The Mass Murderers Among Us (TTBOOK Extra)

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Wisconsin Public Radio

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4.7 • 844 Ratings

🗓️ 16 June 2016

⏱️ 34 minutes

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Summary

The shooting rampage in Orlando has led to a lot of speculation about Omar Mateen’s politics and state of mind. There's still so much we don't know, but maybe we can learn from another mass murder. Consider the case of Anders Breivik, the gunman who killed 77 people, mostly teenagers, in 2011. It was one of the biggest mass murders in modern history and a national trauma for Norway. Breivik was a white supremacist, so his politics were different from Mateen's. But the two mass muderers were both alienated, self-radicalized loners. And as we struggle to find out what we can from Orlando, maybe there are lessons from the story of another terrorist and another country’s response. So here’s Steve Paulson’s extended conversation with journalist Asne Sierestad, an award-winning Norwegian journalist and war correspondent who covered the Breivik case and wrote the book “One of Us: The Story of Anders Breivik and the Massacre in Norway.”

Transcript

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0:00.0	Support for WPR comes from St. Luke's Burthing Center, providing expectant mom's low intervention options with labor tubs, remote telemetry, and nitrous oxide.
0:10.4	More information is at slh Duluth.com slash baby.
0:15.1	Hey, podcast listeners, it's Anne Strangeamps here, and we've got something new this week, to the best of our knowledge,
0:21.5	extra. An interview or conversation that's so good, we think you'd like to hear the whole thing.
0:27.2	This week we're bringing you Steve's conversation with Asna Sairstad. She's an award-winning
0:31.9	Norwegian journalist and war correspondent who covered the Anders Breivik case. And maybe you remember this.
0:38.7	It was in 2011, a white supremacist named Anders Breivik shot and killed 69 people at a Norwegian summer youth camp.
0:48.2	Most of the victims were teenagers, was one of the biggest mass murders in modern history and, of course, a national trauma for Norway.
0:55.8	And it's been on our minds because of the shooting in Orlando, because there's been a lot of speculation about Omar Mateen's motivations.
1:03.2	There's a lot that we still don't know about his politics and his psychology.
1:07.7	But when you listen to this interview, I think you'll hear similarities between the two
1:12.5	gunmen, and their politics were different, but they were both alienated, self-radicalized loners.
1:19.5	So as we struggle to learn what we can from Orlando, maybe there are things we can learn from
1:25.4	this story of another terrorist and another country's response.
1:30.3	Here's Steve Paulson's conversation with Asna Sierstadt about her book, One of Us, the story of Anders Breivik and the Massacre in Norway.
1:39.1	Osnay, your book is called One of Us, which is a curious title, because it would seem that Anders Breivik is
1:45.5	precisely not like any other Norwegian. He's a mass murderer, a neo-Nazi, probably a psychopath.
1:53.2	Why do you say he's one of us? Well, first of all, he was born like one of us. He's a fellow
2:00.7	Norwegian typical in many senses.
2:04.5	And then at some point, he decides to go against all of us.
2:09.5	But if we portray him like a monster, something, you know, almost extraterrestrial or something,
2:15.6	it would be too easy to say, you know, he is, he's ill,
	...

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