Fair play. I didn't notice the relevant word at the time.
Gun shots outside Parliament: Police shoot assailant following car attack on Westminster Bridge
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Seems weird it took so long to ascertain it wasn't him. One of the downsides of social media is baseless rumours spreading like wildfire though I guess.
No actually, just re-read and realised what I'd written.. embarassing.
Yup, I've had a temp ban myself for a misguided attempt at humour that went badly. We've all been there.
See my reply to duafc. We've all said shit in the heat of the moment.
Now you mention it, I've never met a non-white mormon.
Mitt Romney's certainly been doing all he can to stop his hair from going white...
Same could be said for a white guy singing a Johnny rebel song walking through Queens with "I hate N*ggers" on a tee.
Or a black guy singing "Fcuk the Police" in a Black Power tee shirt in.... Well anywhere in the States that a policeman is present. (Kidding of course)
What point were you making? Doing stupid things will end badly?
Are you a Quaranist or a Sunni and believer in the Hadith? Because Muhammed commited massacres of numerous peoples. The Quran does incite violence but not as much as Muhammed's actions.
I don't have anything against Muslims who focus on the none violent aspects of their belief system and use their faith for good. Many are enriched by their face. But their is a darker side to Islam from it's onset. And given it was devised in medieval times in a wartorn era it's hardly suprising.
You're right, there are too many millions of very poor Muslims across Asia and Africa who would never ever consider participating in these actions.
I once wrote a plan for a Government think tank tasked with stopping UK muslims from joining ISIS and the first thing we established was its a tiny tiny group of people that are largely ortrasized by mainstream Islam. They are the 0.01% The recent attacks in Paris required the actions of maximum 10 people. And yet the followers of Islam have to tolerate uneducated crude opinions that they are to blame
As we spoke to more people, so we quickly understood that it was generally people with deep mental health issues that committed terror crimes. That in itself is not revolutionary: again 99.9% of Muslims wont be prepared to kill themselves today as a maytr, no matter what promises they have for the afterlife.
So in this specific case, the challenge is stopping mentally ill Muslim's being recruited into terrorist networks. That's where the money needs to be invested: to provide support and advice to Muslims currently in emotional trauma (for whatever reason) and keep a firm eye on them afterwards. Its micro micro targeted work and requires intimate on the ground understanding of communities and the deep co-operation of British muslim society.
But getting that help is incredibly difficult as British Muslims feel victimised by hateful Islamaphobia and a media who feels it has the right to mock and ridicule their religion and prophet. So some don't co-oprate, especially if it's one of their own family members.
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Wait! Where are you going? I was going to make Espresso...
The anti-semiticism that created the environment that made the holocaust acceptable was the precursor to advocating violence and slaughter or them. It's a stages thing and the far right know it full well.
This is a good post but I'm not sure if these individuals are necessarily 'mentally ill'. They are young disenfranchised people looking for a purpose and ideoligical reasoning and find it within these groups. The 'moral' brainwashing is that they need to make the ultimate sacfrice to help 'the oppressed muslims' and 'grant paradise'. An impressionable unhappy and needy individual will buy these lies.
Maybe vulnerable or mentally ill is a better catch-all definition.
It seems you have to be white and live in Shoreditch or New York's Soho if you want to have a beard and not be considered a terrorist!Apparently this image led folks to believe him to be a (professing) Muslim...
Which is an interesting sociological question in and of itself
I'd argue the guy poisoning baby milk is a terrorist, given their aim is to cause fear, albeit one motivated by different causes to religion, ie wanting a ransom or having some weird grudge against the manufacturer or just babies, society etc...
As a Muslim Im outraged by many issues these groups complain about. But I'm so far away from doing anything illegal about it. 99.9% of British Muslims are.
We concluded that you have to be mentally imbalanced to be prepared to kill yourself for such a cause. We had many eminent psychologists who helped us come to this view. 'disenfranchised people looking for a purpose and ideoligical reasoning' are most certainly vulnerable to joining such groups. But to decide to kill yourself for such a cause is several more steps of 'enlightenment'.
Most people wont, so that must make those who will abit 'special'.
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They're all terrorists. They incite fear and terror. But they're criminals first. That was my principle point.
Working at a company opening mail where there's been a scare.
Feeding your baby after reading the article in the news about baby formula.
Walking around a city where a gunman is on the loose.
Hard to forget. You live with it. Those events arguably instill more ongoing fear than a crazy attack with knives.
They're all just really bad people. All damaged, either through design or the fault of society or just bad luck.
My point is that - and this was borne out in the case of the DC sniper based almost entirely on his surname - we now assume "Terrorist" when the thought chain used to start with "Crazy mutha fcuker".
Yes, religious fundamentalists have been guilty of large scale atrocities in the last decade but not at a greater rate than those just being flat out evil/crazy.
@sammsky1 You've made some very good posts in this thread, cheers for the insights and I've got to say I agree with a lot you're saying.
RIP to the victims
RIP to the victims
It is a bit strange that no terrorist group has claimed responsibility(Or did I miss anything?).
Normally they would parade the killer as a hero
Normally they would parade the killer as a hero
I'm an ex-muslim convert myself mate. Along with a group of friends we'd goto talks by various groups, to moderate groups to extremist ones. So Young Muslims, Al Mihajiroun, Hizbut Tahir amongst others. This was all before 9/11. The messages were persuavice. One of our mates moved away with his family and didn't get further education and couldn't get work. I kept in touch. He didn't believe Bin Laden commited 9/11 and he kept telling me he was 'going on jihad'. I lost touch and tried to reconect but couldn't find him anywhere. Hopefully he didn't go on jihad and is just tied down in a marriage or something. He wasn't mentally ill or 'special'.
