Immediately after Anders Behring Breivik committed his terrorist atrocity in Norway a year ago today, killing 77, the Center for American Progress, a $38 million-a-year liberal think tank, rushed out (under its ThinkProgress imprint) a graphic that helpfully pointed out how often Breivik had cited 11 of what it called "right-wing pundits and organizations" in his manifesto, 2083 — A European Declaration of Independence.
CAP's research, which was much cited and had vast influence on the reporting of Breivik's mental formation, would lead one to believe that Breivik's sources of information came exclusively from those "right-wing pundits and organizations." Not so. Although I noted a year ago the essential deceit of this characterization, the full picture became apparent only later, thanks to a complete concordance created by Steven Emerson's Investigative Project on Terrorism of the over 1,600 personal names in 2083.
IPT's research establishes that, yes, Breivik certainly did mention conservatives, but he also mentioned about as many liberals and leftists, not to speak of Christians and Muslims, historical figures and writers. With IPT's authorization, I am posting the 84 names mentioned ten or more times in 2083. (The discrepancy between CAP's and IPT's numbers results from their differing methodologies.)
IPT's list of 84 top mentions includes a very wide range of figures.
- Leftist thinkers: Karl Marx (27 times), Theodor Adorno (26), György Lukács/George Lukacs (26), Herbert Marcuse (24), Antonio Gramsci (23), Thomas Hylland Eriksen (21), Colin Barker (20), and Friedrich Nietzsche (10).
- Leftist politicians: Tony Blair (20 times), Barack Obama (19), Andrew Neather (15), Javier Solana (12), Romano Prodi (12), and Gordon Brown (11).
- Muslims: Anwar Shaaban (48 times), Islam's prophet Muhammad (36), Osama bin Laden (29), Yasir Arafat (19), Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid (15), Abu Talal al-Qasimy (13), Ahmad Abu Laban (12), Ibn Khaldun (12), Abu Hamid Muhammad al-Ghazali (11), Hasan al-Banna (11), and Sayyid Qutb (11).
- Christian figures: Jesus Christ (63 times), Pope Urban II (13), Patriarch Nasrallah Sfeir (12), Michael the Syrian (11), and Saint Bernard of Clairvaux (10).
- Random historical figures: Charles Martel (53 times), Hitler (50), Winston Churchill (23), Duke Odo of Aquitaine (21), John III Sobieski (19), Thomas Jefferson (18), Napoleon Bonaparte (17), Sitting Bull (14), and Benjamin Disraeli (10).
- Writers: Aristotle (25 times), Ivo Andrić (20), William Shakespeare (20), Plato (16), Salman Rushdie (16), George Orwell (12), Wilhelm Reich (12), and Sigmund Freud (11).
Comments:
(1) I count 13 critics of Islam or Islamism and 11 Muslims among the 84 top names mentioned by Breivik. Pretty much a draw, no?
(2) As for Breivik agreeing with those critics: hardly. As I have showed, he intentionally sought to damage and delegitimize anyone who rejects his violent ways.
(3) The Center for American Progress distorted Breivik's mind by listing only conservatives – hardly a shock given CAP's history of shoddy work.
(4) Concerning all those progressive eminentoes: after Max Blumenthal recently lambasted me in The Nation, a Leftist magazine, for being mentioned by Breivik, I wrote a letter to its editors: "Were the Nation to boycott this posse of Marxists, leftists, and their protégés, its pages would stand quite empty."
