Anders Breivik: The invisible cancer of hatred

Hatred is an invisible cancer that ultimately demands murder. In the 21st Century, this has never been more clearer than watching the grotesque spectacle of mass murderer Anders Breivik.

In a surreal drama within the capital's Norwegian courthouse, the legal parties seek to decide whether or not Breivik was mentally unstable when he committed his barbaric crimes. The State would like to find him mentally unstable, that way they can put in a mental institution and throw away the key. Breivik, however,claims clear sanity for two reasons: First, under Norwegian law he would receive a finite prison sentence with the possibility of one day being released, and equally important to Breivik is his poisonous justification for the crimes he committed: I murdered unharmed innocent children in ‘self-defence, against the onslaught of Islam'.

Wherever it takes hold if the cancer of hatred is not treated early on, it consumes and eventually deludes both mind and the body. Imagine then, for a second, all those involved in Far Right neo Nazi organisations such as the BNP, EDL and Stormtrooper, who wake up every day with a hatred that demands to be fed.

There is no space to understand, listen or accommodate the other, just hate it, and despise it. At some point, that hate demands action. It might be verbal abuse; it might be an unprovoked attack, but its ultimate goal is a murderous frenzy. A frenzy, which sadly has to be repeated.

The BNP leader Nick Griffin, is another good example to  witness how the process takes shape. Living his adult life full of racial hatred, his mask of ‘political respectability’ slipped when he declared the only ‘way to deal with African migrants coming to Europe on small boats is to sink them’, murder them. Griffin fantasies about is murderous ambitions; Breivik took it to the next stage. So too did Osama Bin Laden, and his suicide bombers all eventually riddled with the untreatable cancer of hatred.

I guess using this cancerous analogy - I can’t find a better one- offers some hope. In many cases when the disease is caught early enough it can be treated. However, our liberal democracies and sensibilities must equally understand that, cancer, like hatred, cannot be accommodated. By its poisonous nature, it has be removed, or it will continue to spread.

So, if like me, you look at Breivik and see no discernable signs of mental illness, understand that this is a man so poisoned with the invisible cancer of racial hatred, he is capable, with zero remorse, of undertaking these most heinous crimes. Again and again

For our own part, on May 3rd let’s stop the cancer of the BNP and EDL growing here in the UK.

Simon Woolley