The Torquemada of the Fjords

The recent controversy among academics in Norway that spilled over into Gates of Vienna has prompted our Norwegian correspondent The Observer to write the following essay about a self-appointed Norwegian Grand Inquisitor and his obsession with Fjordman.

Vidar Enebakk, science historian or modern-day Torquemada?

By The Observer

Following the tragic events of July 22 last year, many conservatives in Norway have been subjected to a Norwegian version of the Spanish inquisition in which prominent public figures from the political and cultural establishments have been allowed to pontificate and condemn those that they perceive to be in cahoots with the mentally deranged terrorist Anders Behring Breivik.

The inquisition has been a long, dirty drawn-out public affair on which accusations have been made with a fiendish fervour. For those on the receiving end, it must have be an absolute nightmare, especially when considering the viciousness and poorly disguised hatred that seem to fuel some of the accusers. These modern-day inquisitors have many names, and there are probably many reasons why they have decided to take on the role of judge, jury and executioner, but in this article I will only focus on one of these agents of orthodoxy, as ultimately they are really one and the same and speaking with a collective voice. Their arguments and accusations all seem to have been taken from the same poorly written manuscript.

Vidar Enebakk is one of these inquisitors. He is a 41-year-old science historian who has worked tirelessly trying to convince a traumatized nation that the essayist and author Fjordman shares a moral responsibility for the murders of 77 innocent people carried out in Oslo and on Utøya on July 22, 2011. One would expect that Enebakk — who has been trying to implicate Fjordman in these grizzly deeds for sixteen months now by writing a staggering 144 lengthy comments on a major Norwegian online discussion forum and co-authoring a book in which he puts the moral blame on Fjordman for the worst-ever terror attacks on Norwegian soil — would have solid evidence to back up his pernicious allegations, and in particular given that we know Enebakk himself is a scientist. But unfortunately for Enebakk, his accusations are just empty shells.

The problem with Enebakk’s personal crusade against Fjordman is that the evidence he uses simply doesn’t support his allegations. What Enebakk is doing, and I am going to use a Norwegian phrase here, is trying to make soup out of carpentry nails. Enebakk and all the other Norwegian and international inquisitors are acutely aware that Fjordman was acquitted of any wrongdoing by the Norwegian courts and the Norwegian police pretty much from the get-go. Enebakk realizes that he therefore can’t accuse Fjordman of being an actual accomplice in the attacks, but he has solved this tricky conundrum by instead accusing Fjordman of being morally responsible for the attacks. It’s a way for him and others to circumvent and ignore the fact that Fjordman had absolutely nothing to do with the attacks or the terrorist, and still enable him and others to keep attacking Fjordman without having to prove any tangible connections between the two. Enebakk and his allies want to convict Fjordman without having to worry about such pesky things as due process and proper evidence.

There is of course no such term as moral guilt in modern jurisprudence. In a court of law a defendant is either guilty or not guilty, meaning that the law cannot allow that a person be acquitted in a criminal court case because of lack of evidence, and then receive a conviction of moral responsibility for the same crime.

If someone is acquitted in a court of law of, say, rape, then that person can legally sue anyone who in the lead-up to and after the court case has publicly stated that the accused is a rapist. That is law at its most basic level, and it should be pretty straightforward. Unfortunately, however, this message seems to have eluded Enebakk and his cohorts, as this is exactly the type of activities that they are engaging in.

I’m surprised that a scientist like Enebakk doesn’t seem capable of grasping this simple fact, but maybe deep-down he does. Enebakk should be aware that he could easily be sued for defamation and slander based on the hundreds of incriminating and highly offensive statements he has published about Fjordman — and that goes for everyone else that has slandered Fjordman online and in the press.

So we have established that there is no such thing as moral guilt in modern law, although I’m sure it’s a term that Stalin would have appreciated very much. I’m also convinced that Vidar Enebakk would have had a brilliant career in the Soviet legal system if he had been around at the time. The logical fallacy of Enebakk’s philosophy is that a person cannot be innocent and guilty at the same time. But I can see that this is a possibility in Enebakk’s own universe; he seems to operate with a completely different set of rules than the rest of us.

Vidar Enebakk is like a rabid dog chasing a bone. He just will not stop or slow down. He’s running on autopilot. He has his victim locked in his sights, and he can smell blood.

Furthermore, I maintain that Enebakk is a nasty character. How else would one describe a person who has no moral qualms about accusing an innocent individual of being complicit in the most heinous criminal act committed in Norway in modern history? What type of person would claim that: “Hey, I’m not saying that you participated in the crime; I’m merely saying that in moral terms you are guilty of killing 77 young people who were butchered in the most horrific manner possible on an island that they had no opportunity of escaping from — but no hard feelings, eh?”

To claim that someone who has been proven by the courts to be innocent, who hasn’t done anything to aid and abet the perpetrator in the initial planning stage nor on the actual day of the attack, was somehow with the deranged perpetrator in spirit when the perpetrator fired his bullets into the heads and hearts of his young victims and watched them die by the dozens on the shoreline of Utøya, is absolutely disgusting and sickening. I cannot understand how such a person can bear to look at himself in the mirror. Only a truly twisted and vicious person would accuse someone else of such a horrible thing.

In his defence I would have to say that I don’t believe that Enebakk has thoroughly grasped the gruesome logic of his accusations. But if I’m incorrect in my assumption, and he actually does know what he’s doing, then there is definitely something wrong inside his head. Has Enebakk ever thought about how it affects a person to be accused of having contributed to the taking of 77 lives? Most people would go to great lengths just to clear their name for some minor infraction such as shoplifting if they felt that they had been wrongfully accused. How does Enebakk think it feels like to be accused of killing 77 innocent people? What does he think it feels like for Fjordman’s family and close friends? Has Enebakk no mental boundaries whatsoever? Is he so mentally corrupt that he doesn’t have a single decent bone left in his body?

