Aftenposten asks a social anthropologist and a brand builder why Mullah Krekar is doing so well in the Norwegian media.

Unni Wikan, social anthropologist and Islam expert:

This is to cry and laugh over. My first thought is to quote what one immigrant said at a conference: All people have facades. But Norwegians are the only ones who believe in the facade. It's like we want to be deceived. We are trained to trust people, not to be skeptical of their facade. In Mullah Krekar we have a man who has cultivated his image, and who does that for a living. While he has been in Norway he has looked like a combination of the world's coziest grandfather and a professor from Cambridge. Something happens to Norwegians when a person looks distinguished, is well dressed, newly groomed, and acts like a king. That automatically makes you a cultivated person. And when Krekar hugs his wife in public, and tops it all by walking in a protest against war in Iraq, this strikes home. People who walk in protest marches are in Norwegian eyes good by definition.

Krekar grooms his media image so well that one suspects him of having a skilled media advisor. In fact, he's so skilled that he doesn't need one. He does nothing at random. That's how Krekar has become a king, a godfather. But not all godfathers are good.

Jo Bental, brand builder for Creuna:

The core of this is that Krekar has become the local representative of a global issue, a global enemy image. It began with Bush having the attention of the media. A need for a counterpole arrose. Mullah Krekar become that kind of counterpole, a target for Bush's enemy image. When the Norwegian press discovered him, a target for Bush with a Norwegian address, he got massive media attention.

This attention started out as negative, but then Krekar made himself available. He is close and personal, and appears to share a complete experience of himself with the Norwegian people. Instead of softening the accusations against himself, he points out that he is a target for the Bush administration. While Bush sits on the other side of the Atlantic, and gradually is accused of warmongery, Krekar creates an image of himself as a man subjected to an unfair attack. This doesn't make him any less interesting for the media.

When he then is associated with the anti-war protests, he becomes an even more peaceful and trustworthy person. From a brand building perspective he's borrowing, from associating with the peace movement, credibility, while give the peace movement attention in return. He retains his influence through being so relevant, a topic of world opinion.

You need the Standard of the Bible to understand these basic things. Satan himself presents himself as an angel of light. If you are reading this and you've never read the Bible through just as an independent-minded seeker of understanding (sort of the way you might read the Bhagavad-Gita, say), and I mean really, trully, making the difficult and time-consuming effort to read it through, then you don't know the foundational, primary types and higher visual language you are missing that enables a person to see and understand such phenomena as what this article describes. The Bible is like the most foundational and sublime computer program you can download into your computer and yet most people choose to download Microsoft crap and operate on that... (Yes, there are many negative associations surrounding the Old and New Testaments, past and current, yet these are common, initial obstacles that should only deter the most weak-minded in the human community.)

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