terrorism the world has witnessed in recent decades…. But even in the first days of shock after the attacks, it was clear the response of the Norwegian people and their government to this act of terrorism would be unique. Tens of thousands of Norwegians were soon walking through the streets of central Oslo singing and carrying roses…. And at the political level, the Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg pledged to do everything to ensure the country’s core values were not undermined. “The Norwegian response to violence is more democracy, more openness and greater political participation,” he said. A year later it seems the prime minister has kept his word. There have been no changes to the law to increase the powers of the police and security services, terrorism legislation remains the same and there have been no special provisions made for the trial of suspected terrorists. On the streets of Oslo, CCTV cameras are still a comparatively rare sight and the police can only carry weapons after getting special permission. Even the gate leading to the parliament building in the heart of Oslo remains open and unguarded…. It is this which bolsters the belief held by some senior Norwegians that over the past year their country has provided an alternative model for dealing with terrorism. “The only way to really combat terror is to show that we are better than them,” says Jan Egeland, a former official in the Norwegian foreign ministry and now deputy head of Human Rights Watch. “Their (the terrorists’) whole point is to create shock and fear and get us to leave our liberal values…and lure us over to their shadowy part of the playing field… we should not let them win.