The terrorist attack on the Pride celebrations in Berlin claimed one life and injured 29 people on Saturday evening. While prominent politicians from the Labour Party (Ap) and the Green Party (MDG) filled Facebook with expressions of grief and rainbow flags, Conservative Party (Høyre) Deputy Leader Ola Svenneby believes they are deliberately avoiding the central issue: that the perpetrator was an Islamist.
The Conservative Party’s Second Deputy Leader, Ola Svenneby, has launched a sharp attack on four elected politicians following the attack in Berlin. In a Facebook post, he lists what he believes is missing from their responses.
“Not a single word about the ideology behind it. Not a single word about the perpetrator. Not a single word about how religion is actively used to turn gay people into targets,” writes Svenneby.
He does not name the politicians directly in the post itself, but refers to the reactions of the Labour Party’s Parliamentary Leader Tonje Brenna, Labour MP Kamzy Gunaratnam, Oslo politician and former Deputy Mayor Abdullah Alsabeehg (Labour), and MDG’s Frøya Skjold Sjursæther.
His conclusion is succinct:
“Yesterday’s attack was an Islamist attack on gay people.”
One dead, 29 injured
A van drove into the crowd near Tiergarten in Berlin late on Saturday evening, close to the closing event of the city’s Pride celebrations. The perpetrator then attacked several people with a bladed weapon, believed to have been a machete. One woman was killed and 29 people were injured.
On Sunday, German police were searching for 21-year-old Abdul Ballout, a German citizen of Lebanese background, born in Germany in 2005. He was already known to the police, including for having received a suspended sentence for preparing a serious act of violence after a failed attempt to join Islamic State (IS).
Ballout was shot dead by police on Sunday evening.
Germany’s Interior Minister Alexander Dobrindt was unequivocal in his assessment.
“Everything we have seen indicates that this was an Islamist terrorist attack,” Dobrindt said on Sunday.
“Whatever the investigation ultimately shows”
It is precisely the absence of this connection that Svenneby is reacting to. In the four politicians’ posts, the theme is “hatred” – in the abstract. The ideology and the perpetrator’s background are absent.
Labour politician Kamzy Gunaratnam did not mention Islam in a single word.
Gunaratnam writes about how hatred affects minorities, but at the same time includes an explicit reservation:
“Whatever the investigation ultimately shows, we must never become indifferent when people are targeted because of who they are,” she writes.
Brenna describes the attack as something that “cuts to the heart” and recalls the terror attack in Oslo:
“PRIDE is the opposite of hatred. The struggle for everyone to be able to love whom they want and be who they are will ultimately prevail,” writes the Labour Party’s Parliamentary Leader.
Alsabeehg links the attack to democracy’s protection of minorities:
“Hatred and terror must never be allowed to define who we are as a society,” he writes.
Nor did Labour politician Abdullah Alsabeehg mention Islamism in any way.
Sjursæther, who became the youngest Member of Parliament in Norwegian history when she entered Parliament for MDG last year, writes about children in Norwegian and German school playgrounds:
“When hatred of gay people strikes as brutally as this, I hope to see even more rainbow flags,” she writes.
None of the four mentions Islam, Islamism, or the perpetrator’s background.
MP Frøya Sjursæther (MDG) likewise says nothing about the perpetrator.
“They are overrepresented”
Svenneby stresses that his criticism is not intended to target Muslims as a group.
“That legitimises neither hatred nor prejudice against other minorities in Norway, including the Muslim minority,” he writes.
At the same time, he rejects the notion that the problem can be obscured:
“Reactionary Muslims and Islamists are not alone in wanting to use violence against gay people. But they are overrepresented.”
He points out that the Berlin police have previously openly warned gay people against certain districts of the city because homophobia there is particularly strong – and that these are the same districts with a high proportion of minorities.
“That this could happen is therefore not surprising,” writes Svenneby.
Points to the 22 July parallel
The Conservative deputy leader also takes aim at those whom he believes apply a double standard. Less than a week earlier, Norway marked the anniversary of the 22 July attacks, when the message was that people should “speak truthfully” about the terrorism.
“I also find it striking that those who, less than a week ago – rightly – stressed the importance of speaking truthfully about 22 July are failing to do the same today,” he writes.
His demand of the elected politicians is unequivocal:
“A good place to start is to speak truthfully about yesterday’s attack. That requires the country’s leading politicians to perform at a higher level than this.”