To use an apposite metaphor (albeit horrific in this case), the
Norwegian government is probably shooting itself in the foot by
planning to keep Anders Behring Breivik's trial going for ten weeks.
Both feet actually, whether Breivik is subsequently found insane, or
sane but guilty. Although the authorities will undoubtedly win their
case and he will be incarcerated for many years, if not a lifetime,
he has already had one victory and is likely to have another.
Some weeks ago, two government-appointed psychiatrists decided that
Breivik was insane. However, a prison psychiatrist who'd observed
Breivik closely over a long period said that he was sane and no doubt
broke government protocol by saying so. She was very brave to go
against what would have been a tide. A subsequent panel of three
psychiatrists appointed by the court itself had to agree, of course
-- Breivik's sanity is obvious to all now that we can see him on
television. However, if the judges shorten the trial in the next few
days by over-ruling this assessment (no doubt on exquisitely
concocted "legal" grounds) it will be because the Norwegian
government has decided that a long trial will have counter-intuitive
effects. The law of unintended consequences.
If the Norwegian government has got any sense at all (which I'm sure
it has) it will already be carrying out anonymous opinion surveys. (A
preliminary one would probably have already persuaded it that
Breivik's "insanity" wouldn't wash among the general public.) Such
surveys would only confirm a powerful and growing resentment at the
way that politicians and civil servants of Western countries have
turned a blind eye to the growing immigration of poor and uneducated
people from Africa and Asia in the past two or three decades. Indeed,
the most vociferous against any further immigration comes from
previous immigrants who've now found jobs, started their own families
and are worried about the future job prospects of their own children.
They, even more than the ordinary indigenous population, don't want
to see future welfare benefits diluted even further.
So what should the Norweigian government have done? Or do
now? Instead of grandstanding for the sake of its multicultural
polity, it didn't need do much. The media have already given us more
than enough gruesome evidence, and Breivik has already pleaded
guilty. Instead of presenting yet more details and prolonging the
anguish of the relatives of the 77 who were shot down by Breivik, a
trial of a few days or perhaps one week would have sufficed.
I wouldn't be surprised if, indeed, the trial is brought to an end
this week by one means or another. At diplomatic level, other Western
governments must already be requesting this. Breivik hasn't achieved
any dramatic victory but, actually, he's won. He will have
accelerated anti-immigrant feelings -- albeit invisibly for the time
being. The quicker that he's put away the better. I'm not suggesting
that there'll be copycat murders but we can be certain that racial
incidents, particularly in Oslo where a quarter of the young people
are new immigrants, will have been growing.
We humans have paradoxical instincts which have evolved, and normally
express themselves, quite separately according to specific
circumstances. In this case two opposing ones have been elicited
simultaneously. By far the majority of West Europeans have been
horrified by Breivik's murder of 77 people, particularly of young
lives with so much promise. At the same time, most countries'
majorities agree with Breivik that mass immigration must be stopped.
If Western governments have any sense at all (which I'm sure they
have when push comes to shove) they'll now be thinking much more
seriously about this than they were on 22 July 2011.
Keith Hudson, Saltford, England http://allisstatus.wordpress.com
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