MIDASKS

On July 23, suspected right-wing and Christian fundamentalist terrorist Anders Breivik killed about 100 people when he detonated a car bomb in front of a government building in Oslo, Norway, and shot at people at a youth camp of the children of the ruling Labor Party members at the nearby Utoya Island.  Breivik, who was later captured by the police, admitted and left behind records of his motivations that mainly consisted of racist fears of multiculturalism and a Muslim dominance of Europe.

The Christian extremist terrorist is a rare specie.  However, Islam does not have a monopoly of extremism.  The first Twin Tower bomber Ramzi Yousef shared the tag with Christian rightist Timothy McVeigh who bombed a government building in Oklahoma and Buddhist radical Shoko Asahara who masterminded the attack on the subways of Tokyo.  Earlier than these, Jewish extremists bombed the King David Hotel and assassinated Israeli Prime Minister Yitzak Rabin, and the Hindu extremist Tamil Tigers were also infamous as suicide bombers.  We have anti-communist and anti-Muslim Christian extremists in Mindanao also, but these are relatively small groups.

Nonetheless, unlike the aforementioned personalities who are identified with a group, the rare specie of extremists is usually the self-radicalized, homegrown and lone-wolf crackpot who is virtually difficult to detect.  Thus, one of the ways to stop him is to regulate the sources of his radicalization.  This is something that could be done with the collaboration of both public institutions and the private sector.