The idea that landscape forms character is a central tenet of the Norwegian mentality, and this notion is still in the best of health, possibly because it cannot be disproved, even in an age when many Norwegians spend more time in virtual landscapes on screens than in forest, field and fell. In any case, there was no doubt that Utøya had set its mark on the AUF, making the group one of the most robust creatures among the fauna of Norwegian politics. The AUF is older than the state of Norway. One of the organization's precursors, Norges Socialdemokratiske Ungdomsforbund [the Norwegian Social-Democratic Youth League], was founded in 1903, two years before Norway became an independent state. The AUF celebrated its fiftieth anniversary as early as 1950, since the Oslo local branch had been founded in 1900. Its fiftieth birthday present from Oslo og Akershus faglige samorganisasjon [the Oslo and Akershus Trade Union Confederation] was neither flowers nor a case of wine. It was an island: Utøya.
To be gifted paradise seems like fantasy, a dream present – until you think about the maintenance costs. It took time to work Utøya into the organization and into its budget. The committee report from 1958–60 stated that Utøya represented a ‘disproportionately large burden on the organization's labour capacity and finances’. Pictures hang in the corridor in the island's Café Building of voluntary work from the early sixties, with pale and muscular young men bent over their spades. At the same time, Norway was changing. In 1960, half of Norwegian voters were workers. Fifty years later, the traditional workers made up only 18 per cent. While 3 per cent had received higher education back then, the figure has now risen ninefold, to 28 per cent. The number of public-sector employees had more than tripled from 200,000 to 730,000 people. Whether or not it was owing to muscles shrinking proportionately as a result of the revolution in education, AUF members nevertheless began to tire of intensive collective work on the green island.
In the late sixties, the situation had become so desperate that the AUF tried to sell off Utøya. The summer camp in July had been the main event on the island right from the start, but it took many decades before it was established as one of the core events in the social-democratic calendar and the crowning argument in AUF recruiters’ persuasion of new generations of youth members: ‘And then we've also got a summer camp with football, swimming, concerts and hundreds of cool people – on an island!’ But the Trade Union Confederation turned out to have been far-sighted. The combination of politically engaged youth and a fairy-tale-like summer island generated a whole that was greater than the sum of its parts.
Utøya would become the place where the politics of the future were hammered together at political workshops, but, more than that, it was perhaps where Norway's governing caste was formed. The Labour Party has been the dominant political force in Norway since the Second World War. Support for the AUF's policies from its mother party has not always been great, but Utøya became the place where many future social democrats spent their first time away from their mums and dads, the place where they had their first kiss and met their future friends – and sometimes husbands and wives. The loyalty and discipline that characterize the Norwegian Labour Party and distinguish it from the fragmented organization, frequent defections and bitter leadership battles of its main competitor, the Norwegian Conservative Party, were formed on Utøya. In Norway, where the number of registered members of organizations is approximately six times the population, it goes without saying that the strongest organization will dominate the field.
Utøya at Its Best
The political and the personal were poured into the Utøya mould in equal measure, beaten out through discussions, warmed by the summer sun and bathed in the Tyrifjord at night. Not everyone on the island would become prime minister, but all Labour Party prime ministers since Gro Harlem Brundtland had learnt the ropes on Utøya. ‘The paradise of my youth’ is what the current prime minister, Jens Stoltenberg, called Utøya. The highlight that Friday was to be the visit by Gro herself, known as the ‘Mother of the Nation’, who led the Labour Party from 1981 to 1992 and for Norway personified ‘the Marxist utopia consisting of “true equality between the sexes” ’,1 as Anders Behring Breivik later expressed it.
It was the first time in ten years that Gro had come to Utøya, and the older AUF members wondered whether the younger ones on the island would come to hear her talk. In one of the bedrooms in the wash house, Ida Spjelkavik planned her day as she put on her trainers and got ready for that morning's volleyball game. Ida, twenty-five years old and from Trondheim, was the AUF's international secretary. Perhaps as a consequence of her background as a presenter on student radio (where she hosted a foreign affairs programme) and on NRK, Ida had a calm and natural air of authority that put those around her at ease. As steady as a rock, I thought when I first met her in 2010, but as accommodating as a summer's day. Her bright eyes, round face, blonde hair and cheerful laugh made her a natural focal point for the international volleyball team, which included visitors from Uganda, Georgia, Swaziland and Lebanon.
There were many routes to Utøya. The international visitors were interested in Gro, who was a high-profile international leader, but would the fourteen-year-old Norwegians remember who she was? Ida was not sure. And how would the workshop on Western Sahara go later on in the day? It was conceivable that not all of the island's guests were as passionate about international solidarity as Ida was.
Utøya had been at its best the day before, Ida thought a little bitterly, as she struggled in the mud on the volleyball court a few minutes later. The rain was lashing down and the clouds hung over the treetops like a jagged and cracked row of teeth. There was no Utøya without mud, but on the volleyball court it seemed as if the mud rose up from below the surface of the earth like cold lava, swallowing grass and trainers alike. The international team was making little progress against the Norwegians that day, Ida realized, as the ball smashed down at the international team's feet, sending the rainwater splattering.
The previous day there had been a debate about the Middle East with Jonas Gahr Støre, the lean foreign minister who was idolized by parts of the AUF. The Middle East was the main international issue for the AUF members, who took the opportunity to challenge the foreign minister. Why not boycott Israel? Why could Norway not recognize Palestine straight away, with the governing authorities asking for recognition and all countries in favour of the two-state solution?
‘I don't believe in boycotts,’ Støre answered, explaining to the youngsters sitting on the grass why he saw isolation as both the wrong strategy and an ineffective one. ‘People have to talk to each other’, he concluded, ‘even if they disagree – and especially when they disagree.’
A heavy-set girl in her mid-twenties looked around to see what the young people thought about the boycott question. In the Storting, Stine Renate Håheim represented not only Oppland county but, in practice, the AUF members too. She was the youngest member of the Storting's Standing Committee on Justice but a grand old lady on Utøya. The island had left its mark on her in the sense that the football tournaments had wrecked her knees. Stine compensated with her inspired leadership of the cheering section.
Earlier that summer, Stine had joined Freedom Flotilla II in Athens, with its shiploads of activists planning to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza. The project was not without its risks: nine activists had been killed when the Israelis boarded their ships the year before. Palestine was the international issue that Håheim was most passionate about: occupying another country was not right, shooting at civilians in Gaza City was not right, nor was the blockade of the Palestinian ports. It was the fight for justice that led her to join the AUF as a fifteen-year-old. Every time something has been changed in Norway, she thought, the Labour Party has had a role to play. Håheim was an eloquent person who had found her calling at Utøya, just like Anzor and Ida. Her burning engagement could shine brightly there.