Demonising a smile

Adults fake it. Do children? Anders Breivik’s smiling picture as a four-year-old is being used by psychologists to analyse what led him to kill 77 people in Norway. It’s been called the smile of the monster. Such photographic ‘evidence’ will demonise children.

At his trial in Oslo, a doctor said:

“Much of what we see in him today is visible here, not least in the disarming smile he hides his feelings behind. He had difficulty expressing himself emotionally. He lacked light, joy and the pleasure of playing with others. We feared he would develop serious psychopathology (problems), which may indicate mental illness. Unfortunately we were right, but we never imagined that one day he would become a mass murderer.”

This is just so dangerous. There are children who are shy for various reasons. Many turn out to be writers, scientists, actors, pretty much involved in activities that either are done in isolation or to become somebody else. Look at the picture again. Have you never seen a child smile like this – perhaps your own or someone in your family, maybe your childhood pictures? Have you gone and killed someone?

There is much to discuss about troubled childhoods. They affect the children more than anyone else. Does every child with a not-so-happy background read works that are considered violent? Besides, does such a smile reflect exactly what form of aggression will be used? What is the impetus for choosing one over the other?

About masking, it is a defensive reaction or in many instances nervousness. It could also mean suppressed laughter, and that one is taught in classes on decorum – do not laugh out loud at someone or over a poor joke, it is bad manners. Like, don’t talk with your mouth full.

If the psychiatrists are saying that it revealed “serious illness” in Breivik’s case, and was used to keep away emotions, then it is used by many adults at different times. The most extreme example would be Hitler’s masked smile that seems to be a held-back sneeze.

Body language is a fascinating study, but it cannot be seen as parts of a whole. How we look at people or away, how we sit in company, how we talk to or at, how we purse our lips, how we cross our legs are all about a situation at a given time. This need not be about us as we are, but what we behave like with someone for some reason. It may change in a few minutes or a few hours, days, months.

And those who give a full jaws smile need not be ‘open’ really. That too is part of the faking, the congeniality people.

I do wonder if Mona Lisa had the makings of a terrorist since we just don’t know what she’s hiding or revealing.

Breivik's Day Out

They still won’t call him a terrorist. Anders Breivik remains a “right wing extremist gunman” and, with some concessional nod of late, an “anti-Muslim fanatic”. I feel that the trial is projecting his views in a circular light where despite what he has done, the emphasis will be on the statement made during the defence. It will work subliminally, for those he killed were not specifically Muslim targets. This would push the general sympathy idea and divert his motives.

He has displayed arrogance throughout. As a report says:

Norwegian killer Breivik breaks down as film of his hero Vlad the Impaler is played (but stays stony-faced as court describes way he slaughtered 77).

He smirked several times as the cuffs were removed, put his right fist on his heart then extended his hand in salute. “I do not recognise the Norwegian courts. You have received your mandate from political parties which support multiculturalism,” Breivik told the court after refusing to stand when judges entered.

“I acknowledge the acts but not criminal guilt as I claim self defence,” he added, seated in front of a bulletproof glass wall.

His self-defence was against “Muslims”.

The patch on his uniform

The Norwegian police plan to bring his mother Wenche Behring to the witness box because Breivik said during interviews:

“I just hope my mother is not there. She’s the only one who can make me emotionally unstable. She is my Achilles heel.”

They courts believe that seeing her will “reduce the killer to a quivering wreck”. This is ridiculous, for she has already stated that her son suffered from paranoid delusions five years ago. Why was he not treated for it? The insanity plea might work. And he might well be her Achilles heel.

All killers suffer from some psychological issues, and the ‘lone murderer’ or a group of terrorists being brainwashed is part of how the enemy is played on their minds subconsciously.

It is the job of the courts and the police to conduct the proceedings. I am surprised that such ‘motherly’ intervention is being made public. We are not dealing with a juvenile court. The man went on a killing spree, his acts are recorded, he has admitted to it. What more do they want to know? That he watched a Muslim running a store and it affected his mind so much that he decided to attack innocent people?

He is a terrorist, and not just Norway but all the western powers should treat him as such.

Also from my archives:

They don’t have terrorists in Norway?
Did Hindu or Islamic Fundamentalism inspire Oslo’s Terrorist?

They don’t have terrorists in Norway?

He is just a killer. Got it? No? Don’t you read the papers, watch the news, listen to the experts? Heck, don’t you see that Muslim organisations are so accustomed to being taken for granted that they jump in claiming that they did it. Ah, one more terrorist attack. But Norway? Why not? There are Muslims there and somewhere in Islam Norway too must have been mentioned. It did not work. This time someone was scoring points. That is what it is made out to be when a nice blond, clean-shaven guy in cop/military uniform, confesses.

He is not called a terrorist, no blanket judgement yet. Even as radical, he has his reasons – he is anti-Islam. He wreaked this terrorist attack to draw world attention to the end of multiculturalism. The New York Times had this precious nugget:

“Yet, some of the primary motivations cited by the suspect in Norway, Anders Behring Breivik, are now mainstream issues. Mrs. Merkel, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France and Prime Minister David Cameron in Britain all recently declared an end to multiculturalism. Multiculturalism “has failed, utterly failed,” Mrs. Merkel told fellow Christian Democrats last October, though stressing that immigrants were welcome in Germany.”

