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Senior Correspondent

Stieg Larsson’s “Expo” Reports on Oslo Suspect’s Far Right Connections

Unsilent Generation

The political ideas of Anders Behring Breivik, the man accused of carrying out the Oslo attacks, remain a bit of a muddle. In his manifesto and on the website where he regularly posted, he portrays himself as a conservative Christian —  going so far to say that he is a modern example of the Knights Templar. (The Templars went on crusades to protect Christian shrines against Muslims.)

At the same time, he is reported to support the racist English Defense League and wants to see something like it take shape in Norway. The EDL favors flash events — sending hooligans in swarms into Muslim neighborhoods. He also appears sympathetic to the established racist line of the British National Party and National Front. And he has been a member of the anti-immigration Progress Party, the second largest political party in Norway. It is likened to Le Pen’s far right anti-immigrant following in France.

Much of the new information about the alleged shooters is coming from Searchlight, the British anti-fascist magazine, and its sister publication in Sweden, Expo. The latter is best known to U.S. readers because its chief editor was Stieg Larsson, author of the Milennium Trilogy. Larsson died of a heart condition in 2004 before his novels achieved their extraordinary popularity. The bulk of his working life was devoted to exposing the racist far right in Sweden and beyond.

It is Expo that is reporting Breivik’s connections to the Swedish nationalist group called Nordisk. The following is from Expo (in imperfect Google translation):

The man who is arrested on suspicion of on Friday, killing more than 90 people in a bomb attack on government building and in connection with the shootings of students at a political camp on Utøya have online have expressed anti-Muslim values. On his Facebook page, he under vg.no made ​​nearly 75 posts that were racist as well as Islamophobic. According aftenposten.se was Anders Breivik member Fremskrittsspartiet [Progress Party]. He became a member in 1999 and paid the membership fee up to and including 2004. He was also involved in Fremskrittsspartiets youth (FPU) from 1997 to 2007. He should have been President of the FPU Oslo Vest 2002 to 2004.

But his political engagement online has been much more radical. 2009 registered himself as a member of the nazististiska nätforumet Nordisk. A forum with more than 22,000 members, primarily from the north. The forum discusses everything from vitmaktmusik to political strategies to crush democracy. On the forum there are also calls for violence. For example, wrote an anonymous user: “I mean obviously not isolated actions. Cars parked next to the towers with fertilization powder + diesel gives a nice effect. Skyscrapers go down like the World Trade Center towers. Do not forget that I have said something about taking human life. When the actions set in motion so to be hoped that there are people in the houses.”

  • Nordisk launched in 2007 and quickly became a hit among so-called “nationalists” in Sweden. The forum currently has over 22,000 members — and one of them was Anders Breivik. Among the forum members will find everything from Sweden’s Democratic MPs to senior Nazis. What unites the members is a critical attitude to the current refugee policy and immigration.
  • The topics under discussion are often of a racist nature. On the forum you can also find topics on such book Turner Diaries. Turner Diaries is a novel that served as a manual for terrorism and has been called “terrorist Bible” by the FBI. It was partly the basis of the Oklahoma City massacre 1995.
  • The Forum is described as a portal “with the Nordic identity, culture and tradition as the theme. “Behind the Forum is the organization Nordic Association which was founded in 2004 by people with backgrounds in the National Democrats and the Nazi organization Swedish Resistance.

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