Sorry. Sorry. Regret.

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«The violent river flow is called violent,

But the riverbank, which narrows it in, it is not called violent by anyone. "

Bertolt Brecht (1898-1956), "About the Violence" /"About the Violence" (1930)

COMMENT. Sunday in three days is one year since the terrorist death hit Oslo and Utøya. 22. July is 365 days since a single Norwegian man killed 77 people and destroyed the lives of hundreds of others, in dozens of countries: wounded, relatives, families. In relation to the population, more people were killed by the terror in Norway than in the US 11. September ten years earlier.

A 33-year-old Norwegian, from the capital's so-called "best western edge", gained worldwide notoriety for having carried out the most bestial solo terrorist attack in world history – including the shooting of children at close range. Quisling is no longer the Norwegian associated with the most evil.

The accused terrorist is the only criminal responsible for the crime. But is there only one person who is morally responsible? So that the rest of Norway is without guilt, without co-responsibility, and thus can move on with a good conscience, as nothing has happened on their part?

"Yes," Friv leader Siv Jensen was quick to conclude on August 15 last year, before the details of The Skoyen man's life was presented in the courtroom: "Only one is responsible for what has happened and that is the perpetrator, ”she declared to NTB.

"Yes," was also the conclusion of Prime Minister and Leader of the Apes Jens Stoltenberg when he spoke at the annual meeting in Oslo Ap seven months later, March 16, 2012: "We must never forget that there is one man alone which is to blame for all the killings and all the suffering, "Stoltenberg urged.

Nor have any public bodies found reason to apologize. No one will complain to the survivors that they did not act well enough. No one would admit that more lives could have been saved had there not been a number of mistakes, mistakes, misunderstandings or neglect:

Police Security Service (PST), which in December 2007 received new guidelines, which increased the ability to monitor extremists based on "political, religious or philosophical beliefs». But PST prioritized other than right-wing extremists – and did nothing with the Global Shield warning about the Skøyen man's chemical purchases from Poland.

Government and City Council, which did not secure the High Bloc and the government quarter in time.

police, who did not release the terrorist's name on their channels prior to the Utøya attack, a name they received from an observant private few minutes after the bomb dropped at 15.25.

Delta Force and their superiors, who seem to have made fatal choices, who seem to have cost precious minutes and thus the precious lives of several young people.

Difficult regrets

Of course, there was only one who detonated the bomb, only one who fired, only one to be locked inside.

But what we – as in "The Great Norwegian We" – have not yet dared to admit, is that we were more who could have done more, more who should have acted wiser. Such a concession will be unpleasant for us, but the missing concessions are probably more unpleasant and a greater burden for the families who now have to live with the loss and grief for the rest of their lives.

Admittedly, there have been some half-hearted attempts at regret. Police chief Øystein Maeland "regretted" in March that the police authorities could not prevent the terrorist campaign. While acting PST chief Roger Berg right afterwards distanced himself even more from some co-responsibility, by recognizing only one «Principle responsibility», to obviously curb criticism from relatives spokespersons. There is no self-criticism in these statements:

"We do not believe it is right that we take responsibility for this. We find it regrettable that Norwegian society has suffered terror. Nevertheless, for the sake of the relatives and affected, we chose to say that we apologize, ”Berg explained after the press conference at Hotel Bristol on March 16.

This prompted Assistant Attorney Arne Seland to write a chronicle in Dagbladet: "A regret for the sake of others becomes an empty regret. I think many would appreciate a regret from PST. "

As Seland suggests, new "Mea Culpa moments", opportunities to admit guilt and responsibility, may come when 22. July Commission submits its report on August 13. But then it has been almost 13 months for the survivors since the terrorist for more than two hours, unimpeded, got on with his killing spree in Oslo and Utøya.

Why are words and nuances important? Yes: “A regret is basically a statement of sympathy with a victim. It is an excuse with conditions. The excuse bears the responsibility, it does not make the regret, "explained author and rhetoric expert Jon Risdal to TV 2. And concluded:"Everyone regrets, but no one takes responsibility.»

