Appeal held by His Royal Highness The Crown Prince at City Hall Square 25 July 2011 in the wake of the tragic events in Oslo and on Utøya island. English translation.
25. juli 2011
Tonight the streets are filled with love.
We have chosen to defy brutality with fellowship.
We have chosen to counter hatred with solidarity.
We have chosen to make it plain what we stand for.
Norway is a nation in mourning. Our thoughts go to all those who have suffered loss, who are grieving.
To all who have worked so heroically to save lives and re-establish our security. And to our leaders, who have been put to the test these past days.
The acts of terror may have targeted the people on Utøya and in the government buildings, but they have affected us all.
With terrible clarity they have shown us how enormous the consequences of one person’s actions can be.
And at the same time they demonstrate that each individual’s attitudes count, that it matters what we choose base our lives on. And how we choose to use this to benefit each other and the society in which we live.
After July 22nd we can never again allow ourselves to think that our opinions and beliefs don’t matter. We must go into every day ready to do battle for the free and open society which we hold so dear.
To our young people: You are our corrective, our courage and our hope. It is you who will shape and determine Norway’s course in years to come. We have none of you to spare. Yet we have lost so many.
No one can take from us the Norway that we want.
Tonight the streets are filled with love.
We have a choice to make. We cannot undo what has been done.
But we can choose what we let it do to us, as a society and as individuals.
We can decide that no one should stand alone.
We can choose to stand together.
It is up to each of us now. It is up to you and it is up to me.
We have a job to do together. It is a job we have to do around the dinner table, in lunchrooms, in our clubs and organisations, a job for all men and women, in all our cities, villages and towns.
We want a Norway:
Where we can live together as a community at liberty to think freely and express our views.
Where differences are perceived as potential..
Where freedom is stronger than fear.
Tonight the streets are filled with love.