Norway Massacre: Theatricalized Terror-Spectacles of Ideological Propaganda

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Department of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Arts, Cairo University, Egypt.

Abstract

Defeating Terrorism requires understanding its ideological motivations, propagandistic tools, and artistic innovations, especially if the committed terrorist attacks are in the form of performative performances of theatricalized terror-spectacles. White supremacist terrorists who adopt a neo-Nazi creed, a racist ideology, and a genocidal political agenda have excelled in their theatricalized innovations, transforming terrorism into an art. Their main goal is gaining publicity by sacrificing innocent lives. Publicity expedites publishing their manifestos, which propagate for their ideological beliefs, filled with hate and fears. Anders Breivik, the Norwegian white supremacist neo-Nazi terrorist who committed the 2011 Norway massacre, the worst atrocity in Norwegian history has become a role model for terrorists worldwide. His theatricalized terror-spectacles, which he produced and performed artistically for propagandizing his racist ideological believes, communicate huge ideological, cultural, ethical, and aesthetic impacts. This study analyzes the theatricalization of his ideological beliefs, by exploring his performances of terror-spectacles, and analyzing his terrorist attack as a performed propaganda by deed. The study conducts the analysis through the broad-spectrum approach of performance studies as an interdisciplinary field of research. The analysis concluded that terrorist attacks, performed and theatricalized as terror-spectacles, are alarming propagandistic unethical artistic tools, disseminating insidious ideological beliefs, requiring a deconstructionist performance analysis, to overcome its overwhelming ideological and psychological detrimental impacts.

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