Aslaug's Axe Shed

I have been unable to tear myself away from my computer all weekend. Since Friday’s massacre in Norway, I have constantly been trying to find the latest updates, the most recent snippet of news. Only once did I leave the computer, and that was yesterday, Saturday around noon, when I went into Dublin, to the Norwegian Embassy at 34 Molesworth Street. I was surprised that they were not open for business the day after such an unfathomable tragedy. I was also surprised that so few people had left flowers there. But I realized that the full implications of what was going on in Oslo was still being laid bare, and I don’t doubt that more people did so as the day progressed.

I left red roses, the symbol of the Norwegian Labour Party, the party whose youth movement was so viciously attacked on Friday, on the doorstep. With the flowers, I also a handwritten note where I had copied down Norwegian poet Nordahl Grieg’s most famous poem, “To Youth”, which talks about love and how the spirit of brotherhood and compassion will always defeat war and evil. It is a beautiful poem, which was made into a song in the 1950′s. I didn’t sign it with my name. I signed it “From someone who loves Norway dearly”.

I stood there for a little while, and I had tears running down my face, trying to come to terms with the horror of what had happened. As I turned around to leave, I saw an elderly gentleman come towards me. He too carried red roses, and he too left them on the doorstep of the embassy. I don’t think I have ever seen a human being look so sad and so somber as this old man did. I don’t know if he was Norwegian, Irish or something else. I don’t know if he had a personal reason to be there, or if he like so many others around the whole world, simply tried to show that he cared and that he sympathized.

But we nodded to one another, and went off in separate directions. As I walked away, I sang the norwegian version of the poem to myself, under my breath. It just … came natural, I guess. I must have looked half mad to onlookers, but I don’t care. A man like Anders Behring Breivik, who has now confessed to the slaughter, will not win.

He has stated that his goal was forever to change Norwegian politics. To eliminate the political left through violence. He considers Europe in the midst of a civil war, which in his sick, twisted mind has been going on since NATO bombed Serbia in 1999. In his mind, the Serbians should have received support, “in removing Islam from their country”. He has been ranting about multiculturalism and marxism, calling the children he murdered in cold blood members of “the Stoltenberg-Jugend”. Jens Stoltenberg is the Labour Party leader and Prime Minister of Norway, and one of the most genuinely decent politicians I can think of anywhere in the world. Even in Norway, his most ardent political adversaries all tend to agree that he is a good man. They just don’t agree with his vision for the country.

Now that is what a modern democracy/republic should be all about. Civil disagreements, dealt with through fair elections and a democratic process. One of the first things, Mr. Stoltenberg said after the attacks, was that now, Norway has to be rebuilt, into an even more open, even more tolerant nation. I applaud him. I agree with him absolutely.

I want Anders Behring Breivik to spend the next many, many years in a prison cell, knowing that the European Civil War he hoped to start become a right wing, nationalist hero of never began. I want him to know that the world remembers his evil, and that it stands united WITH those who suffered, and AGAINST him. I want him to know that he failed, absolutely and utterly and miserably.

I still can’t describe the horror of it all. This morning it was revealed that a Danish woman is most likely amongst those killed on the island. But regardless of that, regardless of where ANY of the dead came from, it is all just meaningless, utter tragedy. Yesterday evening, Anders Behring Breivik’s “political manifesto” was made public. At first, people thought this 1500 page whopper was mostly an original work. This morning it was revealed very large, significant parts are copied practically verbatim from the insane ramblings of the Unabomber, Ted Kaczynski. All that was done to it was changed words like “leftist” to “multiculturalists” and “modern society” to “western Europe”. Otherwise, not a comma has been changed. The “manifesto” also shows Anders Behring Breivik wearing military-style uniforms with words like “Marxist Hunter” on badges on his sleeves, wearing an ABC-suit and a scuba-diver’s outfit, wielding an automatic weapon. He consistently refers to himself as a “Knights Templar”, and a “Crusading Knight” or “a Resistance Fighter” throughout these ramblings.

He also claims others have declared that they were ready to follow his example. Let’s see if that is true. If there are others, they too will fail to change the world according to their wishes. Personally, I don’t think anyone WILL follow him.

