Finsbury Park Terror Attack

[Lord Camomile]

giving Isis the sort of response they want and a great piece of propaganda

Exactly. And so it continues, round and round...

 

[8den]

, because there is a suspect in custody, and most likely to be a trial, the press are far more restricted in what they can and can't say about the "suspect".

That's not a blanket excusal of all press coverage just something to keep in mind.

 

[Ax^]

Exactly. And so it continues, round and round...

 

[danny la rouge]

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.

Yes, we're still in the early stages of this and what we've read and at what time we've read it makes a difference.

(Liked for the clarification. It seems wrong to 'like' such posts).

 

[danny la rouge]

, because there is a suspect in custody, and most likely to be a trial, the press are far more restricted in what they can and can't say about the "suspect".

That's not a blanket excusal of all press coverage just something to keep in mind.

That's an important point to make, actually. The suspect is alive and has been charged. We don't want any trial to have to be abandoned because of what the media and/or people on social media say.

 

[Pickman's model]

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.

because they can make it stick atm. other charges may of course follow.

 

[danny la rouge]

because they can make it stick atm. other charges may of course follow.

Yeah, I hadn't read at that point that the man who died may already have been receiving medical attention.

 

[frogwoman]

Theresa may's calling it a potential terrorist attack as well. well that's something I guess ...

 

[8den]

Yeah, I hadn't read at that point that the man who died may already have been receiving medical attention.

And that's another important detail, which highlights that it's best to hang back a moment and let the facts emerge.

Again having worked in news there is almost a compulsion to get in 1st, while the more reputable news organisations wait a while for verification. Hence the "attempted murder" and not "murder".

 

[Pickman's model]

Yeah, I hadn't read at that point that the man who died may already have been receiving medical attention.

the attempted murder is, i believe, more likely to be because of driving a van at a group of people and not because of an injured man subsequently dying - if indeed it is he that is dead.

 

[Pickman's model]

Theresa may's calling it a potential terrorist attack as well. well that's something I guess ...

theresa may's lost the plot and should no longer be regarded as a conduit for information.

 

[bimble]

in completely unrelated news last night in Washington a 17 year old girl murdered on her way home from mosque, after "anti-sharia'" demos all over the country last weekend.

 

[cupid_stunt]

Theresa may's calling it a potential terrorist attack as well. well that's something I guess ...

Not that I want to be defending May, but police have been calling it a potential terrorist attack, I am sure they will update that to actual terrorist attack soon enough.

 

[Pickman's model]

in completely unrelated news last night in Washington a 17 year old girl murdered on her way home from mosque, after "anti-sharia'" demos all over the country last weekend.

virginia

 

[frogwoman]

fucking hell

We will always make sure that everybody is protected. We have a places of worship fund which is there to protect places of worship like mosques and we will make sure that we do all we can to reduce these sort of attacks. We have made available £2.5m last summer, I recently announced who would be getting those additional funds, which included 12 mosques and I have reopened it recently to make sure that any additional place of worship that feels the need can apply for extra security.

'reduce' these sort of attacks

 

[Anudder Oik]

Video from a mobile phone showing immediate aftermath. The police arrived several minutes before any ambulances and only three officers arrested the man who waves once he's in the back of the van. The fact they didn't linch him with only three officers present is testimony to how peaceful most of the worshippers are, although you can hear one person saying; kill him, kill him, which I think would be my reaction, too.

This is most likely right wing related, some kind of mindless retaliation (against innocent people) that will only serve to weaken attempts to reduce radicalization.

 

[The39thStep]

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.

It's only the arrest

in completely unrelated news last night in Washington a 17 year old girl murdered on her way home from mosque, after "anti-sharia'" demos all over the country last weekend.

Is this unrelated or related ?

 

[Corax]

Police have reportedly said that they're not looking for anyone else in connection with the incident. Why the hell not? How on earth can they be so sure of no assistance in planning or execution so quickly?

Unless, of course, they're fibbing but don't want to panic anyone into destroying potential evidence etc.

By the by, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon's jumped on this in predictable style, posting 'I told you so!' and 'This is what I was warning you about!' stuff. Utterly deaf to the concept that he bears a responsibility, made these things more likely.

