• by Fredrik S. Heffermehl
• Tuesday, July 26, 2011
• Inter Press Service

The response to the recent atrocities in Norway cannot be more power-wielding and violence. Instead we must create a global culture of peace and non-violence, writes Fredrik S. Heffermehl, author of "The Nobel Peace Prize; What Nobel Really Wanted", a norwegian lawyer and board member of IALANA, the International Association of Lawyers against Nuclear Arms.

In this analysis, the author argues that the gun-swinging religious fanatic who carried out the attack is the product of our militarised culture with its high tolerance for violence. The mass murder was made possible with modern military kill technology -ostensibly produced for our "security". Einstein said, and Alfred Nobel would have agreed, that in the nuclear age true security can be built only on justice, co-operation, and compassion, acknowledging all as fellow members of the human family and forgetting borders and religious and ethnic divides. Norway is in a special position to promote global peace through global law and institutions since this was the idea Nobel wished to promote through his prize.

In the flow of dramatic stories from Norway one stands out about a member of the labor party youth group, a teenage girl of Indian or Sri Lankan extraction who was forced by friends to swim with them to safety. A bad swimmer, in frigid water, with 600 meters to go and with bullets ringing around her head when she set out, the odds were high that she would join the many who drowned. But the girl made it to shore and said, when asked by a TV crew about her feelings toward the killer: "I feel pity for him. If this man had enjoyed a good friendship with just one colored immigrant this disaster might never have happened."

//NOT FOR PUBLICATION IN NEW ZELAND//

© Inter Press Service (2011) — All Rights Reserved. Original source: Inter Press Service

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