Anders Behring Breivik: portrait of a right wing extremist

While authorities work overtime to find international connections, the only known assailant in the deaths of 91 Norwegians is a deranged Christian fundamentalist terrorist known as Anders Behring Breivik.

A devotee of far right wing Islamophobes Pam Geller and Daniel Pipes, Breivik’s hatred of those who do not fall in line with his way of thinking is all too familiar in the far right that has infiltrated the blogosphere, Murdoch-style media, the Republican party and much of western Europe.

As the details begin to emerge, a portrait of a sick, superstitious conservative gone over the edge vindicates that DHS study revealing that right wing extremists indeed pose a major threat to innocent civilians and western democracies.

One of the few who knew him, who have spoken so far, was an anonymous friend who told the Norwegian newspaper VG that Breivik had been a far right winger since at least his late twenties, when he had begun posting a series of controversial opinions on Facebook.

What has emerged so far paints a disturbing picture: a Christian fundamentalist with a deep hatred of multiculturalism in his country, of the left and of Muslims who had written disparagingly of prominent Norwegian politicians. A far of violent video games as well who some former neighbours have told Norwegian media had sometimes been seen in “military-style” clothing.

In the pictures that have so far emerged of him Breivik appears well dressed, slender and clean-shaven, a picture of the young entrepreneur he wanted to be.

Breivik’s businesses, however, were not much of a success, each one of them being dissolved after a short while after making a loss until he established his farm business in 2009 and moved out of Oslo.

But the man who listed Kafka and George Orwell’s 1984 as his favourite books on Facebook, made little secret to the friends he had, or others on the Christian fundamentalist and far right websites that he frequented, of his racist views.

The darkest side of all was revealed not only in the killings but in how he undertook them, not least on the island teaming with several hundred teenagers, where wearing earplugs and a police uniform he calmly called over his victims to join him so he could begin his
executions.

A Freemason, reportedly a body builder and a hunter with two registered weapons – a Glock pistol and an automatic rifle – it has been Breivik’s online profile that has, so far supplied the most public information.

Breivik was also a former “a youth member” of his country’s conservative Progress Party – a party he criticised in one posting for embracing “multi-culturalism” and “political correctness” rather than taking an “idealistic stand”. Despite that, those who knew him in the party then, described him as “calm and quiet”, his extremism coming later.