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Abstract
This article examines the writings of one of the key voices who influenced Anders Breivik: Peder Jensen. Writing under the pen name Fjordman, Jensen has developed a range of writings, some of which have come to operate at the interface between Islamophobic populism and contemporary fascist terrorism. To explore this interface, this article analyzes the various writings by Jensen/Fjordman that Breivik himself reproduced in his manifesto 2083: A European Declaration of Independence. It concludes that, while not directly instructing Breivik to carry out an act of terrorism, there is nevertheless a looser connection between Jensen's rhetoric, which points toward violent action, and the behavior of others such as Breivik. It explores this link through the lens of “license,” a methodology developed by Aristotle Kallis. This approach allows the analysis to highlight that, beneath a veneer of more moderate anti-Muslim populism, the discourse Peder Jensen has written under the pen name Fjordman evokes many of the tropes of fascism, including coded endorsement of ethnic nationalism, misogyny, conspiracy theories, a concern with profound cultural decadence, and a palingenetic language that idealizes revolution coming about through war.
Notes
1. Paul Jackson, “Solo Actor Terrorism and the Mythology of the Lone Wolf,” in Gerry Gable and Paul Jackson, eds., Lone Wolves Myth or Reality (Ilford: Searchlight, 2011), 79–88; and Ramón Spaaij, Understanding Lone Wolf Terrorism: Global Patterns, Motivations and Prevention (New York: Springer, 2012).
2. For an elaboration on this point, see the introduction to Roger Griffin, Terrorist's Creed: Fanatical Violence and the Human Need for Meaning (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2012).
3. Immediately following Breivik's killing spree, many newspapers began reporting on Fjordman, and his true identity was revealed in the press. Typical of this type of media reporting is this article from The Independent: “Unmasked: The Far-Right Blogger Idolised by Breivik,” August 6, 2011, available at: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/unmasked-the-farright-blogger-idolised-by-breivik-2332696.html (accessed on February 22, 2013).
4. Anders Breivik, 2083: A European Declaration of Independence, 707.
5. For example, see Mark Juergensmeyer, Terror in the Mind of God: The Global Rise of Religious Violence Third Edition (Berkley and Los Angeles, California: University of California Press, 2003).
6. The allusion here is to Benedict Anderson's concept of the nation as a modern social construct. For more details, see Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, Revised Edition (New York: Verso, 1991).
7. This idea is explored in much detail in Michael Mann, Fascists (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004).
8. To give just one example on non-paramilitary fascism emerging in the postwar period, we can cite apoliteic music. The cultural fascist dynamics of this phenomenon has been described in some detail in Anton Shekhovtsov, “Apoliteic Music: Neo-Folk, Martial Industrial and ‘Metapolitical Fascism,’” Patterns of Prejudice 43, no. 5 (2009): 431–457.
9. For a more detailed discussion on the ways in which Nazi racism was constructed and tuned into policy, see Michael Burleigh and Wolfgang Wippermann, The Racial State: Germany 1933–1945 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).
10. For a fuller discussion here, see Alberto Spektorowski, “The New Right: Ethno-Regionalism, Ethno-Pluralism and the Emergence of a Neo-fascist ‘Third Way,’” Journal of Political Ideologies 8, no. 1 (2003): 111–130.
11. For a fuller discussion on this theme, see José Pedro Zúquete, “The European Extreme-Right and Islam: New Directions?,” Journal of Political Ideologies 13, no. 3 (2008): 321–344.
12. For more detail on this theme, see Chris Allen, Islampohobia (London: Ashgagte, 2010).
13. On this theme, see Liz Fekete, “The New McCarthyism in Europe,” Arches Quarterly 7, no. 4 (2010): 64–68.
14. For the latest analysis on the European far right more generally, see the valuable collection of essays: Andrea Mammone, Emmanuel Godin, Brian Jenkins, eds., Mapping the Extreme Right in Contemporary Europe: From Local to Transnational (London: Routledge, 2012).
15. For a lengthier discussion on Wilders, also see Sarah L. de Lange and David Art, “Fortuyn versus Wilders: An Agency-Based Approach to Radical Right Party Building,” West European Politics 34, no. 6 (2011): 1229–1249.
16. See Roger Griffin, The Nature of Fascism (London: Routledge, 1993) and Roger Griffin, Fascism and Modernism: The Sense of a New Beginning under Mussolini and Hitler (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2007).