With all due respect I think you're underestimating how intelligent, disenfrancised naive young people can be brainwashed without them being 'special' or 'mentally ill'. Do those labels apply to everyone who signed up to the IRA? Or the American War of Independence? Or the Spanish Civil War? Or how about people signing up to serve our military?
Then you know very little about the human condition and its historical evolution.
Go through world history and see examine the reasons for bloodshed, terrorism and war since the days of Caine and Abel. You'll find one consistency.
@sammsky1
I don't agree about your restrictions on free speech at all. Look at the clusterfeck in my country (India). This restrictions on freedom of speech are used to stop any portrayal of any religion (even smaller groups like Sikhs and Christians manage to censor things) that isn't positive. A film criticising old customs. A god not depicted in the traditional reverential way. Some random teenager criticising a political leader after his death (and some while they're alive). An author who criticises the misogyny of religions. A book talking about the various interpretations of a religious text. Many of these people were arrested, some were lucky in that the courts soon found the case has no merit. But the law is a tool in the hands of politicians and police to harass and arrest anyone they don't like. Mobs go down the street every time someone manages to get them angry enough about a book or movie. And having seen a previous ban for something offending another religion, they will cry about discrimination if they don't get their way. And each new ban or withdrawal of publication means more incentive for the next mob.
The west isn't perfect, but on the subject of religion they moved from having continent-wide witchhunts and murders a few centuries ago, and reached a point where absolute mockery of Christianity was fine. Not everyone liked it, but it was on national TV. And I've always looked at that in amazement and wonder. And I do believe that people who have chosen to come to the west (in general, I'm sure there are exceptions) need to accept that. And I hope that the world generally moves towards that, I don't see it happening though.
I don't agree about your restrictions on free speech at all. Look at the clusterfeck in my country (India). This restrictions on freedom of speech are used to stop any portrayal of any religion (even smaller groups like Sikhs and Christians manage to censor things) that isn't positive. A film criticising old customs. A god not depicted in the traditional reverential way. Some random teenager criticising a political leader after his death (and some while they're alive). An author who criticises the misogyny of religions. A book talking about the various interpretations of a religious text. Many of these people were arrested, some were lucky in that the courts soon found the case has no merit. But the law is a tool in the hands of politicians and police to harass and arrest anyone they don't like. Mobs go down the street every time someone manages to get them angry enough about a book or movie. And having seen a previous ban for something offending another religion, they will cry about discrimination if they don't get their way. And each new ban or withdrawal of publication means more incentive for the next mob.
The west isn't perfect, but on the subject of religion they moved from having continent-wide witchhunts and murders a few centuries ago, and reached a point where absolute mockery of Christianity was fine. Not everyone liked it, but it was on national TV. And I've always looked at that in amazement and wonder. And I do believe that people who have chosen to come to the west (in general, I'm sure there are exceptions) need to accept that. And I hope that the world generally moves towards that, I don't see it happening though.
@sammsky1 You've made some very good posts in this thread, cheers for the insights and I've got to say I agree with a lot you're saying.
RIP to the victims
Thanks for kind words and glad it made you think.
OK. So why did this man commit his crime at the British Parliament today? (assuming he was Muslim). In your opinion.
I'd have to know a lot more about the individual even if he is Muslim. But I'd say it's likely enough that, all other currently unknowable and immediate factors aside (e.g. his personal life, education, employment status, mental health, etc.), he's been inspired by the message that waging war against the British state has become a religious duty obligatory on individual Muslims in order to defend the umma and perhaps specifically to advance the cause of the so-called caliphate in Raqqa. On a broader level, I'd imagine he believes that Muslims must aim to restore the autonomy they once held before the extension of European power over them a couple of centuries or so ago, and that violent jihad is today the only means by which they are permitted and able to do so.
Why would you start from a standpoint of this being something organised and part of a group?
Just as likely to have been a nutty guy doing a terrible thing.
The latter is actually scarier to me.
Sign of the times tbf.
Just to clarify, exactly what do you want banned? The comics, or any strong criticism of the life of Muhammed? What about an article that made fun of the Quran?
Feeling a bit lucky here. I walked across the bridge at around 2.30 or 2.35 to get into the underground at Westminster. I think this happened at around 2.40.
Wow!!!
You should have dashed to a casino in the evening. It was your lucky day.
Well, Terrorism are crimes who's purpose are to spread fear or terror among a populace (hence the name). If someone shoots up a bank and kills several people it's not terrorism, because the goal is not to spread fear, but monetary gain. The D.C sniper attacks were very much terrorist attacks imo. Killing civilians just for the sake of it is terrorism.
Absolute travesty.
RIP to the dead...so many innocent lives changed forever.
RIP to the dead...so many innocent lives changed forever.
The one slight bit of positive news is this scumbag could not get access to a gun or a truck. You can bet he tried to get hold of the 2, but the tough measure in place stopped him from getting them.
Not murdering four random people in a method endorsed by Islamic terrorists would help too.
Interesting and makes a lot of sense. Although a little simplistic to exclusively blame Islamophobia for the way in which mentally ill (and you'd have to admit they're not all mentally ill, surely?) jihadists aren't forced to engage with the authorities by their community. I'm sure the majority of muslims in the UK wouldn't hesitate to act in that scenario. What makes them so resistant to Islamophobia?
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The two scenarios aren't mutually exclusive. Radicalising "nutty guys" online seems to be a deliberate tactic by IS. A depressingly effective one too. And for "nutty", also read desperate, impulsive, foolish or just plain nasty.
Banning cartoons mocking religions is obviously a spectacularly stupid idea. They should be encouraged if anything. People taking a bunch of fairly tales as gospel so seriously is a bigger problem.
Absolutely. I just feel if we pretend that religion is the largest part of the issue we're always going to be chasing out tail.