Free One of Us: The Story of Anders Breivik and the Massacre in Norway by Åsne Seierstad Page B

run’. ‘A society gets the graffiti it deserves,’ commented one criminologist on the street galleries that grew ever scruffier.
    With the penalties now so severe, the taggers had to make extra sure to eject any potential squealers at an early stage, and it grew even harder for newcomers to join their circle. But luckily for the posh boys from Skøyen,Ahmed knew one of the older taggers, Minor. He provided Morg and friends with an entrée to that desirable set of steps.
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    In the winter of 1994, when Anders was in Year 8 at school, the camera lenses of the world were for once trained on Norway. The government wanted to highlight healthy living, and Members of Parliament appeared on television jumping up and down and slapping their armsto keep warm, under the slogan ‘A Fit Nation for the Winter Olympics’.
    The Oslo city authorities had a major push to make the city spotlessly clean and shiny, and ran aggressive campaigns to mobilise public opinion against ‘vandalism, violence and defacement of the city’ in the run-up to the Olympic Games. The Labour city council launched an anti-graffiti campaign that became known as ‘Taggerhead’.Posters on the underground showed a boy with an empty expression. The space where his brain should have been was filled with a ball bearing like those inside aerosol paint cans.
    The Lillehammer Games of 1994 generated a mood of national excitement, the Norwegian athletes won a string of gold medals and the whole country let itself be intoxicated by Gro Harlem Brundtland’s slogan: ‘It’s typicallyNorwegian to be good at things.’
    Anders, who had just turned fifteen, couldn’t have cared less about being good at skiing. He had nothing in common with the aristocracy in knee breeches, up on the hill. Since his last, truncated stay with his weekend parents as a two-year-old, no one had taken him on any Sunday trips to the forest. The city was his jungle.
    These were quiet weeks in the capital.It was bitterly cold all over Oslo. The days were an icy blue, the nights clear and starry. Morg did not let temperatures of minus twenty deter him from the only competition that mattered – winning the title of King. Several nights a week he climbed down from the balcony of his apartment to leave his signature on the city.
    One night, he and Ahmed traipsed down to the bus station in Skøyen. Oneof them would keep watch while the other tagged. They swapped places, got freezing cold and swapped again, keeping their arms moving to stay warm. In the middle of the Winter Olympics, at around two in the morning while Morg was on guard, they got caught.
    The boys were arrested and taken to the police station. Their parents were called. Their misconduct was reported and registered, but sinceneither of them had been arrested before, and in view of their age, their punishment was to wash buses for a couple of weeks in the summer holidays. But they were warned to stop tagging and told they would not be let off so lightly next time.
    At last they had something to brag about at Egertorget. They had kept their mouths shut.
    Anders peppered his story with gestures and phrases he had pickedup from the immigrant gangs. Sometimes he substituted Arabic words for Norwegian ones, like the toughs in the hard gangs did.
    Fucking hell, it’s him again, thought Net , a tagger from the East End, in slight irritation. Unaware of each other, Morg and Net had both spent periods at the Centre for Child and Adolescent Psychiatry. Net was a rebellious boy who bristled at the slightest thing. He wentto the school at the centre and was under observation at the same time as Anders was attending the nursery there. Having grown up in Grünerløkka, which in the 1980s was a working-class district that Ris parents instructed their offspring to avoid, he had the credibility that Anders lacked. He started tagging when he was twelve and was among the most skilful, a graffiti artist with a style allof his own. In adult