Today is a day of mourning here in Norway.
It’s been 5 years since our government quarter was bombed. 5 years since the Utøya massacre, where a right-wing extremist executed 69 people – most of them teenagers – at the Norwegian Labour party’s summer camp for youths. It’s our 9/11. It is almost impossible to imagine the horror these youths and children experienced, trapped on an island with a terrorist and his semi-automatic weapons and expandable ammunition. He laughed as he walked around, shouting “you are going to die today, marxists!”. They had nowhere to hide.
77 people died that day. Hundreds were injured and traumatized. And the terrorist was one of us.
Today Utøya is a memorial and a center for learning about what happened there on 22nd July 2011. The Labour youth party still arranges summer camps on the tiny island, shaped as a heart.
I’m writing this as I’m listening to Harakiri for the Sky and their heartbreaking song ’69 Dead Birds for Utøya’. You should to.
Is it true, that we are nothing but handprints on a misty pane?
How can we fall asleep while the world is still burning?
How shall I sleep, when I carry the weight of the world on my shoulders?
How shall I sleep?
How shall I sleep?Everytime you think the most stupefying incident in this world already happened,
there comes one more.
If you want to learn more about what happened, I recommend reading these:
Extract of ‘One of Us’ by Åsne Seierstad (you should read the whole book)