This man, a self-styled Christian defender of Western Civilization, was not a brave knight or a valiant resistance fighter. In his manifesto, he writes that he has “no doubt” that he will be “chased through his town” by “a hundred defenders of the system” while his guns are still smoking, and he is praying to God.

In the end, he was nothing but the lowest of cowards, butchering children down to the age of 13 with automatic weapons, execution style. Shooting them an extra time each when they were on the ground to make SURE they were dead. In the end, he did not even try to shoot it out with the police. He just gave up and surrendered, despite having written about how surviving the attack and waking up in the hospital to be demonized by the world press, in a world where nothing had changed, was his ultimate nightmare.

Well, he didn’t have to wake up in the hospital. Just in a prison cell.

But apart from the grief, the horror, the shock and the pain, nothing has changed, and nothing will. Because the rest of us, decent, upstanding, good human beings who understand that there has to be room for civil disagreement in this world, and for more points of view than one, will never, ever cave in to demands made by evil men like him.

Evil must not win.

Evil cannot win.

Evil will not win.

I am shocked and dazed.

Yesterday at work, I was sitting around in the middle of the afternoon. Nothing happened. I had literally no cases to work on, and there were no cases left I could pick up. Consequently, I decided to take a peek at a Danish newspaper’s homepage, just to see if there was anything going on.

I could not believe my eyes.

Oslo, my home away from home for so many years, was under attack. The government district had been hit by a massive bomb. The building housing the prime minister’s office looked like something out of a post apocalyptic story. I tried to tell all my colleagues but only a few of them seemed to register the seriousness and tragedy of it all initially. I was glued to the screen until I had to go home, switching between a few different news-sites, hoping to get another snippet of information.

Soon they were all mentioning that a person had died.

Then that two had died.

By the time I got home, the deathtoll had exploded. They were talking about anywhere from seven to thirty five dead, including those who were attacked simultaneously at a summer camp for 13-14 year old members of the ruling Norwegian social democratic party’s youth organization.

Where a tall, blonde man wearing a fake police-officer’s uniform arrived, and started shooting left and right.

I got up this morning to the news that as many as eighty children had been killed on the island.

Eighty children.

Murdered in cold blood. One eyewitness who survived the massacre describes how he kept shooting for forty five minutes to an hour, roughly one shot every ten seconds. How he kept hooting and hollering, making victory-shouts and … oh gods, this is just so fucking senseless.

The man that the police have arrested and whom everyone believes to be responsible for both the bombing and the shooting is Norwegian. In fact, his name is so arch-Norwegian it almost becomes a parody: Anders Behring Breivik.

This name has now become the Norwegian equivalent of Timothy McVeigh.

Breivik is a self-described nationalist, frequenting the extreme right of Norwegian society. He is a rabid islamophobe … and he chose to take his anger out on innocent children at a summer camp, as well as by blowing up a bomb in the center of Oslo, claiming more innocent lives and unfathomable material damage. The blast was so strong that newspapers are reporting stories from people as far away as four kilometers from the blast, feeling their buildings tremble. Windows are blown out in a one kilometer radius.

When I looked at the images from the bombing-site yesterday, I felt a cold chill run down my spine. The Norwegian parliament, Stortinget (the Great Ting), is prominently shown right next to the damaged building. I used to eat ice-cream literally on the exact opposite side of where the bombing went off when I lived and studied in Norway. I ate dinner at a restaurant 200 yards down the street from there several times.

This is like my own back yard. These are places with the deepest emotional meaning for me.

When I get off the boat or plane in Norway, my first feeling has ALWAYS been “I’m home”. It makes me smile simply to be there. Norwegians are some of the kindest, gentlest, most decent human beings I know. Theirs is a culture of friendliness and warmheartedness. They have a long-standing tradition for democracy and for antimilitarism. Yes, Norway is a member of NATO, yes they have taken part in military operations in both Libiya and Afghanistan, but Norwegian culture is anti-militaristic.

And now they are under attack. Not by Al Qaeda, which so many people thought initially, but by one of their own.

More than eighty people dead, most of them innocent children at a summer camp, and no one knows if the death-toll will rise. Everyone expects it to.

