Fjordman/Jensen “doesn’t want to be associated” with Breivik

Sheila Musaji

Posted Aug 6, 2011      •Permalink      • Printer-Friendly Version
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Fjordman/Jensen “doesn’t want to be associated” with Breivik

by Sheila Musaji


Reuters reports that the Norwegian daily newspaper VG identified the blogger known as Fjordman as Peder Jensen, a 36-year-old Norwegian.

He came forward to identify himself, and “clear his name” and admits email correspondence with Breivik but claims that they never met.  He will not write under the Fjordman name any more.

Fjordman said about Breivik: “He showed an extreme brutality that’s completely incomprehensible, and he must have believed he was part of a computer game where he was the superhero.”  “I have read about the unspeakable things Anders Behring Breivik did at Utoeya,” he wrote in a blog posted on July 26. “Any person doing such a thing is a monster.”

Now that he has “cleared his name” he will go into hiding because he is fearful of his safety.  He said: “I don’t wish to be associated with Breivik and his horrible actions”.

The Norwegian English News has a little more:

After being identified by the police and subsequently questioned on Thursday afternoon, Jensen met reporters from VG at an Oslo café. He chose to use his real name after receiving advice from a lawyer, and has asked the media to leave him and his family alone. He also confirmed that he would never again use the pseudonym “Fjordman” because he does not “wish to be associated with Breivik and his horrible actions.”

...  Jensen told VG that he had “warned” his family in advance about shedding his anonymity, adding that “because of my own safety, I’m now going into hiding.” He had felt it was his “duty” to cooperate with the police investigation and decided to be interviewed under his real name because it “eventually would have emerged anyway, resulting in a media frenzy.” Jensen commented, “it is also a way for me to clear my name.”

The blogger disclosed that he had exchanged a number of emails with Breivik in 2009 and 2010. Breivik told Jensen that he was writing a book and asked if they could meet. Jensen turned down the offer “not because of his extreme views, but because he didn’t seem very interesting – like a vacuum cleaner salesman.” “‘Pie in the sky,’ I thought to myself when I re-read the emails,” Jensen added. He confirmed investigators had confiscated his computer, stressing that “they won’t find anything on my computer regarding any criminal matters or Breivik.” VG suggests that Jensen “feels that the police are looking to implicate him.”

In further excerpts of the interview reported by news agency NTB, Jensen said, “I recognize that people need a scapegoat, and now that Breivik is behind bars, I can become a handy scapegoat, especially because I am the only Norwegian he referenced.” He added that he understood that he could be regarded as “a hate object.”

...  On the question of whether Jensen regretted any of his writings, the blogger was reported by NTB as saying, “I have tried to think about whether there is anything I have expressed wrongly, but I have never experienced that anyone has attacked anyone else because of what I write.”

This sounds like a cowardly and amoral individual.  No soul searching, no remorse for any possible influence he might have had on Breivik or others.  How he could think that simply coming forward to give his real name in any way clears his name is beyond understanding.  He asks for the media to show understanding and leave himself and his family alone, although he showed no compassion for the Muslims he has demonized anonymously for years.  He showed no concern for the climate of hatred and suspicion he has helped to instigate between different communities. The police don’t need to “look to implicate him”, he has done that himself.  If people look at him with disgust and contempt, that is only because they need a scapegoat.  He doesn’t say he regrets anything, only that no one else has committed violence because of what he wrote (as far as we know).

And, now that everything is cleared up to his satisfaction, and because he doesn’t “wish to be associated with Breivik and his horrible actions”, he will once again sneak away into anonymity. 

My gut instinct tells me that he will continue his hateful work under a new pseudonymn.

I believe that history will record his pseudonymn and his real name among the evil propagandists like Goebbels, and that whether he wants to be associated with the terrible act commited by Breivik, their names will be listed together in history books.

I believe that Fjordman, Pamela Geller, Robert Spencer, David Yerushalmi, Frank Gaffney, and the other key figures in the Islamophobia industry will be remembered as the architects of a 21st century Islamophobia movement that people will remember as a shameful era in their history.

 

 

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