## Grievances

What grievances or frustrations were at the root of Breivik's actions? And how were they visible? What indicators of potentially alarming behaviour did he display? To explore this, we’ll start at the end of his story.

#### Anders Breivik

On 22 July 2011 at 3:26 P.M. Anders Breivik set off a bomb in the government district of Oslo, Norway. Eight people were killed. Two hours later he shot 69 people on the Norwegian island of Utøya. Use this link to see a BBC summary of the day. In retrospect, there had been many signals that could have been picked up by a variety of organisations. You will hear some of these signals in the following news report:

#### Grievances/frustrations

In conversations with relatives and friends Breivik regularly indicated that he feared an ‘invasion of Muslims’, for which he held liberal politicians responsible. As the above report indicates, this idea may be explained by the rapid increase of (Islamic) migrants in Oslo between 2000 and 2010.

#### Indicators

Is an intense aversion to islamic immigrants and liberal politicians a reason for concern? Probably not. But in this case it must be viewed in combination with other indicators from Breivik's life.

- Breivik had started several companies that all went bankrupt;
- He had little contact with peers;
- When he was 27, he moved from a wealthy neighbourhood in Oslo back to his mother in the poorer part;
- He claimed to be the founder of an extreme right group;
- He had a preference for weapons and owned a number of them;
- Six months before the attacks he became the focus of the police when he purchased Polish chemicals.

Here, too, several pieces of a jigsaw puzzle seem to be present. In this case too, the challenge is to make sure these pieces fit together as soon as possible, to get a complete picture of the risks.