Verdier i formålsparagraf og minnematerialet etter 22. juli 2011

Abstract

Many of the texts and drawings from spontaneous memorial places in the Oslo area in the days after the bombing of government buildings and the shooting and killing of young people on Utøya island on July 22nd 2011, are made by children.1 The main focus of this article is what values these memorial utterances show that children considered important and worth fighting for in the aftermath of this event. Love and togetherness, life and human worth were often in focus in these utterances – utterances that are closely related to central values in the objects clause («formålsparagrafen») of the Norwegian Education Act, such as love for one’s neighbour, respect for human worth, diversity and solidarity. But children’s memorial utterances also indicate that the very fight for these values sometimes puts the same values under pressure: in some texts and drawings the terrorist is dehumanised and deprived of his human worth. The article gives examples of and discusses these phenomena. The theoretical perspective used in the article is Gunther Kress and Theo van Leeuwen’s grammar of western visual design.