17. The current address for this site is: http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.co.uk (accessed February 22, 2013).
18. For more detail here, see my forthcoming chapter “2083—A European Declaration of Independence: A License to Kill” in Matthew Feldman and Paul Jackson, eds., Doublespeak: The Framing of the Far Right Since 1945 (Stuttgart: Ibidem Verlag, forthcoming).
19. Aristotle Kallis, Genocide and Fascism: The Eliminationist Drive in Fascist Europe (London: Routledge, 2008).
20. Aristotle Kallis, “Aristotle Kallis: ‘Licence’ and Genocide in the East: Reflections on Localised Eliminationist Violence,” Studies in Ethnicity and Nationalism, 2007 ASEN Conference Special 7, no. 3 (2007): 6–23.
21. 2083, 41–50.
22. Ibid., 234–242.
23. Ibid., 274.
24. Ibid., 277.
25. This discussion begins on ibid., 282.
26. Ibid., 301.
27. Ibid., 696.
28. Ibid., 333.
29. Ibid., 605.
30. Ibid., 320.
31. For example, Nazis often presented Jews as pedophiles or sexual threats in propaganda materials. For an example of this trend, see Steve Hoschstadt, Sources of the Holocaust (Basingstoke: Palgrave, 2004), 52–55.
32. 2083, 398.
33. Ibid., 399.
34. Ibid., 507.
35. Ibid., 511.
36. Ibid., 323.
37. For a discussion on the use of Christianity to construct a fascist identity within Nazi and Neo-Nazi cultures in Britain, see Paul Jackson, “Extremes of Faith and Nation: British Fascism and Christianity,” Religion Compass 4, no. 8 (2010): 507–517.
38. 2083, 671.
39. Ibid., 337.
40. Ibid., 333.
41. Ibid., 350.
42. Ibid., 353.
43. Ibid., 686.
44. Ibid., 698.
45. Ibid., 697.
46. Ibid., 322.
47. Ibid.
48. Others, including Roger Eatwell, also embrace the notion of fascist ideologies developing a revolutionary third way, see Roger Eatwell, Fascism: A History (London: Pimlico, 2003). Moreover, on the issue of fascism as an ideology steeped in a mythic construction of politics, see Emilio Gentile, Politics as Religion (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006).
49. 2083, 694.
50. Ibid., 688.
51. For a fuller discussion on leaderless resistance, see Jeffrey Kaplan, “Leaderless Resistance,” Terrorism and Political Violence 9, no. 3 (1997): 80–95. For a lengthier discussion on Blood and Honour, see the report by Alexander Meleagrou-Hitchens and Edmund Standing, Blood & Honour: Britain's Far-Right Militants (London: Centre for Social Cohesion, 2010), http://www.nothingbritish.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Blood_Honour_download.pdf (accessed February 22, 2013)
52. 2083, 694.
53. For example, see ibid., 664.
54. Ibid., 717.
55. Ibid., 715.
56. This is most clearly stressed by Breivik in ibid., 793.
57. For example, see Chip Berlet, “Updated: Breivik's Core Thesis is White Christian Nationalism v. Multiculturalism” (2011), http://www.talk2action.org/story/2011/7/25/73510/6015 (accessed February 22, 2013); and also the conference podcast by Jérôme Jamin, “Cultural Marxism in the Anglo-Saxon Radical Right Literature,” http://backdoorbroadcasting.net/2012/09/jerome-jamin-cultural-marxism-in-the-anglo-saxon-radical-right-literature (accessed February 22, 2013).
58. Jensen has spoken out in his defense—for example, to the German newspaper linked to the New Right, Junge Freiheit. In this interview, he typically distanced himself from Breivik, and again stated that he had never met him. Nevertheless, his position remained the same, despite Breivik's actions. As he put it: “I did seriously consider quitting as a writer in the immediate aftermath of the terror attacks due to the immense international pressure on my person at that time and because I genuinely felt horrible about being quoted by such a man. Being dragged into the Breivik case against my will is the worst thing that ever happened to me in my life. After coming to my senses and recharging my mental batteries I decided to continue after all. I remain dedicated to the truth. Whatever was true before Breivik is also true after Breivik. If I ever quit as a writer I want this to be my own choice, not something I am forced to do by others.” The whole interview is available at http://tundratabloids.com/2012/01/fjordman-interview-in-german-paper-junge-freiheit-europe-is-the-sick-man-of-the-world.html (accessed February 22, 2013).