Although being born English I am unfortunately much more “used” to bombs and terrorism in my country (since age 8 I used to see news about them, and narrowly escaped a IRA one in the early 1990s when I lived in London) – when I became more politically aware about Europe in my teens and learned about Scandinavia, I always admired the way that people in Scandinavian countries seemed to live peacefully together, even of opposing political views.
It seemed that until now, folk rich and poor seemed to mingle in the streets and violence was usually rare – it is not just lives lost here, but your country’s “innocence”. Well that is how BBC said it but I do not think that is the right word as “innocence” it implies weakness/vulnerability – I always thought nations like Norway were stronger for having that tolerance and consensus-led democracy rather than everyone turning to violence – but sadly it takes only a few angry people to destroy it.
Similar things happened in NL too a few years back (with assassinations of politicians etc) and it has also permanently changed the attitudes of people.
in my own life (with less than 10 years between each incident) London got bombed by IRA, then by hard right wingers, then by Muslim extremists – and yes it has a permanent effect on us English, it is why we are often angry and mistrusting in public places and large groups. In my town over 100km from London, when a homeless or forgetful person leaves a bag of clothes unattended within about 30 minutes the special police and armed units and bomb disposal are onto it and half of town evacuated.
There is no easy solution here – I appreciate how hard it will be for people in NO as they will have to abandon some of their freedom even if it means just more CCTV everywhere and more security to government buildings – but the best thing we can do for all the families caught up in these incidents is to “fight for peace” – to preserve a multicultural, democratic Europe which allows free expression but leaves no room for violence and extremism from any quarter.
