Finsbury Park Terror Attack
- Thread starter Dogsauce
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Dogsauce
I’ve got Skol but I’m not a Scholar
White right-wing terrorists (in particular in the US) are usually portrayed as mentally ill loners, thus removing their agency and taking away the responsibility of those who teach and encourage them. Notably different to Islamic terrorism where fingers are pointed at entire communities and the doors of any acquaintances are booted in almost immediately, though few are ever charged.
If you want decent 'race relations' you need some parity in how incidents are treated and how they are reported, equality of justice. By including reference to mental health in the first police statement we're already on the road to explaining this away as just a lone nutter, ignoring the context of growing islamaphobia and reactionary news content that creates 'justification' for yet more blood on the streets.
andysays
Love and solidarity
This is pure speculation on your part, as far as I can see, unless you've spoken to the arresting officer
Anyway, not going to pursue this relative tangent any further.
Thanks for that, makes sense.But i see it more as damage limitation by the police, playing down islamaphobia rather than further inciting more violence.
andysays
Love and solidarity
what is wrong with me, i feel no shock at all.
Nothing wrong with you.
After everything that's happened recently it's difficult to feel shock. Sadness yes, shock not so much, unfortunately
what is wrong with me, i feel no shock at all.
Not shocked either, this is entirely the response Isis hope for and have now got.
Poor innocent people suffer again.
Sorry i shouldnt have said "i expect" it was speculation but like i said i cant see an ulterior motive for the police issuing the statement so soon. Im in no way trying to mitigate his culpability, just for the record.
likesfish
You can't park here sir
the jihadist nutters can be put in the box labeled jihadist.
the racist loons tend not to be quite as easy to categorize dylan roof was some sort of neoconfederate fan of Rhodesia
while another murderous nut job hates Muslims , similar but not easily linked.
isis claim any and all murders committed by muslims.
the white racist loon has no big scary org willing to claim credit for every killing
the racist loons tend not to be quite as easy to categorize dylan roof was some sort of neoconfederate fan of Rhodesia
while another murderous nut job hates Muslims , similar but not easily linked.isis claim any and all murders committed by muslims.
the white racist loon has no big scary org willing to claim credit for every killing
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J Ed
Follow Back Pro Expropriation
Yes, I had to call 999 the other week to direct an ambulance to where the person I had called it for was and I took instruction from the person on the phone. I thought the whole thing took at least 30 mins, I checked my phone it had actually taken 8 minutes.
not-bono-ever
meh
this country is rapidly tuning to shit. What is to be done ?
RD2003
Got a really fucking shitty attitude
We've got to up our posting rates on social media.
Artaxerxes
Look out, he's got a gnu!
danny la rouge
More like *fanny* la rouge!
Didn't see this because I didn't know you'd quoted me.
I was using a shorthand to save myself writing an essay about the background to every clause. However, what I'm getting at is that the far right, whether that's the Islamist far right or the white far right, has more in common than the way the media tells the stories. Both are about dehumanising the Other.
Furthermore, the way the media understands the "radicalisation" of each type of far rightist is different. According to this mistaken narrative there's the way a Muslim is radicalised and there's the way a white person "goes crazy". In fact, those two stories are erroneous, and there is far more that is similar than the stories allow. (Which doesn't mean that dissimilarities should be ignored, but that we need to get them in the right order).
So, first of all, we're misunderstanding how these people come to commit these acts. That doesn't help us to mend society; it doesn't help us to stem the problems. That means it allows the problems to continue. It's misdiagnosis and leads to the wrong treatment which allows the pathology to fester. So that's corrosion point 1.
Corrosion point 2: the media treating murderous right wing attacks differently according to ethnicity (white person does it. 'Explanation' is "they were mentally ill". Muslim does it. 'Explanation' is "they were radicalised jihadis"). It's about perception. About how we see the media talking about "us".
And that brings us to corrosion point 3: who is "us"? How do I describe who I am? How do others describe who I am? This is a wide and far-reaching point, and thinking critically about it gets to the heart of society's response to these attacks, the left's response, the "liberal" response, the establishment's response.
Here's a link to an article by Kenan Malik. It should be read in its entirety, of course. But I'm going to quote some key passages from it:
THE CHALLENGE OF THE JIHADI STATE OF MIND
"The problem with the conventional radicalization thesis is that it looks at the issue the wrong way round. It begins with jihadists as they are at the end of their journey – enraged about the West, with a back and white view of Islam, and a distorted moral vision – and assumes that these are the reasons that they have come to be as they are. That is rarely the case. Few jihadists start off as religious fanatics or as political militants. That is why their journey to Syria, or their involvement in an act of terror, often comes as such a shock to family and friends."
