Obsessed with Otherness (The Mantle)

As the story of the attacks in Norway unfolded last week, an incredible fiction emerged describing what sort of person could be responsible for such violence. The immediate assumption by many in the West was a link to al-Qaida, and belief that these could only be the actions of an Islamic terrorist. This, of course, turned out to be patently false. This mistake, and even more so the subsequent media frenzy attempting to back-track, justify or lambast each other, has highlighted our ongoing obsession with creating the idea of an “other.” Read more…