Meet our monster

Now 800 foreign journalists have flown out of the country, room 250 in Oslo Courthouse has been vacated, and Norway is licking its sores, trying to cope with its tarnished reputation. Unexpectedly, we're the home nation of a mass murderer: Our monster.

Anders Behring Breivik has certainly made his mark on history. Forever his name will be synonymous with the carnage involving 77 dead and numerous other wounded, physically and psychologically. Previously we had only heard of or seen on TV the abject terror, the mind-boggling depravity and evil that took place inside campuses or shopping malls. It never happened here. Our quiet, well-kempt spot of social democratc Edenic bliss had never been soiled by perpetrators of what appears to be ideologically motivated, brutal violence. Ours was a self-image of perpetual serenity in the fjords and unending prosperity in the cities. No wonder everybody would want to come here to observe how we do things!

Then came July 22 2011, and everything turned topsy-turvy. The notion of our Safe Haven Society came crashing down on us. The alien images on the tv screens were not from distant lands, but from our own backyard. The bloody, mangled bodies were not Afghanis, Iraqis but Norwegians. This was not scenes from a civil war in Africa, but footage of stark, raw evil that had burst onto our streets and spilled into the backwaters of an undisturbed islet, Utøya.

The man who cut short a total of 77 lives is still here. We still have to deal with him now that the cameras have been turned off and the microphones no longer record voices eager to express their concern, confusion or agitation.We had hoped that the trial would unravel the mysteries and enigmas surrounding both the mass killings, as well as explain the mental make-up of an introvert, West End boy turned the country's most hated criminal.

But according to newpaper pundits, psychiatric experts and the majority of other bright minds, the man and his self-styled missions remain nothing short of an impenetrable wall of unanswered questions. Thus postmodern man remains awkwardly mystified by heinous acts that not only defy explanation, but that will continue to haunt us, continually reminding us that Norwegians as well are capable of doing the unthinkable.

Sin has hit home, and terror has made a brief visit that may or may not be its last.