re: #58 OhCrapIHaveACrushOnSarahPalin

From Charles’ link:

Groaaannn he’s not a “fundamentalist Christian”, not even an Evangelical conservative whacko. This is promoting disinformation.

I do notice that there’s quite a bit of discussion on this description; and I will have to say that I do agree with the above poster.

Now, obviously the Utya terrorist does describe himself as Christian, and he also talks about this in parts of his manifesto - where he also rambles on about Crusader themes and Temple Knights (none of which he seems to have particularly much insight in). Although I dislike the use of the word “fundamentalist” in general (it doesn’t really say much, does it), someone who kills dozens of people in a “marketing campaign” (his own words) for a disgusting tract of paranoid conspiracy theories, is obviously easily described as such.

The problem is that the two words, put together, in reality describes a very specific phenomenon, particularily in the American context. And while I do not think too highly of the actual Christian fundamentalists, I’m a secular centre-left-oriented European agnostic, after all; I think it’s somewhat unreasonable to put the Utya terrorist in that category, for two reasons:

1. He does not belong there;
2. It leads the focus away from the groups the Utya terrorist very obviously did draw inspiration from, namely the socalled and self-proclaimed counterjihadists; and prominently Fjordman, whose texts make up a very considerable part of his manifesto (which is even -named- after: 1. the anniversary of the date for the battle at the gates of Vienna reference to in the name of a certain blog, 2. a Fjordman essay where he states that “We” should take “the necessary means” if a list of demands - such as closing the borders for Muslims and dissolving the European Union - are not met).

Now, I suspect that the use of the term “Christian fundamentalist” may originate in Norwegian media, and that the description has been translated. Here I would like to point out that the words do not carry quite the same connotations in Norwegian as in English, but that I still consider it a misnomer. This is also something I have underscored in some of my criticism of early media reports, where I pointed out that they should instead be looking at the connections to the socalled “counterjihadist” movement. That is also what the Norwegian media is doing now, and I think that the description as “kristenfundamentalist” is not much used anymore. He is described - much more accurately - as a “hyreekstremist”, which in English becomes “right-wing extremist”. That’s not a term without its problems either, but it is a much better one.