Norwegians raised their voices in unison on Thursday to get under the skin of admitted mass killer Anders Behring Breivik.
An estimated 40,000 people turned out in central Oslo's Youngstorget square to sing "Children of the Rainbow," a Norwegian version of "My Rainbow Race," written by American folk singer Pete Seeger.
During his trial for the killings of 77 people last summer, Breivik cited the song as an example of Marxist influence on Norwegian culture.
The Norwegian version of the song describes a "World where – every sister and every brother – shall live together – like small children of the rainbow," according to a report in the Norway Post.
Breivik, whose trial in Oslo City Court began last week, boasts of being an ultranationalist who killed his victims to fight multiculturalism in Norway.
Thursday's event, which included a march to the courthouse to drop roses outside, was “a beautiful, touching scene,” said Geir Engebretsen, the court chief justice in charge of Breivik's terror trial, according to a report on Views and News from Norway.
"It’s a very moving manifestation of Norwegian culture," Engebretsen said, according to the report, which cited Norwegian broadcaster NRK.
The idea for Thursday's singing statement came from two women, Christine Bar and Lili Hjonnevag, who became upset with Breivik's derision of the song and posted a call on social media for others to join them in singing it on the square, Views and News reported. They expected a few dozen people, the report said.
But by Tuesday, 4,000 people had accepted their Facebook invitation – and then 10 times that many turned up Thursday.
“I think this just shows that people felt a need to show their feelings, to make an expression of how they value the Norwegian democracy. It’s fantastic," Views and News quoted Labour Party Secretary Raymond Johansen as telling NRK.
Culture ministers from Sweden, Denmark, the Faroe Islands and Iceland joined in the song, the Norway Post reported.
Lillebjorn Nilsen, who wrote the Norwegian version of the Seeger song, led the crowd in singing both the Norwegian and English versions, according to the Views and News report.
© 2012 Cable News Network. Turner Broadcasting System, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
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a song to annoy a right winger? We should all sing this song at Tea Party rallies to annoy those right wing clowns.
We all believe in Chrstian social values brother. Come on, we will sing along.
This is perfect. Thanks I have been collecting idiotic post all year.
Might not work on Americans.
lol very nicely done!
AWESOME! Gives me goose bumps.....
I think they should play it outside on loudspeakers 24/7, well, only since they cannot play it in his cell 24/7.
That's pretty awesome. Way to stick it to him Norway!
BRAVO!
First things first, I say take his head off. Secondly, if they cannot do that because of their laws, then they should pump that song into his cell every day and night.
I wish I could have been there singing along. Thanks.
I want to be a Norwegian.
"...and in the end, the love you give is equal to the love you make."
People singing such a lovely song, for a malicious purpose.
That's what you call 40,000 people throttling irony. What a wonderful world it would be, if they had other motives for singing.
What HE did was malicious. What THEY did was irony. And that's the Beatles you're quoting.
the Bealtes quote is "and in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make." I believe the people gathered to show their solidarity against hate in general, the motive of "annoying the mass killer" as an individual was merely how CNN characterized it. As that gov't official said, it was an expression of their culture.
our motives for singing is not to annoy him. our motive is to support the people who lost their loved ones. He tried to makes us hate. He tried to divide us. We stand united as one people. Answering terror with roses and with love. We sing this song because it is ours. Not his. We sing this because can. Ours is a country that belives in equality, in human rights, in democracy. Everything he tried to take away from us. He took so many wonderful children from us. We can never get them back. But he can not take what thoose children represented. And he can never take our song.
We sing to honour our dead children. What better motive can you have for singing?
God bless you all.We shall overcome.
Notice that the term TERRORISM has been eliminated from US corporate media reporting on this case. Is this deliberate? The messaging of the US authorities and the corporate media in tow, is that "all terrorists are Muslim". Therefore a neoconservative influenced, pro-Zionist, Islamophobic "Christian" white guy who detonates a 2000 lb car bomb in the middle of a capital city killing 8, injuring hundreds and causing $10s of millions of property damage, then mows down 70 defenseless kids on an island... is merely a CRIMINAL?
Glenn Beck said on Fox News in the wake of the terror attacks, that "these kids were like Hitler Youth". Speak for yourself, Glenn Goebbels Beck.
The work of Breivik is admired by the US rightwing. The US corporate media and its sponsors are a bunch of truly sick-in-the-head brownshirts.
Oh, stop.
I'd like to teach the world to sing... In perfect harmonyyyyy......
I'd like to buy the world a Coke, and keep it companyyyyyy................
Yes it is in every cultures intrest to wipe the remaining uniqeness they have after being destroyed by a religion.
Thats one way to get him to kill himself
I'd kill myself too, if I had to listen to that dumb song.