Article by Jone Salomonsen in Dialog.
Ten years ago, right‐wing extremist Anders Behring Breivik conducted a carefully planned terrorist attack on Norway (July 22, 2011). During the trial, he claimed to have defended Norwegian culture, people, and religion from the seemingly destructive powers of multiculturalism, feminism, and Islamic migration. Yet, which “religion” did Breivik defend? What were his larger political goals of waging “war”? With Hannah Arendt, I will show how Breivik, his American admirer Greg Johnson, and their allies have no political project and not one religion but primarily articulate (with words and/or with violent acts) a yearning to return to racialized, kin‐based, patriarchal camps that ideally are to be organized according to “the aristocratic principle of nature,” as theorized by Adolf Hitler in Mein Kampf.