Is this not great? The bloke is now supposedly speaking or echoing the views of world leaders and the international media is going along with it?

The fact that he is seen to have acted alone puts him in the romanticised category of the lone ranger. He has himself said about how it was all “in the head”. They might just analyse it as mental trauma due to seeing so many immigrants around; maybe he suffered from claustrophobia; perhaps he was just playing some video games and decided to re-enact those scenes in real life. It would be attributed to madness. I would like to know why other sorts of such attacks are not. Because, they are not. They are planned and always have a purpose. There is, therefore, no reason to give him the benefit of doubt and to put him on a psychiatric couch only because he was alone. He has already displayed enough gall to declare that he wants to explain his stand. Explain the killing of a hundred people? He also wants to appear in uniform for the court hearings.

I am afraid but all this adds to the ‘heroism’. It won’t be stated in so many words, yet the subtext is clear. In a rather surprising statement quoted in the NYT piece, Joerg Forbrig, an analyst at the German Marshall Fund in Berlin who has studied far-rights issues, said:

“I’m not surprised when things like the bombing in Norway happen, because you will always find people who feel more radical means are necessary. It literally is something that can happen in a number of places and there are broader problems behind it.”

Stunningly simplistic. “More radical means are necessary”? So says the Al Qaeda too, but they are not given this Prozac kind of treatment. “Broader problems behind it”? Sure. While radical Islamists train and prune everything, except their beards, they could have broader problems as well – like their countries being decimated by powers that have no business to be on their land in the first place, and every person being considered a suspect if s/he is a Muslim, and their clothes and lifestyle being questioned.

Had this terrorist – yes, do use this term – been wearing a hijaab would it be seen as concern over multiculturalism? After all, when westerners go bang-bang and bomb-bomb in Iraq and Afghanistan, those places are superimposed by another culture and a fascist regime that seeks puppets to play with. Multiculturalism is not only about one nation deciding who the bad ones are, if they have granted them visas and they are working and in many ways contributing. If they are criminals, treat them as just that. Not as terror suspects. That does not happen. The chap at the pharmacy could well be a terrorist and if he takes an afternoon break for prayers, then he has had it. The teacher who wears a hijaab could be smuggling in Islamic literature for the bright kids who will soon turn into terrorists. Europe and America cannot take such risks.

We will forget the evangelists, the guys who burn the Quran, the people who say god told them to do it, the guys who move away if they see a person who does not look like them. Oh, they love chicken tikka and now vegetable jalfrezi. The curry kingdom was great till it lasted. Now it is time to just take the recipe and make it very clear who the boss is. As though it is not evident. As though it were any different when they ‘got Saddam’, they ‘got Osama’.

Breivik’s terrorism is as bad as any other is, so let us stop making excuses. The immigrant problem is there and must be dealt with by the relevant department. Neo-Nazi groups have been active long before 9/11. The new xenophobia has got a pedestal.


I also have problems with questions about how Muslims must integrate into societies they adopt as home. It brings the idea of globalisation down to a convenient ghetto. It is like Wall Street where you can get bullish and wager over funds the world over sitting at a desk. A closed group. You go to Muslim societies and Westerners work there and make no change in their lifestyle. They are immigrants in Middle-East countries that clearly call themselves Islamic and have never pretended otherwise. There is talk about how people cannot wear bikinis and I have maintained that a bikini is not a dress, not even casual smart. It is meant for the beach and beaches in those countries do permit people to wear what they want.

This is a digression because multiculturalism has different meanings. The West has always promoted itself as such a haven, a melting pot. It appears to be a simmering pot where discontent is now being given a more aggressive form. It is done slyly, as a protective garb.

Breivik’s “individual capacity” act is one such manoeuvre. This is what he had written before going on the killing spree about how he will be portrayal in the media after the act:

"However, since I manifest their worst nightmare (systematical and organized executions of multiculturalist traitors), they will probably just give me the full propaganda rape package and propagate the following accusations: pedophile, engaged in incest activities, homosexual, psycho, ADHD, thief, non-educated, inbred, maniac, insane, monster etc. I will be labeled as the biggest (Nazi-)monster ever witnessed since WW2."

He gets points for getting the media down pat. It has stopped being a kangaroo court; it is now all about pop psychology.

Those people who died and their families do not know why this happened. Do they agree with him? I won’t be surprised if days later some adept media person will land up at their doorstep and get an ‘understanding’ version of the misguided soul who was disturbed by what the world was turning into because their jobs and lives were at stake. He was frightened, do you understand?

And you will see images of Islamic terror more than this act. There will be great editing. Shots of Norwegians weeping. Cut to some bombing by Islamist groups.

Who will this help? Both. The West in its endeavour to keep the ‘war on terror’ iron hot. And the radical Islamic groups who are so gung-ho about their role that the media attention will in fact help them by default. They did not do it, but they could. They always can.

Neither will realise that the world is not about them, but about people who are just living their lives.

(c) Farzana Versey

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Published in Countercurrents