 

[Lord Camomile]

, because there is a suspect in custody, and most likely to be a trial, the press are far more restricted in what they can and can't say about the "suspect".

That's not a blanket excusal of all press coverage just something to keep in mind.

Echoed by this thread on Twitter

 

[IC3D]

RIP. A lot of people will be happy about this, even more not care.

 

[frogwoman]

RIP. A lot of people will be happy about this, even more not care.

 

[Pac man]

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."

Thanks for the detailed response. I have previously read that piece by Malik and this one How did the left radicalism of my Manchester youth give way to Islamism? | Kenan Malik, it makes perfect sense, we need to change the narrative, but how and what to. imo, anybody who commits these acts of terror is mentally ill, as Malik highlights, fuelld by sociopathic rage etc, so maybe the narrative should start there..? i could be talking bollocks.

 

[ItWillNeverWork]

Thanks for the detailed response. I have previously read that piece by Malik and this one How did the left radicalism of my Manchester youth give way to Islamism? | Kenan Malik, it makes perfect sense, we need to change the narrative, but how and what to. imo, anybody who commits these acts of terror is mentally ill, as Malik highlights, fuelld by sociopathic rage etc, so maybe the narrative should start there..? i could be talking bollocks.

No, they're not mentally ill. They're ideologically possessed.

 

[Mr.Dogg]

On the guardian page it's being described as terrorism so that's something I suppose

Not the BBC website though, they're sticking with it being done by Kitt from Knightrider ("Man Dies As Van Hits Worshippers")

 

[frogwoman]

Are there going to be people with known connections to the far-right rounded up in the wake of this crime? I know after Manchester a lot of people with previous terror links were rounded up and then released shortly afterwards.

 

[danny la rouge]

Thanks for the detailed response. I have previously read that piece by Malik and this one How did the left radicalism of my Manchester youth give way to Islamism? | Kenan Malik, it makes perfect sense, we need to change the narrative, but how and what to. imo, anybody who commits these acts of terror is mentally ill, as Malik highlights, fuelld by sociopathic rage etc, so maybe the narrative should start there..? i could be talking bollocks.

It'd be more accurate to say they're socially ill.

 

[RD2003]

Are there going to be people with known connections to the far-right rounded up in the wake of this crime? I know after Manchester a lot of people with previous terror links were rounded up and then released shortly afterwards.

They were rounded up because of previous terror links, as you say. Most of those on the far-right might be twats, but they have no terror links.

 

[danny la rouge]

Are there going to be people with known connections to the far-right rounded up in the wake of this crime? I know after Manchester a lot of people with previous terror links were rounded up and then released shortly afterwards.

I think some of those "terror links" equated to being related to the terrorist.

This is perhaps not the time or place to have that discussion though.

 

[The39thStep]

Police have reportedly said that they're not looking for anyone else in connection with the incident. Why the hell not? How on earth can they be so sure of no assistance in planning or execution so quickly?

Unless, of course, they're fibbing but don't want to panic anyone into destroying potential evidence etc.

By the by, Stephen Yaxley-Lennon's jumped on this in predictable style, posting 'I told you so!' and 'This is what I was warning you about!' stuff. Utterly deaf to the concept that he bears a responsibility, made these things more likely.

He was calling Muslim citizens "Enemy combatants" in one video I saw.
Lots of totally unacceptable incidents at that mosque in the past , thankfully cleaned up now, but using the mosques history as an excuse is as unconvincing and as unforgivable as using foreign policy as an excuse .

 

[frogwoman]

im not sure, I mean the recent ones didn't fit the profile of like some radicalised loner. some of them had been involved in radical islamism for years and years, I just don't believe that they're just mentally ill people 'latching on' to an ideology - some of them are, but not all. Some are deeply committed to it and have been for years. two of London bridge attackers were family men with kids.

and of course Thomas Mair had links with right-wing extremist groups going back years and years, it wasn't as though he suddenly woke up one day and became 'radicalised'. there's obviously some mentally ill people involved in terrorism but it's not everyone is it.