Words fail me. I don’t know how to adequately express my sorrow or how deeply I feel affected by this. I want to know that my Norwegian friends and family are all alright, but by feeling that way I feel like an egotist, because even if everyone I personally know in Norway are alive and well and unharmed, then what? Can I just sit back and draw a sigh of relief and go “Oh thank goodness”? So many people have been directly affected by this … indescribably heinous crime.

Please, I ask you, if you have any kind of faith at all, to pray for Norway. Pray for those left behind. For those wounded on mind and body.

And for those who have died.

For those who are not religious, I ask you to sympathize. To show your support for the bereaved and the affected.

Norwegian newspapers like dagbladet.no and vg.no are showing updated pictures, if you want to see the devastation. Sometimes, you can find articles in English translations on their sites if you need it.

We must not let terrorists dictate our lives. We must not let them win by changing how we are and what we do. We must remain defiant in the face of their meaningless, senseless insanity and violence.

We must take our lead from the government of Germany in this, and understand that we must never negotiate, never back down, and never give in to terrorists or their demands. If we do, they win, and then every drop of innocent blood, every bit of suffering and every tear shed for those lost, will have been in vain.

Today, we are all Norwegian.

All those of us with compassion, decency and humanity.

An old friend of mine just popped up on facebook today, happily sharing with me a videoclip from CNN, telling the story of how transgendered students at the University of South Florida were now being given a special dorm, where no one would be able to give them a hard time anymore.

My friend was happy. He thought I would be pleased to see this, and he said “I guess this means we now live in the 21st century”.

I wanted to burst out in tears, and let me make this perfectly clear, they would not be tears of joy.

What my friend didn’t consider, and what many others no doubt won’t consider, is that this is nothing but segregation by another name.

Try exchanging the word “transgender” with “African American” or even “gay”. Now imagine that the story had broken that USF had made a special dorm for African American students, where no one would bother them, because they’d only be amongst their own kind. Or what about gay students.

Imagine the outrage. Imagine the uproar. Imagine the righteous anger that would now be directed at USF from all directions.

But because this is about people with gender dysphoria, it’s seen as a kindness and an act of decency. A way of helping these poor, downtrodden students who are being treated badly by their peers.

How about this for a solution instead:

Instead of making this Apartheid-policy come to pass, USF spends the time and money on an information campaign on campus about what gender identity disorder actually is, and then makes a clear policy stating that anyone caught in the act of harassing someone with gender identity disorder, will face disciplinary actions up to and including permanent expulsion, just as if they were caught harassing anyone in a wheelchair or similar. They could have spent the time, effort and money to set up help-groups and possibly a school hotline for people belonging to all minorities, who felt harassed, and made it clear that there would be staff available to help with such cases.

But no, USF found it better to create a special building, where all the transgendered students can be placed, all nicely bundled together where everyone knows where they are. Very handy. That way, other students … the great majority who don’t want to be subjected to the weird boys in skirts and the ugly chicks without makeup who tie in their breasts, can conveniently avoid them.

And then they have the fucking audacity to present this as a kindness to the transgendered students.

What saddened me most, were the interviews. Non-transgendered students were interviewed, making their transphobia plainly clear, with statements such as “I’d find it weird and I’d probably find it a little disgusting” and similar. And then a transgendered student was asked, practically gushing about how great it was that this special dorm was now made available.

When I went through university, everyone I met came to know my situation one way or another. As my dearest friend Erica has said to me so many times, “you force people to have an opinion”, and I consider that a great badge of honour. What USF is doing is relieving people from the unpleasantness of forming an opinion based on facts, instead allowing them to perpetuate falsehoods and lies. How? By giving them the option to not interact with people outside of class that they find “disgusting”. But life is not about choosing what situations we are put in, and as an institution of learning, it should be USF’s policy to help diminish hatred and falsehoods, and to help spread understanding and tolerance.

Back in the day, when I was going through university, I had my surgery between my first and second years. I had nothing but support from staff and peers. In all of the five years I was there, only one or two students showed disgust or loathing towards me, and those students were literally frozen out of the group by everyone else.

