What year in Review?

I wanted to get something off my chest in the eve of the new year.

It has come to my attention that, for a majority of the Scandinavian countries, one of the most important as well as devastating events of 2011, simply have been left out from the many annual reviews of the internet. When Yahoo diligently writes about the death of a diva, as well as the shooting-tragedy in Arizona, which almost claimed the life of Democratic member of the house, Gabrielle Giffords, I find it straight forward hard to believe that most of reviews haven't included the horrific tragedy in Norway on July 22nd 2011.  

When I first heard the news from Oslo, I was attending the international food festival Gla' mad, in Stavanger. People passed me by with a relentless expression in their faces saying that something terrible had happened. I rushed home and switched over to the news channel. When the third or fourth reports of shooting arrived from the political youth camp at Utøya, I had left the house for a reunion with some of my friends in the Norwegian Liberal Party Venstre (our equivalent of the Liberal Democrats in the UK). What made hardest impression, in my opinion, is that I knew that somewhere between five to seven of my friends and acquaintances from my political network were attending the youth camp. This, I presume, not only applies to me. Norway is such a small country where there's a great many people who either knew someone who were there, or knew someone who were affected.

This is, after all, the worst incident in Norway since the Second World War. We as a people do not know how to handle such a severe blow to our infrastructure, but we will manage. With help from our government and Prime Minister Jens Stolenberg, we do recover. Many will not agree with the politics of the Labour Party, but they have given the people what it needed the most; comfort.

As we recover, Norwegian media keep supplying us with daily news about Breivik, and the upcoming trial, for which the courthouse in Oslo have to be rebuilt to support. This is a trial many of us could manage without, but for some, is important to show the world the significance of our judicial system (which for many seems like a hopeless bureaucratic process).

After all. We will retaliate. We will retaliate with more democracy.