(5) I am the 9th most commonly mentioned person, bizarrely finding myself right after Islam's prophet Muhammad, tied with Dutch politician Geert Wilders & Osama bin Laden, immediately ahead of Karl Marx.
| Name | Tally |
| Bat Ye'or | 71 |
| Fjordman | 63 |
| Jesus Christ | 63 |
| Robert Spencer | 54 |
| Charles Martel | 53 |
| Adolf Hitler | 50 |
| Shaykh Anwar Shaaban | 48 |
| Mohammed | 36 |
| Daniel Pipes | 29 |
| Geert Wilders | 29 |
| Osama Bin Laden | 29 |
| Karl Marx | 27 |
| György Lukács (or George Lukacs) | 26 |
| Theodor Adorno | 26 |
| Aristotle | 25 |
| Herbert Marcuse | 24 |
| Andrew Bostom | 23 |
| Antonio Gramsci | 23 |
| Winston Churchill | 23 |
| Bruce Bawer | 22 |
| Jean-Louis Bruguière | 22 |
| Serge Trifkovic | 22 |
| Speros Vryonis, Jr. | 22 |
| Duke Odo of Aquitaine (Eudes the Great) | 21 |
| Thomas Hylland Eriksen | 21 |
| Colin Barker | 20 |
| Ivo Andric | 20 |
| Jean-Francois Ricard | 20 |
| Tony Blair | 20 |
| William Shakespeare | 20 |
| Barack Obama | 19 |
| Ibn Warraq | 19 |
| John III Sobieski | 19 |
| Theo van Gogh | 19 |
| Yasser Arafat | 19 |
| Hugh Fitzgerald | 18 |
| Thomas Jefferson | 18 |
| Napoleon Bonaparte | 17 |
| A.E. Vacalopoulos | 16 |
| Angela Merkel | 16 |
| Ayaan Hirsi Ali | 16 |
| Plato | 16 |
| Salman Rushdie | 16 |
| Walid Shoebat | 16 |
| Andrew Neather | 15 |
| José Manuel Barroso | 15 |
| Pim Fortuyn | 15 |
| Sultan Abdul Hamid | 15 |
| George W. Bush | 14 |
| Saga | 14 |
| Sitting Bull | 14 |
| Valéry Giscard d'Estaing | 14 |
| Ali Sina | 13 |
| Axel | 13 |
| Erich Fromm | 13 |
| Mike Tyldesley | 13 |
| Nasrallah Sfeir | 12 |
| Nicholas Sarkozy | 13 |
| Ole Jørgen Anfindsen | 13 |
| V.I. Lenin | 5 |
| Abu Laban | 12 |
| Camille Chamoun | 12 |
| George Orwell | 12 |
| Javier Solana | 12 |
| Pope Urban II | 13 |
| Romano Prodi | 12 |
| Wilhelm Reich | 12 |
| Al-Ghazali | 11 |
| Carl I. Hagen | 11 |
| Hasan Al-Banna | 11 |
| Henryk Broder | 11 |
| Ibn Khaldun | 12 |
| Jean Monnet | 11 |
| Michael the Syrian | 11 |
| Sayyid Qutb | 11 |
| Sigmund Freud | 11 |
| Thomas Madden | 11 |
| Abu Talal al-Qasimy | 13 |
| Benjamin Disraeli | 10 |
| Edward Grant | 18 |
| F.A. Hayek | 10 |
| Friedrich Nietzsche | 10 |
| Gordon Brown | 11 |
| Roger Scruton | 10 |
| Saint Bernard of Clairvaux | 10 |
(July 22, 2012)
Feb. 7, 2020 update: The distortion continues nine years later. Here's a colorful example: the state-owned television network NRK broadcast a six-part series, 22 July, that semi-fictionalizes the story of Breivik's massacre. Bruce Bawer explains in "Norway's Slime Machine is At It Again":
in a scene set at the offices of Aftenposten, we glimpse a list of names on a whiteboard: Daniel Pipes, Bat Ye'or, Robert Spencer, Bruce Bawer (yes, me), Lars Hedegaard, Anders Gravers Pedersen, and Geert Wilders. This image is followed by a shot of a few dozen caskets.
Honestly, can you go any lower? Utterly ignored here – and throughout – is the vital fact that neither Jensen nor anyone named on that whiteboard has ever called for violence. On the contrary, our preoccupation with Islam is grounded in the fact that it's a fountain of violence
 A scene from the NRK six-part television series, "22 July" showing the names of Breivik's alleged co-conspirators. |