"Jihadis, in other words, begin their journey searching for something a lot less definable: identity, meaning, respect. The starting point for the making of a homegrown jihadi is not so much ‘radicalization’ as social disengagement, a sense of estrangement from, resentment of, Western society. It is because they have already rejected mainstream culture, ideas and norms that some Muslims search for an alternative vision of the world."
"It is not surprising that many wannabe jihadis are either converts to Islam, or Muslims who discovered their faith only relatively late. In both cases, disenchantment with what else is on offer has led them to the black and white moral code that is Islamism. It is not, in other words, simply a question of being ‘groomed’ or ‘indoctrinated’ but of losing faith in mainstream moral frameworks and searching for an alternative."
"Disengagement is, of course, not simply a Muslim issue. There is today widespread disenchantment with the political process, a sense of being politically voiceless, a despair that neither mainstream political parties nor social institutions seem to comprehend their concerns and needs, a rejection of conventional ideals and norms that seem detached from their experiences.
All this has inevitably shaped how young people, and not just of Muslim backgrounds, experience their alienation, and how they are able to act upon it. It is necessary, therefore, to understand both what connects Muslim and non-Muslim disaffection, and what distinguishes them."
"Deranged fury cloaked in ideological rage is not uniquely Islamist. Two days before the recent attack in London, when Khalid Masood mowed down pedestrians on Westminster Bridge before killing a policeman with a knife, James Harris Jackson allegedly stabbed to death Timothy Caughman in Manhattan. Jackson was white, Caughman black. Jackson is said to have come to New York from Baltimore armed with a knife and a sword and with the aim of killing as many black people as possible. ‘I hate blacks’, he told police. He chose to make New York the scene of his murderous act because it was ‘the media capital of the world’ and he ‘wanted to make a statement’. The police are uncertain whether Jackson had any formal links to racist groups. But, as with many Islamist killings, this stabbing blurs the line between ideological violence and psychotic rage. At his arraignment, the prosecutor called it ‘an act, most likely, of terrorism’. Defence counsel talked of Jackson’s ‘obvious psychological issues’."
"All this exposes both how the character of ideological violence has degenerated and how rage has become a feature of public life. The social and moral boundaries that act as firewalls against such behaviour have weakened. Western societies have become socially atomised. The influence of institutions that once helped socialise individuals and inculcate them with a sense of obligation to others, from the church to trade unions, has declined. So has that of progressive movements that gave social grievance a political form. All this has spawned a proliferation of angry, unbalanced individuals, detached from wider society and its norms, denied political outlets for their disaffections and who find in Islamism or white nationalism the balm for their demons and the justification for their actions.
Against this background, most of the policy responses to jihadism have have attempted to tackle the wrong problems, and so have helped to create more illiberal societies without challenging jihadism."
danny la rouge
More like *fanny* la rouge!
Apparently so.
"A 48-year-old man has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder."
Not sure about why that isn't murder, but I'm no legal expert.
The39thStep
Urban critical thinker
Presumably they have to determine how fit he is to be interviewed and how reliable any evidence he gives is.
frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
Maybe the person died after they arrested him?
danny la rouge
More like *fanny* la rouge!
Indeed.
And we're all coming to this in its early stages. And we don't yet know how different media will settle on how to tell the story. Thankfully the Guardian is calling it terrorist. The BBC,. however, is (for now at least) putting that in inverted commas. This is an advance.
Plumdaff
joy in people
BBC says attempted murder, Guardian says murder, initial reports seemed to imply that a crowd may have already been helping an older man in physical distress ?when the incident happened or ?a man collapsed during the incident so there may be some confusion about exactly what happened right now.
DaveCinzano
WATCH OUT, GEORGE, HE'S GOT A SCREWDRIVER!
Early witness accounts indicate that the man who died had already collapsed and was being attended to by people before the van turned up. Whilst certainly one witness has made a point of saying that this man was alive at the time of the van attack, it may be that this is not accurate.
Statement from MPS' DAC Neil Basu (SNCCT):
Finsbury Park terror attack: one dead near north London mosque – latest updates
The charge could be upgraded if necessary.
cupid_stunt
Chief seagull hater & farmerbarleymow's nemesis.
The guy that died was the one being treated for a heart attack, his unfortunate death may not be connected to the attack, police have said that will be part of their investigation, so I assume that's why he has not been arrested for murder. Yet.
ETA: Dave beat me to it above.
Before the van struck people they were giving the guy CPR so it'll probably take some time to ascertain whether the heart attack killed him or if it was the guy in the van.
..
according to reports on LBC the victim was already receiving first aid when the van struck
according to reports on LBC the victim was already receiving first aid when the van struck
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