I know for a fact that someone who openly spoke badly about me in front of some of my fellow students was humiliated and torn so badly to shreds verbally by those who heard him that he never opened his mouth about me again, in the three remaining years that he was there. How do I know this? Because the students who DID tear him to shreds came to me afterwards and had the decency to tell me that it had happened. It was one of the happiest days of my years at that learning institution, because that day I felt that I wasn’t alone, and that others would stand up for me if I wasn’t there to do it myself. It made me feel welcome and part of a group. Had this been at USF with the present policy in place, chances are I would not have been a part of that group. Why? Because when you are in transition, and suffering from gender dysphoria, you are insecure enough as it is. You don’t need to be separated and segregated and made to feel ANY more different than you already do. It’s not only counterproductive. It’s downright dangerous. What transgendered people need most of all, in social terms, is to know that there are people who don’t hate them, who actually think they are alright and who will accept them completely for who they are. Yes, there will always be assholes and haters out there, but further pandering to THEIR hatred and loathsome phobia does not help people in a terrible, tragic and exceptionally vulnerable position.

In my honest opinion, the story my old friend shared with me, is a travesty. I know he did it with the best of intentions, and that he meant to share it as a positive story of someone doing something to help transgendered people out, and I can easily understand how he could see this story as such. For someone who hasn’t walked a mile in my shoes or in the shoes of someone else in this situation, how could it not be perceived as such?

But here is something I want you all to consider: Let’s play a little game, and create an example here.

A student at USF … let’s call this student Jake for the sake of argument … suffers from gender dysphoria. While the student in question is called Jake by everyone, who doesn’t know what is going on, Jake is in fact transgendered and in the earliest stages of treatment. Jake’s roommate, John, does not know what Jake is going through, but finds out when Jake decides to come clean about it.

John flips out six ways from Sunday, and reveals himself to be rabidly transphobic. He throws every conceivable slur at Jake, kicks up a shitstorm the likes of which we cannot rightly imagine, and storms out of the room, loudly proclaiming to the whole dorm, that he needs to throw up and that he’s been living with a disgusting tranny queer.

Back in the room, Jake is devastated … no less so when every other person living in the dorm either stares through the door to see the weird monstrosity that John just fled from, or subsequently refuses to have any kind of contact at all.

You think I’m being overly dramatic? Ask eight or nine out of ten teenaged transsexuals and they will tell you of experiences JUST like this one, with friends and family. I have heard them … not from a friend of a friend of a friend. But directly from the people who experienced it. And I myself experienced friends who reacted just like that to me. Old friends who told me to never show my disgusting self around them again. Who told me flat out that they didn’t trust I wouldn’t make a frontal attack on their rears if they turned their backs … however idiotic that may sound.

But back to the example here.

Jake goes to the school administration. Obviously, living with John is no longer an option in any way, shape or form.

What does USF do?

A: Summon John to a meeting, informing him that he is now on probation and that any further bad behaviour on his part will lead to immediate expulsion, and then find Jake a single room somewhere else on Campus (and some counselling for the dreadful experience).

B: Ship Jake off to a special dorm where other, likeminded people are concentrated.

Obviously, option B is now in effect at USF.

Who’s being punished now?

Look, I am not saying that it is easy to live a life with gender dysphoria. I of all people know it is very, very hard at times. And I am not saying that everything would be solved by simply moving Jake to a single room somewhere else. But concentrating people with a specific disability in one place on campus singles them out in a way that is COMPLETELY unacceptable.

What do you think the sign on the dorm wall said in that videoclip?

“Gay St.”

Ladies and Gentlemen of the Jury, I humbly submit to thee, the question of HOW FUCKING LONG you think it will be before that dorm-building is called “Trannytown” or “Shemale City” or something worse. Because those who want to hate and who want to single people like me out, are now allowed to.

Good Gods, this would scare the living daylights out of me if I was attending USF, and I hadn’t told anyone I was transgendered.

“Oh my Gods, if I say anything, they’ll tell me to pack my bags and send me over to THAT building. Please, please don’t let that happen …”

And this all begs the question, what will happen when these kids are done with college? What will they do  then? Should they go find a special transgender apartment complex to live in then, with all the other transgender people out there? Go to a special transgender shopping centre for all their daily needs? Special transgender hairdressers, doctors, car-dealers, you name it?

WE ARE A PART OF THIS WORLD. We should not be made to hide away. We should be treated like everyone else, dammit!

