I have already written about my shock at the Westminster attack last week. Nothing changes those feelings. It is clear that I am not alone in feeling them, nor in sensing something that I value has been violated.
But today we learn that the police have no idea why the perpetrator undertook his actions. All we know is that a man aged 52 who has a history of convictions for violence undertook a violent act for reasons of which no one is aware.
This demands that for now at least we change the perspective through which we view this event. The police, I think appropriately, initially assumed this was a terror attack. Of course, that might still be true. But we don't know. All we actually know is a man troubled enough to once attack a man with a Stanley knife in a country pub attacked people with a car and a policeman with a knife because (and I am guessing) he again assumed he had a grievance that could only be avenged with an act of violence.
Nothing assuages his guilt for what he did.
Nothing says we should not have reacted with horror.
Nothing changes my mind about the action of the policeman who shot him: regrettable as all violent loss of life is this was a defensive act.
But we are not now, at least whilst this is the information we have, entitled to assume that this was an act of Islamic motivated terror.
So what that he was a Muslim?
So what that he had converted?
So what that he did not follow the edicts of the faith he professed to follow?
All we know is that he was a man who committed a terrible act because he could not, for whatever reason, contain his anger.
Let's by all means consider how such people are helped.
Let's discuss access to support, counselling and other services for those who find coping hard to the limit of impossibility, because we know there are many of them.
But let's not, unless the evidence changes, talk of terrorism. Because there are very few terrorists. And right now the police are saying there is no evidence he was one. Their initial assumption was valid. Their inquiry was appropriate. But it has not yielded evidence to support their hypothesis. We are required to change our minds.
Let's do so.
Let's still mourn the dead and pray in whatever way you do for the injured and those that love them.
But let's, in the absence of a terrorist explanation, ask what drives a 52 year old man to such behaviour because if it wasn't terrorism it begs even bigger questions of our society in which, I stress, he's always reported to have lived.
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To deliberately drive a car into strangers on a bridge in a central London landmark then jump out and kill a policeman would appear to have the hallmarks of terrorism, even if we do not yet know the political motivation or state of his mind. What would be a more likely motivation? Surely not an accident…. or vengeance on someone? It seems reasonable to me to hypothesise. Terror was the effect for sure and seems also to have been the intent, absent a more credible explanation.
One can be a terrorist and also have mental problems and have no links to terrorist organisations.
I am not saying terrorism was not the motive
But you do not know it is
And the police don’t either
So to say it is simply because he was a Muslim is wrong in my opinion
I agree (that it is wrong to say it is terrorism because he was Muslim), hence I did not mention his religion.
I am saying that terrorism looks like a strong and reasonable hypothesis if someone drives a car into people in central London then gets out and kills a policeman. It seems like an act designed to create terror and publicity.
It is murder
It creates terror
But terrorism is something additional to that
You cannot assume a terrorist motive, at least as yet
Re-habilitation of prisoners is not something we do well. It costs but it also pays off for all our sakes. We are losing Elizabeth Fry on the £5 note but before she goes, let’s remember what she started and extend it. She was also a Quaker, Richard.
How can we ignore the meaning of this event when some Tories themselves have been confiding to commentators that they fear ‘there may be blood on the streets’ related to their own Governments’ policies? When I first heard of this event that is what went through my mind only for some terrorism narrative to emerge about a threat to ‘our way of life’ or ‘our democracy’. And then there were the crocodile tears in parliament (ahhhh bless).
To call this ‘terrorism’ and create a narrative around this incident just like that might mean we and the Government are missing something.
What do the Tories and other idiot parliamentarians expect? Masses of people marching through London to assault Parliament with pitchforks? I think not these days (although I would not totally discount it). How naïve of them.
In the highly individualised world we now live in – a world encouraged and enabled by modern politicians in order for us to consume as much as possible and compete with each other – this is the dark side of that road maybe?
And what a nightmare eh? It is far easier to spot and deal with a movement of angry people than an individual who snaps and decides that they have had enough.
These people – those who have not been able to succeed in their profession due to over work (the assailant was a failed teacher apparently – well let’s be told why he failed) or may have suffered cuts to benefits or some other injustice created by politics (someone who thinks they have lost their job to immigrants?) that means that they are now unable to join the other mass-consumers they measure themselves against and therefore get angry because they feel left behind. As you say it may have nothing to do with their religion at all.