He points out that a sincere regret, or an apology, makes it easier for the survivors and the afflicted to move forward. But even after the July 22 Commission report, Risdal assumes that the conclusion will be as follows: "I don't think anyone would apologize." Or, as artist Elton John put it: "Sorry seems to be the hardest word."

We made mistakes

We have thus come to the situation that "the police apologize" (without reservation) in Stavanger Aftenblad that, for example, they did not manage to silence everyone who shouted loudly in the streets of the oil capital night until July 1. And we have a pressed PST boss who in December could honestly regret that she gave "Inaccurate information" to the press, but that went down because of something completely different. NRK then crawls to the cross and strongly "regrets" having heard the telephone for a meeting of the Forensic Commission, and for not providing information on this.

While Aftenposten's political editor Harald Stanghelle, and head of the Norwegian Editors' Association, publishes a regrettable comment on June 29 under the title «Two apologies – to two authorities», with the introduction: «It is not common for journalists to apologize. This does not come naturally to us. Now, however, it is time. " Those who receive these two unique, "targeted apologies" are the mentioned commission members, as they were not "media paranoid" after all, and the district court administration – for not building a too small courtroom for the press anyway.

It is thus not so unusual to give excuses in Norway, as long as it is to the "right people" and regarding the right thing – that is, to and about what seems less important, almost insignificant. It is perhaps easiest this way. The loss of a tile is regrettable, but not that the forest fell. One year later, we are thus left with 8 lost their lives in the Government Quarter and 69 on Utøya, without anyone other than one having done anything wrong. No one else could or should have done anything different in practice. It's almost as it was meant to be, as if everything could happen again tomorrow.

We at Ny Tid will not dwell on what others may wish to apologize for or wish had been done differently. From one perspective, it is always easier to be wise afterwards, not least in the face of an almost unthinkable and unimaginable brutality.

But from a different perspective, this is also about getting ahead – both for those who had a role in the time before / during the terror and for the survivors. And it is about taking lessons, to avoid that something similar can happen again – as terror and evil never strike in the same way, as it is in its nature to strike like lightning from clear skies.

And if nothing else, the undersigned, as editor of the weekly magazine Ny Tid & Orientering, to apologize – yes, also to apologize – that we did not do our job better ahead of July 22nd 2011.

We could, and should, for example, have followed up more clearly Antiracist Center investigation from August 2010, which showed how hatred of minorities in Norway grew explosively online – a barometer of the spirit of the times and the currents that extremists generally trade in relation to. Attitudes create actions. And we should, according to the article «Jagland warns Norway»June 10, 2011, have prioritized following up the article on Thorbjørn Jaglands and the Council of Europe May 2011 Report: The warnings against Europe's violent right-wing extremists, the widespread Eurabia delusions and almost also the unspoken pursuit of "a European Declaration of Independence".

Our editorial staff should then have confronted PST and the police with what they did to follow up the warnings. I should have emphasized the importance of investigating whether the Norwegian authorities then – a few weeks after Osama bin Laden's death – did not yet see themselves blind on the September 11, 2001 trail.

But we didn't get it done. I didn't make sure we did the job we should have done. We did not push hard enough those researchers who did not dare to comment on the right-wing extremists, either for fear of these or for fear of being socially stigmatized to address an unfamiliar taboo topic.

The warnings from outside

For the undersigned, this feels extra heavy when I published the book ten years ago these days Blank lies, dirty truths (Tiden, 2002) together with Stian Bromark – what was to be the first book in the «trilogy of impurity».

This book, which had Al-Qaeda's terrorist attack in the US as a backdrop, was just written as a warning and "a critique of the new worldview" – with a desire to show a third way between so-called Muslim and Christian extremists. These extremists who in practice share many of the same problematic worldviews of past and present, those who always blame "the others", ie each other. The book series also became part of the development of Ny Tid's editorial project in the 00's. And therefore it feels extra painful to have to admit that we did not do the job well enough just when it mattered most.

This is not just a lament. There is also something the undersigned regrets.

