Mumbai and Oslo blasts

A week ago, Mumbai had 3 blasts. "Another terrorist attack", most Indians thought (silently, they are too used to give a damn). I must confess that even though I live in the other side of the country, it felt strangely close. I mean, I was never in the same country of a terrorist attack.

"But, Sergio, you are Brazilian, a country where everyday there are people being murdered", you might reply. Yes, but terrorism feels somewhat different than crime. At least to me. Crime almost always has a component of money. You always think that it happens for a reason: because you have money or belongings that others don't; because people didn't have any education and the only opportunity they were given was to wield a gun; etc. It seems there is a logic somehow. Maybe I see that only because I was born Brazilian and I am used to that craziness.

A terrorist attack, on the other hand, seems pretty random. No one never expects it (yes, we expect crime in Brazil) and it always hits people that, at best, care very little about whatever cause one is trying to promote by using terrorism. It seems random, unjust and demented.

Here in India, people might think that this is normal. As in Brazil we think crime is normal.

But Norway... how could Oslo blow up?

Strangely, even though I am living in India, that blast in Oslo felt so much very close that a few tears escaped my eyes when I realized what happened. Tears of sadness, mixed with anger and confusion. How could they do that? Most importantly: why?

Copied from The Atlantic: Why on Earth would Norway be a target for attack? The country is famed as an international peace negotiator, the home of the Nobel Peace Prize, and the distributor of more foreign aid per capita than any other country. It's an all-round international good guy -- so long as we aren't talking about whaling.


The above are just facts. Having lived in Norway for 3 years, I can not even begin explaining how unfair and coward (not to mention pointless) such an act is. The very nature of Norwegians is to live and let let live, to respect individuality, to not interfere or disrespect others...


I used to live 5-10 minutes away from the place the blast happened and it pains me very much to see such a pointless act against such good natured people as the Norwegians. I hope this does not change their good hearts, because this event only shows that the world is in urgent need of "Norwegianess".

Update: it seems that the bombing in Oslo was coordinated with a shooting in a youth labor party conference. And both events were connected. Which makes the bombing a inside job done by crazy Norwegians. If you never visited Oslo and Norway, you might think "well, crazy people exist in every country" - and you are right, they do exist. But a Norwegian acting as a terrorist is so far fetched, so surprising, so unexpected, that first I would suspect my dog (which I don't even have). The world is definitely getting crazier by the day, even the extremely civilized and pacific Norway.