Incredibly, in your scramble to cover your rush-to-judgment editorial blaming Muslim extremists for the massacre in Norway ("An attack on Oslo," Saturday), you repeat the same big lie and claim that Anders Behring Breivik was inspired by tactics developed by al-Qaida ("Norway's terrorist," Tuesday). In fact, as Breivik's extensive writings document, he was inspired by the writings of an American right-wing extremist and the writings and actions of the Unabomber.
Despite extensive FBI documentation that political violence motivated by right-wing extremism is by far the biggest menace in the United States, The Plain Dealer remains silent about this threat and continues to propagate the myth that Muslim extremism is the greatest problem. Right-wing political violence does not need al-Qaida for inspiration. It has deep "Made In America" roots going back to the end of Reconstruction and the rise of the Ku Klux Klan. It continues every year to be directed at African-Americans, Hispanics, Jews, immigrants, gays, abortion providers and Democrats. Many more Muslims and their institutions are victims of this violence than are perpetrators.
Norway's Muslim community, estimated at 200,000 people out of a population of almost five million, has been thrust into an unwelcome spotlight by the attacks, even though no Muslim was involved and up to 10 of the victims may have been Muslim.
The extreme anti-Muslim views of the attacker, Anders Behring Breivik, are ensuring that the debate about immigration and integration in Norway will rage on. And, while society for now is pulling together, many worry that ultimately the focus will come to rest on the Muslims and their role in Norwegian society.
"When we wake up from this shock and there is a return to normalcy, there will be a discussion on what is integration and what is it not," said Tore Lindhom, an expert on integration at the University of Oslo's Norwegian Centre for Human Rights.
If political participation is a mark of integration, then Norway's Muslims seem very well adapted. The Labour Party youth summer camp on Utoeya emphasises values such as multiculturalism and anti-racism. Even so, children with a Muslim background were well represented. Between 60 and 70 of the 650 youths at the camp reportedly were Muslim.
The 27-year old Muslim Labour MP Hadia Tajik is a veteran of the summer camp and is now described as a rising star by her party colleagues. She left the island shortly before the shooting started. Speaking outside the Labour Party headquarters in Oslo, she called the killings, "an attack on Norway's openness".
She was fierce in her defence of Norway as a harmonious country where Muslims and others get along relatively well. "It is a land of opportunities. It has given me and many other youngsters from immigrant backgrounds so many opportunities and that says much more about the country than the acts of this person."
Her views were echoed by Mehtab Afsar, general secretary of the mainstream Islamic Council of Norway. "Norway is the best country in Europe for Muslims to live in," he said while paying his respects to the victims in Oslo's cathedral, the Domkirke.
He was not worried about an increased focus on Muslims but thought that the debate on integration would be easier now. "The ugly tone which the debate had a few times, that ugliness will now disappear from the debates."
In Drammen, imam Ahmad Noor too was confident that the situation for Muslims would actually improve, but his argument was rather more sombre. He argued that now, finally, the extremism of the anti-Muslim fringe has been exposed. "This thinking was underground and the government and the parties never addressed it," he said. Now they will not have a choice but to meet the problem head on, he added.
He heard about the attack first just after Friday prayers, immediately after the bomb in Oslo went off. He and his congregants worried about the identity of the attacker. "Our second emotion after all the grief and sadness was maybe he was Muslim." He said that everybody went home and stayed indoors until the identity of the attacker became clear. Next page
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