Because if there is one thing we have experienced, it is that both politicians, the police and other authorities can quickly be influenced by the critical questions they receive from the press and "most people". They quickly prioritize differently after a media storm. And this is how it should be in a democratic society, because we do not live in a police state where the people's legitimate wishes and needs are not to be listened to. The role of the press as a watchdog is precisely to ask critical questions about how public funds are used, perhaps especially when it comes to something as important as ensuring citizens' security – be it in the center of the capital or at a summer camp for youth politicians.

We only make this excuse, to relatives and survivors, on our own behalf. New time & Orientering has always been a niche publication, a counter-current weekly newspaper as a corrective or alternative to mainstream media with a larger impact field. It is precisely for this reason that it is painful to see that we did not do the correction work even better in the field we might be best at.

Then someone will say: Yes, but it would not make any difference anyway. What could a small newspaper, or several, do against a long-planned terrorist attack? Possibly nothing. But it could also have been that regular questions to police authorities and politicians about what is being done to Norwegian right-wing extremists, as sympathizers of the murder of Benjamin Hermansen (15) in 2001, could have increased police vigilance and sharpened public awareness before July 2011 – as that one was aware that terrorism is also color-blind: the perpetrators are usually one of us, in one way or another.

We lived in a time when Peter Mangs, charged with multiple killings or attempted murder of a large number of immigrants in Malmö since 2003, was arrested by Swedish police in November 2010. And in January 2011, six people were killed in an attack on Democrats Gabrielle Giffords during a political meeting in Arizona.

The signs of the times were there, that is. And right-wing extremist terror was nothing new in Norway – rather the only documented terror we have had in recent decades – from the neo-Nazi bombing of the Nor Mosque on Frogner in 1985 to the bomb threats against Oslo's child train on 17 May 2012.

Would a right-wing extremist have been under the radar for a couple of years and unrestrictedly go all the way out to Utøya if the PST and the public had been reminded of the issue? We never get a sure answer, but I don't think so. Rather, the question was whether any radar had been set against the right extremity at all, or whether it was turned on.

Either way: 77 people are dead now. We owe them that we also dare to ask the unpleasant questions, and that we dare to take the debates we have pushed away in the shock and grief stages.

PST "cares"

After all, that's at least one important perspective PST's Chief of Staff Roger Berg gave us as a society on March 16 this year.

At the mentioned press conference, where he did not want to apologize, he also said something that was only referenced in a newspaper or two then – something that is typical of the time that is not mentioned afterwards in the thousands of articles and features in the media. Berg pointed out that we all have a responsibility to ensure that terrorists such as the 33-year-old are not allowed to grow up in our midst. He said:

"Our perspective is that we do not think we can monitor ourselves to find this man. We do not believe this is the solution to future situations. There are completely different perspectives and social structures that must take effect. There are other solutions to this, ranging from how we raise our children, to neighborhoods, to conditions in the workplace – to care om and to care with. PST is part of that chain, but we can't do this alone. ”

You would almost think this was a kind childish and gender equality minister who made the statement about "how we raise our children", about what values ​​we should give four-year-old boys. But it was the hard-nosed Berg who prioritized, when he was to talk about counter-terrorism, the "to care about" – much like Gro Harlem Brundtland did in a New Year's speech in the 90s.

PST understands itself and the police in general as part of an organic, popular society – but do we? Do we really realize Berg's point that we all influence each other – Facebook activists, bloggers, tweeters, media, politicians, bureaucrats, courts, policewomen and PST chiefs – where Norway and the world become like a Coop membership: "A little yours"?

If nothing else, it is reassuring that the new PST commander Benedicte Bjørnland, former police chief in Vestfold, emphasized the same in a accession interview July 11: "Everyone must help prevent radicalization that can lead to terrorist acts."

If politicians, media critics and most people took to heart these PST messages – about creating a more inclusive, trust-creating and charitable Norway – then we might not just more easily avoid new tragedies like July 22, 2011. We would then also live up to the ideals for which the dead AUF young people on Utøya lived, and for which they died.

One year. Nothing forgotten.