The real terror lies in the individual and independent nature of the act that is so hard to pin down and anticipate. It could be anyone. And the threat could be lurking out there anywhere in any of us for that matter (although this most recent assailant does have a previous record of violence – but he became a teacher did he not)?
As a boy I used to read the comic 2000AD, and in the Judge Dredd strip there were characters who were suffering from ‘future shock’ – unable to cope with the world and marginalised for some reason who were prone to cracking and going on killing sprees causing havoc and death in that imaginary world. Once again, science fiction seems to hold a mirror up to contemporary society.
I confess that I am interested in this assailant’s teaching background as my partner – a teacher for over 20 years – has finally had enough and is leaving the profession she loves because frankly she is exhausted. I have seen her age in the job in the most profound way. She has seen many teachers go under because of work load – from seasoned professionals to new teachers who just jack it in after two terms. In her view it is becoming an impossible job. She feels forced out. The fact that she will be looking after her elderly mother and be at home for our children will suffice however. But as a modern woman who wanted to work and have a career she is still conflicted.
Who knows? But will we be told the true story about the assailant? Or will the narrative be dictated by those with other vested interests?
With more austerity promised and BREXIT to cope with could we see yet more of this sort of thing? And if so will we get to the bottom of it? Will our detached politicians have an epiphany at all?
That the very individualism they have espoused now becomes a hard to manage threat?
I don’t wish to find out – because it will more likely be ordinary everyday citizens and public servants who will bear the brunt of it I’m afraid.
Would I have minded if some of the authors of austerity and public sector/NHS cuts would have come into harms way this week? I’m ashamed to say (as a human being) that I would not. In fact …………well….I have gone far enough already I fear for a Sunday morning).
Why did he do it? Why did Michael Smith massacre so many at Hungerford? What drove the Dunblane shooter to go into the school and slaughter so many children? What drove the Cumbria taxi driver to drive round shooting people randomly? They all killed themselves at the end of their rampage. Masood effectively was a self killer – he must have known that his rampage could only end in his death. One suspects that he would have done his terrible deeds anyway, just like the Hungerford and Dunbalane and Cumbria killers, even if he was not a Muslim: in his eyes, Islam merely provided him with a kind of justification. Thinkd off MacVeigh the Oklahoma bomber, Breivik, the white guy who killed all the balcks in a church massacre in Carolina, the innumerable high school massacres in the USA. A kind of nihilistic rage seems to overtake them all. Sometimes, a perverted ideology of race superiority or religious fundamentalism provides a justification. But they are not, any of them, terrorist “soldiers” or “martyrs” working in collusion with some organised entity like the IRA, or ETA, or Al Qaeda or ISIL. They are all loners.
I would struggle to disagree with any point Richard has made,
I look at incidents such as these as criminal acts performed by mentally ill people,
I would prefer to see this man referred to by his given name as opposed to the one he adopted with his ‘conversion’, but maybe that wouldn’t suit the media’s hyper-sensationalist and reactionary stance at present,
this chap must have known the most likely end to his rampage, the lunatic in Turkey who shot the Russian Ambassador in the back also hung around for the police to arrive and seal his fate,
some people commit suicide quietly at home, others are so angry they want to provoke their death dramatically in public, a syndrome the Americans used to refer to as ‘Death by Cop’
if there is an element of terrorism involved it usually a murky figure in the background with an ideological axe to grind who manipulates a mentally vulnerable person to commit an awful act on their behalf,
an example of how low some people will sink in their manipulation of the vulnerable is illustrated here..
http://www.iraqinews.com/iraq-war/isis-suicide-bomb-boy-mosul-disarmed-iraqi-army/
in reality it is overwhelmingly Muslims who are suffering at the hands of terrorists and I’m sure the vast majority of Muslims are sickened by it,
I admit I have deleted many more comments on this post than usual
Some were deleted because the pr were vile
Many because I felt that the passion was just too passionate
That’s my judgement and it’s been a tough one in some cases
I just do not know how people are assumed to be terrorists just because of their religious beliefs. All through our history there are instances when a paticular shade of belief has become anathema. Most religions have a foundation of love and brotherhood so why do they suddenly become so hated and despised that no punishment is great enought. ‘Othering’ is a well known pratice and or media throughly enjoy it and the knee jerk reaction is hatred. Shame on us all.Last I knew, freedom of worship was a Human Right.
I felt my comment sailed close to the wind to be honest. I’m sorry about that – truly I am.
I do not wish harm on anyone.
