Marc Mutz on Qt, Boost, and C++
2011-07-25
I usually don’t write or comment upon politics or news, but Friday’s attacks strike too close to heart to be left uncommented.
Having lived in Oslo for two years or so a few years back, I was shocked when my mom called me on Friday and said “did you hear about the Oslo bombing”? No, I hadn’t. I switched on the TV, and went to www.nrk.no to find out what had happened.
At first glance, it seemed that Norway had gotten away lucky: An apparently huge blast, in the capital’s centre, almost at rush hour, yet only seven dead. I texted my friends in Oslo and even though they are living or working near the blast site, they and theirs were unharmed.
That was then.
As I write this, we’re up to almost a hundred dead, with quite a few persons still unaccounted for. We know that the bombing in Oslo was just the prelude for a killing spree on Utøya, where a peaceful youth-get-together was underway. We know that the — predictable — initial commentators blaming Islamic terror were, for once, wrong, and we have to deal with the fact that this was an act by a Norwegian (dare I say Arian?) who cut’n’pasted together a 1500-page manifest while planning the killing for nine years.
But I don’t want to speculate on politics and police tactics.
My thoughts go out, instead, to the Norwegian people. Many will find that they have lost someone they knew, or know someone who lost someone, when the names of the victims will be published after their next-of-kins have been informed.
I’m desperately hoping that none of my friends and none of the Trolls will be among those. That’s selfish, in a way, but it’s all I’m currently capable of. The rest is deep sadness, and the hope that Norway doesn’t come out of this changed to the worse, and instead will continue to be the best country in the world to live in.
-Wmarc 