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

Let’s take a look at the arguments that Enebakk seem to think are so rock-solid that there can be absolutely no doubt about Fjordman’s moral guilt. Let’s examine the logic behind his accusations. Is it possible to discern the sharp logic behind the thought process that prompted the scientist to reach the conclusion that Fjordman is actively encouraging people to commit violence?

Enebakk’s main justifications for incriminating Fjordman are as follows:

As posted at Verdidebatt.no August 14 2012:

“My advice to Westerners in general is to arm themselves immediately, first of all mentally with knowledge of the enemy and pride in their own culture and heritage, but also physically with guns and the skills to use them.”

“Both Fjordman and Breivik directly advocate arming the populations — Breivik by including the last of this quote by Fjordman in his compendium (Chapter 2.58):

“In Praise of the First and Second Amendments” (The Brussels Journal 20. July 2006):

“If their governments are no longer capable of protecting them and their freedom of speech, Europeans may have to arm themselves to do this on their own.”

“Civil War in Sweden?” (Gates of Vienna 2. July 2008):

“In general, if you live in any Western European country, you should arm yourself very soon, one way or the other.”

“Will Holland Survive the 21st Century” (Gates of Vienna 9. September 2009):

“My advice to Westerners in general is to arm themselves immediately, first of all mentally with knowledge of the enemy and pride in their own culture and heritage, but also physically with guns and the skills to use them.”

Verdidebatt.no August 5 2012:

It isn’t Fjordman’s criticism of Islam that is the problem, but rather his repeated calls for arming the population and to use violence. The problem is not that he is against Islam or favors deportation, but his rejection of our democratic system and the support of violence against political leaders.

As we can see from the above quotes, Enebakk bases his arguments on Fjordman’s defence of the Second Amendment of the American Constitution, which is an absolutely remarkable display of logic. I am also a supporter of the Second Amendment; does that mean that I’m also responsible for the Utøya massacre? It’s amazing that a scientist can justify his arguments on such preposterous and highly illogical basis.

Maintaining that people have a right to defend themselves doesn’t mean supporting the idea that people have the right to indiscriminately start killing innocent humans on a tiny Norwegian island. Being positive towards a principle doesn’t mean that one is an accomplice to a crime if someone decides to carry out a criminal act and then justify this act with a reference to said principle.

Suggesting that people should arm themselves in order to protect themselves if civil unrest breaks out isn’t advocating or condoning violence; it is common sense. It’s also an argument which is espoused by nations and armies all over the world. No one would in their right mind claim that supporting the idea of having a national army is the same as being a supporter of war — unless, of course, you’re using the same logic as Enebakk.

If Enebakk believes that Islamophobia is a despicable act, is he then ideologically responsibility for the murders of Islamophobes in the Muslim world?

Or what about vocal opponents of high taxes — are they guilty of ideologically influencing tax evaders?

Or what about pro-gun Americans, do they share moral responsibility for every single gun crime committed in America, solely on the basis of their opinions?

Enebakk has also stated that he believes that Fjordman is morally guilty because Breivik republished 45 of Fjordman’s essays in his manifesto:

Verdidebatt.no June 13 2012

Then I would suggest that in addition to Fjordman’s 45 republished essays in Breivik’s manifesto, that you take a look at page 1405 one more time. Here it is stated explicitly that Fjordman is Breivik’s favorite writer and that, according to Breivik, they both share the same view of the world, but that Breivik alone takes the leap from attitudes to actions: “Our views are quite similar with the exception that I’m an actual armed resistance fighter.”

Breivik’s mother pointed out the same thing in police interrogations: “Fjordman was number one for Anders.”

How do you then justify your claim that Fjordman simply hasn’t inspired Breivik? Who else in the manifest do you think inspired Breivik if Fjordman is as innocent as you suggest?

It’s amazing to see a scientist who so readily uses guilt by association in an attempt to booster his own arguments. What Enebakk is doing is implicating and accusing Fjordman based on something that Breivik has done and which Fjordman had no knowledge of. The “reasoning” behind such remarkable logic is equivalent of a modern day Kafkaesque process in which the defendant has no possible way of clearing his name, as all the normal principles of defence have been taken away from him.

Enebakk places a big responsibility on ytringsansvar, ‘decorum’, and accuses others of ideologically contributing to crimes by the mere utterance of words that have no relations to the crime, but then again Enebakk is also oblivious to the fact that if we apply his twisted logic, his own words also have consequences.

How would Enebakk feel if any harm ever came to Fjordman as a result of his personal crusade against him? Would he be willing to admit any guilt?

Many of the inquisitors in Norway have also made a big point about the terms “quisling” and “traitor” being used by Fjordman and others in the Counterjihad community to describe those responsible for the disastrous mess that the West is currently in. Many of them are so outraged by this that they jump to the conclusion that the traitors in question would be dealt with in the same swift manner that Breivik used when he killed all those youths on Utøya. But what they fail to realize is that Quisling and all the other traitors in Norway were tried in a court of law, and that they had their sentences meted out only after lawful convictions were reached. The same thing is true with the Nuremberg trials.

A nation is certainly entitles to rid itself of its traitors and tyrants. It’s considered a noble goal throughout the world, and it is something that Norway has recently helped Libya, Afghanistan and Egypt to achieve.

Are Norwegian authorities therefore morally responsible for the massacres in Norway? Well according to Enebakk’s brilliant logic, they are.