As the first anniversary of the sickening Anders Behring Breivik slaughter passes, the nation of five million continues to mourn. Eight people died after a bomb exploded in Oslo, and 69 people at a summer camp for members of the Labour Youth League were gunned down on the island of Utoya. As Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg said at the weekend, Breivik tried through his actions to change Norway - and failed. "People responded by embracing our values."
Breivik claimed the young people he targeted were traitors because they supported multiculturalism and Muslim immigration. In his mind he is a martyr and a hero protecting the purity of Norway. In reality, he is warped and deluded. The systematic slaying of people - yet alone mostly teenagers - was, is and will always be unthinkable. Rather than prompt a crackdown on dissidents, a closing of Norway's famed "open society" and a major cranking up of security and anti-terror measures, the immediate response of the politicians and the people last year was a determination not to let Breivik "win". Mr Stoltenberg proclaimed a popular motto of "more openness, more democracy, more humanity, but no more naivety".
To a remarkable extent Norway, long thought of as one of the safest and most peaceful countries, has been able to follow through on that aim. Politicians remain relatively accessible and civil rights standards, on a world scale, are exemplary. Breivik himself is going through an open trial, so unlike the military trial of September 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Nevertheless, the key is "no more naivety". Norwegians are willing to accept more domestic surveillance and intelligence gathering for the sake of safety.
They recognise "no more naivety" does mean the loss of some freedom. They have, after all, seen a Swedish prime minister and a foreign minister assassinated.
They have witnessed the threats of violence against individuals and organisations in Denmark following the Mohammed cartoon affair.
They know that school massacres like the two in Finland are possible. What is required is balance and rational recognition that crazed attacks, while they make massive headlines, remain rare.
Remarkable, too, have been reversals for Breivik's foul racist messages, spilling over into lesser support for the anti-immigration Progress Party. It had become the second largest in Norway, and Breivik was a member for six years. This is not to say immigration and multicultural matters should be taboo. A truly open society allows a wide range of debate from left, right and all over.
It does not shut down discussion with reflex cries of racism. It does, however, have no place for the extremism and hatred of Breivik and his ilk. Liberal democracies have to be open and robust while also having boundaries.
It does not just take hindsight to see the United States would have been far better to persevere with its principles when it was attacked by the September 11 ideological fanatics. On that occasion the terrorists achieved wider aims; not just the killing and the destruction but also a lashing out that did the United States and its reputation no good. While the immediate aftermath generated much sympathy, subsequent action did not. Naivety would have been foolish and even scornful. But, although understandable, it is unfortunate that great nation was unable to hold its fire and its anger, and that civil liberties have suffered as much as they have for "security" reasons.
Norway grew strength from its trauma. The United States drew opprobrium.
How sad, as well, that on the eve of the Norway anniversary more families, this time in Aurora, Colorado, were ripped apart by the agony of a gunman's rampage. It was, indeed, a dark night when, for some inexplicable reason, a neuroscience doctoral student opened fire on those attending a packed midnight screening of The Dark Knight Rises. These rogue American mass killings are becoming all too common. Surely, the United States' guns laws need re-examining again. Surely, it should not be so easy to buy assault weapons. Surely, the treasured Second Amendment of the Constitution, which enshrines the right to bear arms, should not - in effect - be a licence to kill.
