But the one who shone most brightly of all was a character calling himself Fjordman. He was an apocalyptic figure prone to spreading prophecies of doom. And he was Norwegian. Anders devoured everything that ‘The dark prophet of Norway’ wrote, downloading it for storage. ‘When I was born, Norway was 100% white,’ Fjordman wrote on Gates of Vienna. ‘If I reach a very old age and am still living here, I may be in a minority in my own country.’
There he had it. The truth, revealed in uncensored form. Fjordman wrote about Muslim men raping Scandinavian women, his analyses spanning the centuries as he discussed everything from Plato to Orwell. He predicted the ruination of Europe if the current trend continued and thought, as did Bat Ye’or, that the political elites had thrown in their lot with Muslim leaders in order to destroy European culture and transform the continent to a Muslim Eurabia.
Someone had to offer resistance.
There in the fart room, Anders felt a strong sense of kinship with Fjordman, who came across as uncompromising, brilliant and well-read. Everything Anders wanted to be.
In October 2008, using the profile Year 2183, he tried to make contact with Fjordman via the Gates of Vienna website.
‘When will your book be available for distribution, Fjordman?’ he asked, and then added, ‘I’m writing a book on my own,’ before concluding with ‘Keep up the good work mate. You are a true hero of Europe.’
No answer was forthcoming from his role model. Five days later, he adopted a more critical tone.
‘To Fjordman and others who are competent on this area,’ he began. ‘I’ve noticed from earlier essays that your solution is to attempt to democratically halt immigration completely and perhaps launch an anti-sharia campaign, or just wait until the system implodes in a civil war.
‘I disagree,’ he went on, criticising the others on the forum, such as Spencer and Bat Ye’or, for not daring to use the D-word. Deportation. Fjordman had only spoken up about stemming the Islamic tide by stopping Muslim immigration to Europe. What about the Muslims already in our country, asked Anders. Before long, half the population of Europe would be Muslim, he predicted, giving figures to illustrate the increasing demographic distortion in countries such as Kosovo and Lebanon, where the Muslim population was growing rapidly while the number of Christians fell.
‘The above is an illustration from my coming book (it will be free to distribute btw)’ he wrote of the statistics he had provided, and then reiterated that it was cowardly not to use the D-word. ‘I assume because it is considered a fascist method in nature, which would undermine your work?’ he wrote to Fjordman.
Deporting all Muslims was the only rational solution, he continued, because even if immigration were halted the Muslims already in Europe would have so many children that they would become the majority.
He never received a reply from the top names in the field, not from Robert Spencer, nor from Bat Ye’or, nor from Fjordman.
How could he make himself heard?
On the evening of 13 February 2009, there was a ring at the door. His mother opened it.
‘He doesn’t want visitors,’ she said.
‘We just thought…’
Three friends had decided to try to get Anders to come out. It was his thirtieth birthday. The birthday boy was sitting behind the door of his room, a few metres from the front door, and could hear everything they said.
His mother’s second cousin had not completely given up on him, either. As Anders’ sponsor, it was his duty to follow through with the relation he had introduced into the Masonic lodge. But each time he rang, Anders claimed to be busy with his book.
‘What’s that book of yours about?’
‘It’s a book about conservatism,’ Anders replied.
‘All right.’
‘And about the Crusaders, the Battle of Vienna in 1683…’
‘Oh, well,’ said Jan Behring.
On one occasion, Anders was obliged to attend. The fraternity was holding its annual family lodge meeting, at which members would sit with those they were related to, regardless of degree. Anders simply had to go along. It was a long ceremony; he lost valuable hours at the screen. It was no longer computer games drawing him in, but those texts. They took up all the space.
Some two hours later, the rituals had finally finished and everyone stood up and went out to the lobby. Anders followed them and waited for his older companion to go to the cloakroom, put on his coat and drive him home. When he finally offered to fetch the coats himself, the cousin told him this was just a break. The ceremony was only half over.
Anders could stand no more, and left the Armigeral Hall.
He must be disappointed that there aren’t more young men here, thought his relative.
Anders also withdrew from virtual friends he had been close to. Some hardcore players urged him to come back to World of Warcraft. ‘Things are going okay in the guild but new mage sucks compared to you,’ wrote a guy on his team. Several sent messages asking him to start playing again.
He was generally logged out of the games these days. He had stopped paying his monthly subscription to some of them, so he would not be tempted to join one more battle, one more raid, one more fight.
One day when he went out to buy a part for the computer, he ran into an old friend in the street. Kristian, with whom he had shared a business and who, on their last encounter late at night in the city, had accused him of being a closet homosexual.
‘What are you up to now?’ asked Kristian.
‘I’m writing a book,’ said Anders.
‘Great,’ said Kristian. He would finally have a use for all those swanky foreign words of his. But it was a bit weird, all the same, he thought. Anders had been primarily interested in earning money, as much as possible, as fast as possible. How could he make any money out of something as obscure as this? Crusaders? Islam?
Sometimes Anders consulted document.no, a Norwegian website run by former Marxist-Leninist Hans Rustad, who over the years had become a cultural conservative, distinctly critical of Islam. Document.no kept careful track of the latest news. Its debate forum attracted a steady stream of visitors.
A week before the general election, due to be held on 14 September 2009, the username Anders B posted his first comment on document.no. It was about why the media ignored Muslim riots. There was ‘an increasing trend in Western Europe towards acceptance of the media hushing things up’. He used the unrest in French towns around Bastille Day, 14 July, as an example. Le Monde and other French newspapers had refused to write about the riots, he claimed. But the quotes he used were part of a different story, namely that it was the French local authorities who had refused to answer questions from Le Monde, citing ‘official instructions’.
This sort of quotation out of context was to become a hallmark. Twisting and turning things to make them suit Anders B.
Responses poured in. Everyone replying to him on document.no that day took what he had written at face value. The response whetted his appetite. That first afternoon as a contributor to document.no he dipped into two other subjects: the killing of whites in South Africa – ‘a systematic, racially motivated genocide’ – and multiculturalism as an anti-European ideology of hatred with the aim of destroying European culture and identity as well as Christianity.
Now he was in his stride. He recommended everybody following the thread to read Fjordman’s book Defeating Eurabia so they would realise where Europe was heading. All those who dared to criticise multiculturalism were branded fascists and racists, a political correctness permitting no alternative view. ‘The Progress Party is one victim of this intolerance,’ he concluded just before midnight. His threads continued with a life of their own.