The deaths of 69 young Labour activists failed to prompt a reckoning with the far-right ideas that motivated Anders Breivik
Any visitor to the island of Utøya, some 38 kilometres from Oslo, is immediately struck by the smallness of it. It measures no more than 26 acres. It was here that, 10 years ago this month, Anders Behring Breivik massacred 69 people attending a Norwegian Labour party youth camp. As one walks along the island’s tiny, winding paths, it is not difficult to imagine the sheer horror of it all, as teenagers, full of life, joy and laughter, suddenly realised that the shots being fired in the distance were not firecrackers, that the visitor dressed in a fake police uniform was a murderer, and that the island had all too few places in which to hide.
As Norway approaches the 10-year anniversary, and as far-right and anti-Muslim violence remains a feature of our political culture across the world, it is worth looking back at the lessons learned and those missed from this dark chapter in my country’s history.
