Book review: The red-green island of terror

I was given a book titled "Den Rød-Grønne Terrorøya" - The Red-Green Island of Terror - in order to "read, and please keep an open mind, don't just throw it away. And tell me what you think afterwards." I promised to do just that.

The title refers to Utøya, known for the mass murders of July 22nd 2011. The introduction lies a foundation of no tolerance to terror, no matter who performs it. The content, however, revolves solely around the political and economic support of the west wing youth organizations at Utøya for a Palestinian left wing organization that has been labelled as a terrorist organization.

The book attempts to make a case of Norwegian governmental support of foreign terrorism, paints the current red-green government as anti-Semitic muslim nazis, and concludes that this was the real cause of the July 22nd massacre: As left wing extremists, they were now a viable target for right wing extremists.

While some of the facts might raise an eyebrow or two, the book falls under the "fjord"-category with me. By fjord, I mean you make such a deep dive into a specific side of a conflict that, not only is your sight limited to that one conflict - and deeper yet, just one side of the conflict - but everything you see is taken as evidence of this one-sided paranoia. It is also a reference to Fjordman, a Norwegian extreme right wing blogger, whom I see as an example of someone with the "deep into conflict filter" turned on.

A deep, limited view of a conflict is in direct contrast to the overview of the flying spaceman, who couldn't care less about the bickering, if only people could help each other out instead . Again, the introduction makes an argument that terror should not be applied by anyone for any reason, yet the actual chapters of the book is blaming only one side for terror, ignoring the terror imposed by the "other side" of the conflict.

However, extreme left and extreme right can exist only by applying such filters. As my intention today was only to review the book for what it is, I won't bother getting into the details of the conflict and its complexities. I've already done that before. The book still looses some credibility on statements that are not backed up by references, or worse yet, are completely misleading.

For instance, it claims that it was the red-green government that got rid of Christianity as a subject in primary school, when this, in fact, is merely a directive passed down by the EU. This claim is put together with muslims being invited to Utøya, making it look as if the Labour Party is trying to replace Christianity with Islam.

I could list numerous points of distorted reality in the book. I will leave that to later. And there is even some good things to take away from the book - the lessons we could learn from it. How we can do things better. The book itself won't do it, it's a finger-pointing book about the Problem with No Solutions, yet it does point out a few things worth of investigation:

For example, in terms of role play, what could we potentially learn playing both sides in an honest manner, instead of just making a political drama? When political youth organizations get involved in international politics, how can we encourage to see things with a better overview instead of diving into the depths of one side of a conflict? How can we encourage our children to cherish all humans instead of helping others paint an alien out of the "perceived enemy"?

Because in the end, concentrating on the problem will only make the problem bigger. Concentrating on the solution will only make the solution greater. And the solution, of course, lies largely with the children that will inherit the future.

Dimensions of the Israel-Palestine conflict

It is possibly the most well known conflicts in the world, it has been going on for a while now. Not the longest war in history, but may very well end up earning the title.

Much can be said about the complexity of the situation. In a video from Prager University, Dennis Prager says that he studied "semester after semester discussing the Middle East conflict as if it were the most complex conflict in the world, when in fact it is probably the easiest conflict in the world to describe. It may be the hardest to solve, but it really is the easiest to describe."

The explanation then goes on about the "Israel wants to live, but surrounding Arab states refuse to recognize Israel" perspective. I see this as one axis of the conflict, and a natural conflict by karmic law. After all, the modern state of Israel was founded on the assumption that everyone wanted to kill the jews. Without this assumption, there would be no reason for the Israeli Jewish state to exist in the first place, and the assumption is thereby ingrained into the state at birth, and a task for the state to overcome. Though that is a slightly buddhist digression.

My experience studying various conflicts tells me that the longer a war has been going on, the more complex it becomes. As I have a fairly visual mind, I made a quick drawing of some of the perceived conflicts and a few interesting cash flows (green).

Each conflict by themselves can easily be described, as each conflict is one dimensional. Together, they make a messy two dimensional picture. I note a conflict between the Israeli military and the Israeli government, in that, as with any other government agency, they need to fight for its budgets. Indeed, this means that the military needs military conflict and demonstrated real threats to avoid cuts.

In short, any conflict is about one or more of: power, money, land, revenge. Politics. And as we know, conflicts by themselves do not kill, though they may verily be used an excuse. Therefore, I wish to introduce my three dimensional model, which is what is making this so much more interesting:

This is what would be the proper, religious and ethical axis. While everyone are looking at individual one dimensional conflicts to try to solve the two dimensional problem, the reason we get involved is how we feel about the third dimension, the axis of good and evil. The conflicts themselves may be legit, and conflicts do occur, it is how they are dealt with that is problematic.

As conflicts get deeper, people are pulled downwards, into a darkness where only conflict is perceived, terror and murder are permissible tools, and you're moving away from the divine. Those who manage to elevate themselves from the conflict and see the real madness from above just wish for peace.

In the Israeli/Palestinian area, there are people both above and below the surface. And as is typical, the evil side has a huge propaganda machine. Evil has used propaganda in order to turn "the enemy" into aliens you're allowed to kill. Good has typically not had such a propaganda machine. So if good is to win - that is, for peace to be accomplished - as many people as possible need to be lifted from the hateful abyss of the underworld to the peaceful overworld.

By doing so, those who are involved in each conflict will eventually find their own solutions, we don't need to interfere with every little detail of every little or major conflict, that will all just take care of itself. And this is the basis of many a religion; the fight is not between the Israeli and the Palestinian, it is between good and evil. If we want to help, what we need to find out is, how do we pull people up from the abyss and show them the light?

Fortunately, there seems to be a point where civilian populations just won't take it any more. And hopefully, the people will rise from being the people that everyone want to blow up - to become the people that loves everyone.