But what does it take to change things? We had a world recession caused by the stupid private banking system and what did the public sector, the disabled, the mentally ill and poor or homeless get? What did ex-prisoners get?
They got the blame. They were and are used as an excuse to become a less caring and supportive society.
They carried the can and still do. And we act surprised when these things happen – shocked even.
Too many walk around with their eyes closed. If MPs feel discomforted as I have been reading in the press today, then maybe something will change?
I hope so.
But will it be improved services that people need or more encroachment on our civil liberties?
You just about got through….
And that was because I realised you were asking the last question which is highly relevant
I’m astonished at your censorship. PSR sends something in saying he / she wishes that some people had come into harm’s way this week, showing himself / herself to be as twisted as the man driving the car, and you allow that? What a very broken moral compass you have, Mr Murphy.
I accept my decision on PSR was questionable
You will note even he agreed
Ah Richard, another can of worms, starting with what defines terrorism but it also needs to include a far greater understanding of mental well being. I deliberately didn’t say mental illness as I think most of us suffer from some form of mental anguish. I noted in the comment from PSR he mentioned ‘future shock’ from 2000AD, I’d forgotten all about that but it really does seem to fit. But I would be tempted to alter it to just ‘mental shock’, as it’s an ongoing process that afflicts everyone to some degree.
I know you understand the complexity of our socio economic structures better than most and fear, as do I, the unintended consequences from rising inequality. The danger here is that we keep dismissing these things as lone wolf, mentally deranged or religiously/ideologically motivated. Rather than recognising that they could be expected symptoms of a systemic malaise. I keep hearing the term incomprehensible used to describe the mindset of these individuals. Yet we can all imagine circumstances in which we would resort to extremes of violence. So what we’re saying is that we consider the reasoning of others to be invalid and not matching with our world view. Yet we’re not privy to their reasoning and, unless we could do the proverbial ‘mile in their shoes’, that’s unlikely to change.
I’m not being an apologist but I do wonder if there is greater fragility to our mental civilisation than we care to admit. The MSM bombards us 24/7 with accounts of atrocity heaped upon atrocity. Yet it also bombards us with images of ‘success’ and excess beyond the reach of all but the tiniest fraction. Then tells you that if you don’t ‘make it’ its your own fault. No doubt this individuals life will be dissected and his many shortcomings laid bare. But maybe he’s just an early outlier of what society is creating. Looking at his age then he did indeed have better general life chances than generations before and after. What happens as later generations age and years of rent, low prospects and increasing hopelessness apply their weight?
We know what happens when the bread and circuses lose their magic.
I agree re fragility
I do not agree that we can all imagine resorting to violence
Would you not resort to violence to protect your children? Would you defend yourself if attacked? Would you attack your government if it became unhinged and violent towards the populace? If not then I certainly believe that you would understand and excuse/accept such behaviours in others…just as I do. While I believe, on an intellectual level, in total pacifism being the future I don’t believe we are there yet.
Then, as others have commented, we have the greatest current form of violence and oppression that’s the financial variety. That, beyond your doorstep loanshark, the perpetrators are able to create a distance and respectability is a stain on our society. Fighting against this is something you have embraced fully Richard. You approach this battle in a constructive manner but you have the tools, position and understanding to do so.
My main thrust is that, as usual, our MSM wants to present black and white, goodies and baddies and stroke our ‘correct’ national ego. Anything less and you’re an apologist to be dismissed, we’ve already begun following the US and labelling people unpatriotic. I grew up with the stiff upper lip and that British sense of fairness, and I believed it. Kind of hard to reconcile that once you understand what Westminster and the City have done, and are doing, both home and abroad.
No I don’t agree with the attacker but I am aware that the mental well being of millions is being deliberately degraded in the name of profits and ideology. Mixed in with other life factors and expecting a rational and reasonable response based upon our own metrics may be, in itself, unreasonable.
I genuinely don’t know my limits
I hope I never have to find out
I’m afraid to say that I fear those who are in dark places could easily resort to violence – the pressure is overwhelming. I regret to say that having been subject to some violence I’ve been in that position. But that was very personal. The diffence here is the random violence of driving on the pavement of Westminster Bridge which is so unjustifiable as to make it much more of a mental condition.
I used to do prison visiting and it was always said that the nicest people who you were also most likely to invite home to tea were the murderers. For them it was personal. They’d done it – life otherwise was pretty fine. So the feeling was life had to resume and they were unlikely to do any ill again.
In this instance it is the randomness. There is our problem.
