“Tonight, the streets are filled with love.” With these words his royal highness, Crown Prince Håkon opened his speech to 200,000 people outside Oslo’s city hall on Monday evening to protest at the massacres committed by Anders Behring Breivik in Oslo and Utøya on 22 July.
The biggest crowd ever gathered in the Norwegian capital massed into the square and the surrounding streets in a gigantic show of defiance and solidarity. Every person was carrying flowers that were lifted to the sky to testify to the truth of the Crown Prince’s words.
On the podium together with the Crown Prince were Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg, the head of the Labour youth organisation Eskil Pedersen, Oslo’s conservative mayor, Fabian Stang and head of the Turkish Youth Organisation in Norway, Dilek Ayan.
The message from the speakers and the cheering crowd was loud and clear: We do not seek vengeance and hatred, but more unity, more democracy and more tolerance.
All the speakers emphasised that Norway will now be changed forever after the right-wing atrocities of 22 July, but they also pointed out that it is up to the people itself to decide in what way things will change.
Inger Anne Olsen, commentator in the large-circulation newspaper Aftenposten sums up excellently what has changed after the terror attacks:
In the time after that terrible Friday, the whole of Norway has mourned together. Nobody has asked who is Christian or Muslim, Sikh or Heathen. Norway has been one country, with one population, maybe for the first time in decades.
Debate has already started on how poisonous the debate climate has been in Norway on issues like Islam and immigration. Maybe the outcome of the whole terrible situation can be a more civilised public debate.
While Breivik’s fellow hate mongers now crawl back into the woodwork, claiming no moral responsibility for spreading the same message of hatred as Breivik acted upon, 200,000 people in Oslo cheered the mayor’s statement that our common punishment for the terrorist will be more openness and tolerance.
At the same time as masses gathered in Oslo, thousands and thousands flocked to protest and remembrance rallies in all major – and many smaller – cities: 50,000 in Bergen, 20,000 in Trondheim, 75,000 in Stavanger, 10,000 in Tromsø.
All gave the same message to those who want to threaten or destroy our common future: Together we stand – they shall not pass!
