Fjordman reveals his identity, will cease using name Fjordman

(Here is an abridged, English language version of the Fjordman interview, along with a photo of him, or rather of Peder Jensen; it is quite brief. Here is Fjordman’s article at Gates of Vienna on how the police treated him when he voluntarily went to them and revealed his identity.)

Norwegian police, investigating Fjordman because of the numerous references to his writings in Anders Breivik’s manifesto, had discovered his real identity and were questioning him, and Fjordman at that point decided to go public with his real identity.

The story is from the Norwegian English-language news site, Views and News from Norway (www.newsinenglish.no):

“Fjordman” reveals identity
August 5, 2011

36 year-old Peder Jensen has given an interview to Norwegian newspaper VG where he reveals that he is the man behind the “Fjordman” blog referenced repeatedly in the online manifesto of Oslo and Utoya attacks suspect Anders Behring Breivik.

After being identified by the police and subsequently questioned on Thursday afternoon, Jensen met reporters from VG at an Oslo café. He chose to use his real name after receiving advice from a lawyer, and has asked the media to leave him and his family alone. He also confirmed that he would never again use the pseudonym “Fjordman” because he does not “wish to be associated with Breivik and his horrible actions.”

“Fjordman” has been described by a follow as a “prophet” among the new right-wing extremists who admire his anti-Islamic views, contributing extensively to anti-Islamic websites and being quoted by many “anti-Jihad” blogs in the USA.

Exchanged emails with Breivik

Jensen told VG that he had “warned” his family in advance about shedding his anonymity, adding that “because of my own safety, I’m now going into hiding.” He had felt it was his “duty” to cooperate with the police investigation and decided to be interviewed under his real name because it “eventually would have emerged anyway, resulting in a media frenzy.” Jensen commented, “it is also a way for me to clear my name.”

The blogger disclosed that he had exchanged a number of emails with Breivik in 2009 and 2010. Breivik told Jensen that he was writing a book and asked if they could meet. Jensen turned down the offer “not because of his extreme views, but because he didn’t seem very interesting—like a vacuum cleaner salesman.” ” ‘Pie in the sky,’ I thought to myself when I re-read the emails,” Jensen added. He confirmed investigators had confiscated his computer, stressing that “they won’t find anything on my computer regarding any criminal matters or Breivik.” VG suggests that Jensen “feels that the police are looking to implicate him.”

In further excerpts of the interview reported by news agency NTB, Jensen said, “I recognize that people need a scapegoat, and now that Breivik is behind bars, I can become a handy scapegoat, especially because I am the only Norwegian he referenced.” He added that he understood that he could be regarded as “a hate object.”

“Horrified”

VG described Jensen as “soft spoken and unassuming” as he suggested he was “horrified” by Breivik’s apparent admiration of him. Jensen confirmed that he had not read Breivik’s manifesto in full and only “seen bits and pieces referred in the media,” and other sections shown to him “by others.” He suggests that Breivik had little influence in the right-wing, anti-Islamic movement in Norway or internationally, stating that Breivik “had nothing to contribute with” and added that he had “never heard about the “riders,”” an organization of which Breivik claimed to be a member. On the question of whether Jensen regretted any of his writings, the blogger was reported by NTB as saying, “I have tried to think about whether there is anything I have expressed wrongly, but I have never experienced that anyone has attacked anyone else because of what I write.”

In terms of Jensen’s background, VG reports that he originally comes from the town of Alesund on the West coast of Norway. He claims that while he has long voted for the Labour Party and voted for the Progress Party more recently, he has never been a part of a Norwegian political party, and has only handled a gun during military service, where he describes himself as “no good soldier.” He holds a masters degree in culture and technology from the University of Oslo, where he completed a dissertation on “censorship and blogging in Iran.” He also studied Arabic at the American University in Cairo and the University of Bergen.

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Dean Ericson writes:

Fjordman was very careful to keep his real identity concealed because he knew that he and his family would be made to pay a price for dissenting from the party line in Norway. And now what he feared could happen if his identity became widely known has happened in the most awful way imaginable. Now he must go into hiding from his countrymen who blame him for inciting Breivik’s terrorism. I’m sure he never imagined such a possibility.

Mr. Auster, can you imagine if some reader of VFR went on a similar rampage after posting a manifesto that included whole posts taken from VFR by way of explaining his actions? I can well imagine it would be a horrifying thing, to think one may have given inspiration to actions you find abhorrent. And then one would have to think through what has been written and ask yourself what, if any, is one’s measure of culpability. And then you have to decide whether to continue speaking out or just shut up.

Peder Jensen is going through a difficult trial and all for the good work of trying to warn his countrymen and his fellow Westerners of danger. I can well imagine his wife is going to tell him he must stop writing about Islam for the good of his family, or even that she would leave him if he doesn’t. And who could blame a man for wanting to have a quiet, normal life? I can also imagine the Norwegian State will find ways to pressure Jensen into silence as well. I would guess that we’ve heard the last of Fjordman. But he spoke the truth, and he did it with courage and persistence, and for little, if any, personal reward, but rather at some personal risk. We can all hope the price he pays is not too high, and that at some point in the future we hear from him again.

LA replies:

On the subject of liberalism and its facilitation of the Islamization of the West, I’ve written, e.g., that liberalism has the West in a death grip. If someone read that and went out and murdered liberals, saying that he was inspired by what I had written, I would obviously be a big practical problem for me, but it would not be an intellectual or a moral problem, for the simple reason that liberalism does have the West in a death grip. Consider this. A Muslim jihadist in the U.S. Army, after giving his fellow Army officers numerous indications of his pro jihadist, pro-terrorist, anti-American views, went out and shot dead 13 Army soldiers and wounded about 35 more in a rampage at Fort Hood. In its official report on the mass murder, the Defense Department did not even mention the fact that the shooter is a Muslim, let alone that the Army and the FBI were aware of his jihadist views before he committed the mass murder but did nothing. The U.S. government, at the highest levels, is actively concealing the presence and activity of Muslims among us who are waging violent and non-violent jihad against us. And no leading Republican politician, no major media figure, protested this amazing cover-up. That is just one example of how liberalism has the West in a death grip.

And consider this: the chief of staff of the U.S. Army, Gen. George Casey, said after the Fort Hood massacre that if the Muslim jihadist had been kicked out of the Army before he killed, that would have lessened the Army’s diversity and thus been a greater tragedy than the mass murder itself. Outside of a few conservative blogs, he was not criticized for this. That is another example of liberalism has the West in a death grip.

Further, since I myself have, for the last decade, presented increasingly detailed proposals of what to do about the Muslim problem, and they obviously include nothing about murdering liberals or Muslims, there is no way that anyone could reasonably say that my writings have caused someone to commit murder. The same goes for Fjordman. If an unbalanced person responds to the fact that liberalism has the West in a death grip by murdering liberals, then all strong negative opinions must be banned, because by the same logic any strong negative opinion could cause someone to kill the parties about whom the negative opinion was expressed. All statements by liberals that conservatives’ statements on liberalism and Islam may inspire murder would have to be banned, because such liberal opinions might inspire people to kill conservatives.

Dan K. writes:

re: “He also confirmed that he would never again use the pseudonym “Fjordman” because he does not “wish to be associated with Breivik and his horrible actions.”

In case you missed it, you may be interested in reading the essay by Daniel Greenfield / Sultan Knish on how to avoid the Left’s manipulation of blame, guilt and eventual surrender upon the Right when an event such as the one by Anders Breivik occurs. It appears “Fjordman” has been manipulated.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at August 05, 2011 06:39 AM | Send