I would be looking for a transfer to another university if I attended USF and I was transgendered.

They might as well have painted a bullseye on my face and given all the Fred Phelps’s in America a scoped hunting rifle.

Yes, verily, I say onto thee, my faithful congregati … erhh … let me start that one over.

*slaps self with large, slightly smelly and entirely deceased fish*

OPTIMUS PRIME DIED FOR YOUR SINS … but watching him come back to kick Megatron’s ass, tear the rotten git’s head off WITH spinal cord attached, and cleave aforementioned head with a humongous battleaxe, was, quite frankly, glorious!

So there! Pseudoreligion done for the day. But I swear, the only two men … or at least males … on planet earth that can -really- make me sigh rather wistfully, is Michael Fassbender (and that’s platonic anyway, let’s face it, the man is a walking work of art), and Optimus Prime (who is entirely unrealistic, twenty feet tall and made of metal).

Ah well, I’ve now been strange, now it’s time for me to be serious for a little bit.

I’ve got a bit of work-talk to do. I’ve now been working for Arvato, a subsidiary of Microsoft, here in Ireland for exactly four months. Or rather, tomorrow it will be exactly four months. One third of a year. By all accounts, I am still very new to this job, which I admit is incredibly complex and involves a LOT of skills that one can only really learn through practice and trial and error.

However, a lot of those skills, in order for you to be successful, must be applied with something I am learning that I have in full measure, namely good manners. I am dealing, after all, with people who pay a lot of money for a service. At times … a LOT of money. At times, it’s a job where you have to work very fast, and you need to be able to accomodate demanding people’s wishes, even if it’s incredibly inconvenient for you.

It can be very rewarding. Having a partner (the technical term for the middlemen with whom we do business), tell me “Thanks Joan, you’re a STAR, you’ve made my day!” can make you feel like you’re on top of the world. And yes, that happened today. On the other hand, at times, you end up with a case where you feel utterly helpless.

Please get me right. There’s nothing I want more, than to leave the partners I talk to happy and content after they’re done dealing with me. If they end up with a feeling that the agent who took care of their case did a damned good job and did everything she could to make sure the case was handled swiftly and professionally, then I’ve done my job. But at times … circumstances conspire to make it impossible. Not because anyone does anything wrong, but simply because a problem might be incredibly complicated.

And that’s where I have learned something.

I’m probably too nice.

Combined with the fact that I am still as new in the job as I am, that has led to a bad situation. I am unable to give any details about the cases I work on, as I am sure you all understand, but suffice to say I have had a case for five weeks now. Normally, we have to close our cases within 48 hours of them being opened. This case, however, has just become a nightmare for everyone who has gotten involved with it. And not because people haven’t tried their hardest. Everyone has gone out of their way to try to solve this, but it has just been very difficult.

I’m sure there are situations in EVERY job, in EVERY line of work, where such things might occur. However, as I have had to be the bearer of bad news between the various people working on it on both ends, I eventually ended up getting so frustrated, that I snapped at some very hardworking colleagues. I said some pretty stupid things.

I’ve felt bad about it ever since, and today, I actually contacted their boss to make a formal apology for it. He was called away, but I will try again tomorrow. Fortunately, one guy out there (hi Josh), has been an absolute star and backed me up, saying that in his mind, I’ve been the soul of professionalism (those were his words, not mine), and that he would have reacted the same way if he had been in my position. It feels good to know that I haven’t made anyone too angry with me, but that doesn’t mean I shouldn’t get a hold of Josh’s boss tomorrow anyway, and still make that formal apology. It is the right thing to do, and so I will.

I think it’s good that I have a vacation coming up next week. Not that I’m going anywhere (I’ll be spending that time here in Dublin, looking for a new place to live and visiting some of the many museums I haven’t really had time to go to yet … Guinness brewery here I *hic* come …)

On a last note, for those of you still following my stories, “Working title: Rider” is up to three chapters (almost done with the third one, anyway). I know that sounds like I haven’t gotten much writing done, but remember, I didn’t want to force this.

I realize a lot of you don’t read my stuff anymore. I hope maybe some of you would be interested in giving this one a chance. It’s different at least.

Till next time