Massacre in Norway & Europe’s far right

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A child's drawing among flowers near Utoya island in Norway on Tuesday, where a gunman Anders Behring Breivik killed at least 76 people. Title reads 'Not good', swimmers call 'help' and 'don't shoot'. (AP Photo/Ferdinand Ostrop)

Hour 1

The attacks in Norway on Friday killed 76 people, most of them teens and young adults slaughtered at an island camp for young political leaders in training. Early on, speculation about the murderers focused on Al Qaeda terrorists, but the lone Norwegian man arrested in the case, Anders Behring Breivik, published a 1500-page manifesto excoriating the multiculturalism and tolerance of Western democracies and calling for war against Islam. Breivik’s ideology appears to reflect some aspects of far-right extremist politics in Europe, but not others, while also drawing much inspiration from anti-Jihadist American radicals and even the Unabomber. Joining us to help make sense of the attacks in Norway and the far right in Europe, and the U.S., are CAS MUDDE, a Dutch academic and professor at DePauw University in Indiana who has studied the relationship between the radical right and established parties in Europe and the U.S., and JONATHAN LAURENCE, a political science professor at Boston College and an expert on European politics and Islam. We’ll also hear from THOMAS HEGGHAMMER, a research fellow with the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment and an expert on terrorism.

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[audio: 072811_100630.mp3]

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