The disaster is that that with the contempt that recent governments have held for their electorates by abrogating their duty of care towards them, incidents such as these are made even more likley. In turn they will provide further excuse for enhanced security particularly around government. Which in turn becomes even more remote from the people.
Another success for austerity.
I have my own thoughts on the matter: the demographics of the thug culture of the 1970’s National Front are coming back to haunt us.
Take a closer look at Mair and ask yourself: is he the only one of them who didn’t grow out of it and settle down? Mair immersed himself in the culture, became a stalwart, an organiser, a mentor to the next generation… And became increasingly embittered and, eventually, lethally dangerous again.
I say ‘again’: the skinheads of the 1970’s revelled in their violence. The beatings, the acts of terror – pouring petrol through a letterbox was popular where I grew up, and sometimes they would light it, trapping a family in a burning house with a baying mob outside – and yes, they revelled in the addictive rush of mob violence and perforative hatred.
They are still among us today. Mair immersed himself in Neo-Nazi culture; the latest incident involves an habitually violent criminal who found a purpose in religion that he warped into a channel for a final act of violence.
We don’t do enough to support soldiers reintegrating into society after the excesses of war: but we do a little, and those servicemen have a supportive community in a society that – mostly – has some sense of gratitude and duty to them.
We do nothing for thugs. It is difficult to see them as deserving of support, and I have no sympathy for them – too many people I know were never the same again after the Front ‘put the boot in’ – but, as a practical matter of public safety, we have to look at the places they turn to as their bitter and empty lives roll into the decades of middle age: too old to change themselves, but not too old to be a danger to us all.
We will hear more of this.
Well said Richard. I have been having similar conversations on Facebook with friends. Terrorism is such a loaded term – particularly when teamed with ‘Islamic’. It serves the prevailing media narrative perfectly to see this man in those terms when the crumbling of our public services are likely to have been a far bigger influence. (Chomsky’s ‘Manufacturing Consent’ giving chapter and verse on this of course…)
Who of us don’t know people under severe strain at the moment because of projects losing funding, jobs being downgraded etc.? I also agree with PSR’s comments about teaching. I know lots of teachers, newly qualified and highly experienced who have been forced to leave a profession they loved rather than face serious mental health issues.
G. Hamilton
All I can say in my defence as a rational, reasonably well educated person (up to Masters level) is that Tories within this administration have aired concerns about the effect their own party’s sadistic policies maybe having on people.
The phrase ‘blood on the streets’ has emerged from this discourse.
All I have done in my view is confirm as a rational person (who is quite miffed himself with the results he has seen of Tory policy since 2010 and even suffered personal loss and stress because of it) is that this is a VALID concern amongst those members of the Tory party who are not simply led by the blind ideology of austerity their Ministers of the Crown subscribe too.
The Police – underfunded as they are – have asked the right question – what was the motive? Why? And as I understood from the news last night, that question is left unanswered. We may never know. And even I might be speculating.
But might a well-funded mental health care system have prevented this given the assailant’s history? I work in housing development and we are building homes for people with all sorts of mental and physical disability.
And why is this so? Because time and time again I’m hearing that keeping people in hospital is too expensive for the meagre budgets that are available since 2010. So, the expenditure is moved around from one budget to another (too make an apparent saving) and in our case, the housing budget will take the strain.
There is a lot to be said about using normal routines as a therapy for people who have disabilities, psychological and degenerative conditions. But there are huge risks too. And I and my colleagues have seen the consequences close up.
Some of the case conferences we have – I mean some of these cases are borderline – some of these people should manifestly not be living in the community. They should be cared for somewhere else such as a caring institution of some kind. But a lack of money is making the decision as to where they end up – not the needs of the individual balanced with the needs of the community. It is very worrying. The failure rate for such allocations is there for all to see too.
This to me is a system that is not coping with people’s issues because it is not being funded properly. Did this killer have a problem? Did he want to talk to someone? Did he try? Was there a service he could contact or not after his first attack? Was there any follow up?
This is the direction we should be travelling in in order that those lives near Westminster were not completely wasted. We cannot bring the victims back so we (and our Parliamentarians) owe it to them to ask questions – difficult ones – so that we can at least try to avoid this happening again. And when we have answers we then need to take action. And action means money being made available – not austerity.
If we are to continue to live in a cowardly State (as apposed to a courageous one) then we may have to get used to this awful, random way of living where innocent people are just rubbed out of life every now and then when someone cracks. But we don’t have to.