Normally we like to look at news treatment, as opposed to opinion pieces, related to religion. But there were two analysis items from this weekend that were worth considering. The first came from the New York Times and was written by Thomas Hegghammer, a Norwegian expert on Islamist violence. It’s helpful for those of us trying to analyze how to define this rather idiosyncratic terrorist.
Hegghammer says that the first glance of the 1,500-page manifesto by Anders Behring Breivik, the accused terrorist in the Norway attacks, might lead you to think it’s a “fairly standard ideological treatise of the far right.” But he notes that Breivik’s worldview doesn’t fit well into any of the subcategories of white supremacism, unltranationalism and Christian fundamentalism:
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