The Rise of Right Wing Extremism in Norway: An Overview
Author(s): EMAN Staff
The most crucial duty to maintain national security, according to the Norwegian Police Security Service (Politiets Sikkerhetstjeneste - PST), would be “to prevent those with close ties to Norway from being involved in terrorist activities.” In a 2021 report, PST outlines that there has been an increase in allegations of far-right radicalisation among young Norwegian men, including teenagers - “During the past year we’ve received between 400 and 500 reports of concern or tips about people that PST has chosen to follow up,” Annet Aamodt of PST told Aftenposten.
As a matter of fact, among the most noticeable trends in Norway and many other nations, today is that right-wing extremism is no longer primarily a youth issue; instead, such organisations and movements are nearly entirely dominated by adults.
In today’s world, individuals who are involved in right-wing extremist communities on countless forums on the internet are the current top threat from right-wing extremists. This is due to the fact that they present a wide range of world views, visions, and approaches that they feel are a necessity to achieving a variety of objectives. According to Tore Bjørgo, professor at the University of Oslo and Director at C-REX, among the significant changes during the past decade “is that the arenas for extremist activism to a large extent – but not completely – have moved from physical meetings and street activism onto the Internet in the forms of web pages, blogs and various types of social media (such as Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Telegram, etc).” The contrast between those who desire pure ethno-states and wish to achieve this by deporting other ethnic groups, and those who want to cause disorder in society with the goal of utter destruction and the construction of a new social order, is among the most important distinctions.
However, the PST believes that Norwegians are aware of the terrorist threats posed by right-wing extremists more than they were 10 years ago, particularly following the bombing of Oslo’s government headquarters and the massacre of young Labour Party members on the island of Utøya. Both attacks, which are believed to be among the most fatal in Norway’s modern history, were carried out by two young white Norwegians, Anders Behring Breivik and Philip Manshaus.
Previous assessments have determined that the threat of violent attacks posed by right-wing extremists is comparable to or even higher than the threat from Islamist extremists. The PST outlined in its last evaluation of terrorism that it had seen “an increase in the number of Norwegians who express understanding and support for right-wing extreme terror” over the past year. This conclusion was backed up by Annet Aamodt, senior advisor at PST, as she stated that “the number of tips and amount of information attached to them [right-wing extremists] has grown in recent years, “both in terms of those from private people and the police.”
Among Norway’s prominent right-wing groups is Den nordiske motstandsbevegelsen - NRM. The National Resistance Movement (NRM) is a transnational neo-Nazi group with overseas branches operating in Sweden, Finland, and Denmark. The NRM, which was founded in 1997, aims to unite the Nordic nations into a unified nationalist-socialist state, either through elections or revolution. The organisation is openly racist, anti-immigrant, anti-Semitic, and pro-Hitler, and has targeted homosexuals, ideological opponents, and Muslim migrants with violence.
Police in Norway have been frequently criticised for failing to act on tips regarding Manshaus and for being unprepared in the aftermath of Breivik’s attacks. Norway has a high level of freedom of expression, and PST officials argue they cannot function as an opinion-policing force - “when it comes to seeing folks we’re concerned about, we have a low bar,” said PST’s Aamodt. The public may play a vital role in recognising surprise attacks and preventing them, through effective communication between the PST and the public and also by providing sensitive security tips.
