Opinion Forget the name of the Oslo killer

But one name was not mentioned at the event in Norway,nor has it been pronounced by Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg in his speeches and appearances after the massacre of July 22. The name of the killer.

I like to think that it is a conscious policy by a wise political leader who realises that the main characters in our collective memory of that dark day should be the victims,not the murderer. This avoids turning a terrorist into a martyr.

And that is a real risk. His is the face of a fanatic. Someone so deeply convinced about his own ideas that he has ceased listening to anyone else. He is willing to sacrifice himself and others for what he believes to be the one single truth: the dream of a homogenous and monocultural society,a “pure” place to live.

The Oslo killer has searched history,ideologies and racism for legitimacy. He has been able to find like-minded people on the Internet,supporting his utopian idea of being able to exclude all the “others,” those with different ideas and cultures.

Preventing fanaticism takes a democratic tradition with an understanding that all societies are pluralistic. We will never find an idea,a language,or a culture that everybody can agree to. As much as we might feel frustrated about it,our reality is a multifaceted,multicultural world. Democracy and basic human rights are the only principles that we can rally around,that will allow us to manage our different views and find political compromises to ensure that we live with respect for one another.

The most important fight today is against fanaticism and extremism in all religions and ideologies,against prejudices that will bring us back to the darkness of the Middle Ages.

Fear and intolerance are far-reaching weapons and the most important battlefields are people’s minds and thoughts. But we have too many historical examples of violence as a method for fanatics. Even though they might not lead to genocide,ethnic cleansing or other atrocities,propaganda about “cultural purity” creates suffering and fanaticism. People suffer from having to hide their identities,sexual preferences or religion.

So how do you cure a fanatic? By denying them what they want most — recognition. Ultimately,the cure for fanaticism does not lie in the structures we build to protect ourselves,although they are necessary when all else has failed. The way forward is prevention through democracy,education,information,and by ensuring that you and I give ourselves a moment of reflection and doubt about always being right. The fanatic is not always somebody else; he or she lives,potentially,in all of us. Multiculturalism doesn’t create fanatics,but it gives us the possibility to cure our own fanaticism if we only dare to admit that we are not always right.

The writer is the UN special representative on sexual violence in conflict and a former EU commissioner