The terrible events in Norway are a timely reminder that crazed individuals with religious or political obsessions and six tonnes of artificial fertiliser can turn up anywhere, even in one of the hitherto most untroubled countries on earth.
If I had been asked where I think the next terrorist attack would occur involving bombed buildings and the massacre of civilians, I would never have thought ‘Norway’. Norway has no history of terrorism, no apparent internal tensions and no overt religious conflict. But every country has its crackpots who can be flipped over the edge by the slightest thing. We forget that. Given the means – artificial fertiliser and guns, in this case − and the inclination, they can inflict maximum damage. At far less dangerous level, they hijack the public agenda and as much airspace and column inches as they can muster, and throw tantrums in the forum.
When these individuals have a hook instead of a hand, wear an eye-patch or sport an Islamic beard, nobody is surprised. But when photographs of the terrorists, fanatic and crackpots are released and they are shown looking entirely normal, like somebody you might invite into your house if he rang the bell asking for directions, people are shocked. We want our villains to look like villains, our terrorists to look evil, our crackpots to wear stained clothes and out-of-control hair.
And when villains and terrorists look like somebody we might dance with at a nightclub, like the man who has just killed around a hundred teenagers in Norway and blown up a public building, or when crackpots wear nice suits and ties and go into mainstream politics, we don’t recognise them for what they are. We ask ourselves whether this can be possible.
The deaths in Norway are disturbing and upsetting not only because so very many young people were murdered, but also because they were so random. Anything that is random frightens us. It reminds us that we all hang by a thread and brings us up short in our search for any sort of rhyme or reason in the meaning of life. We know that if we spend rather a lot of time travelling around North Africa or the Middle East right now something dangerous might happen to us. So we do not find that disturbing. We merely avoid any such travel. But when it happens in Norway we are brought up short with a jolt as the information is forced on us that we spend so much time trying to push into our subconscious: that anyone can be blown up or shot anywhere. And quite literally, you never know.
Joyless people
Some people seem to go out of their way to take the fun out of life. I doubt that there are people in Norway who have taken to the Internet to say “You see? I told you summer camps were a really bad idea”, but over here on the ranch the exhaustingly persistent Astrid Vella reacted immediately to the news that Carlos Santana will perform at the conventions centre in Ta’ Qali because it’s going to be too windy out in the open in Floriana tomorrow.
I told you so, she crowed – Renzo Piano’s roofless theatre is a lousy idea and the government should have spent its money on hospital services instead. The Queen of Non Sequiturs is back. It’s only a matter of minutes before Black and Tan James Tyrrell follows – the strongest argument for bringing back the Foreign Interference Act − in hot pursuit of his fire-engine-haired heroine, presumably because there are no suitable distractions in Northern Ireland or Gozo.
Mrs Vella, who has developed an impressive career as a professional wet blanket, gloated on timesofmalta.com’s comments-board: “In addition to the weather problems that dogged Joseph Calleja’s concert last year, you are forgetting the classical music concerts at the Grand Master’s Palace courtyard which had to be suspended because of the festa bangs... even normal weather like our high rate of humidity in the evening... affects wooden instruments so much that some performers have already declared that they will not be exposing their precious instruments” – unlike Manu Maltes, one imagines – “to the risk of damage. The Ballet Council has similarly stated that it cannot use this stage because of the risk of its performers injuring themselves by slipping on the evening dew.”
As plenty of people have just discovered in Norway, Astrid, life is short and the end often unexpected. Try learning how to have some fun. Instead of celebrating because the wind has caused a change of venue for Carlos Santana’s concert, buy a ticket and hear him play. And when stepping out of your Sliema flat, take care with that evening dew. It might be armed and dangerous.
Next instalment: why Renzo Piano’s roofless theatre is a bad idea because anyone can pepper the audience with machine-gun fire.