braineclipse
Steve Sedgley
You have some points of fact wrong on Breivik. If I'm reading your post correctly. At least in Norway he's been consistently called a terrorist. Not sure about the UK reporting, but I would be surprised if terrorist wasn't used often at least. Also he didn't shoot kids because they were Muslims, he shot kids because they were part of a Labour youth camp and he saw that party responsible for ruining Norway or some such nonsense.You're right in that the media now are more considered in labelling atrocities such as the aforementioned an act of terrorism before getting the full facts. Apologies if I'm not getting my point across and making sweeping statements, I'm in full-on Glasto packing stress mode!
It is the wording in articles after these events that I struggle with. I truly don't want to make this into a race/religion discussion and/or create a brown v white machine. I just feel that our Western media is very inconsistent with reporting based on this. Perhaps I'm getting too caught up on the gutter press reporting and should take a step back.
With your last sentence, the reason I take exception is that we are very quick to label non-Muslim atrocities as 'lone wolf' etc, however we make up our minds very quickly that Islam/Muslims are to blame instantly when such an attack occurs. Some idiot on this very thread said we should tag all Muslims if memory serves. Anders Breivik was labelled as someone who had 'terrorist like tendencies'. He killed kids purely on the basis they were Muslim. He was described as a lone wolf. Surely we should be treating the perpetrators of the recent attacks as the same, right? Unfortunately Daesh get to say that these attacks were committed in their name and for the Caliphate. But you only have to read extremist websites and social media propaganda from the nationalist side in this country to see how easily people can get indoctrinated. These people will hold the Koran up and bleat about how Islam treats women/LGBT/children. Yet they are happy to write posts about how we should nuke entire countries, how we should be shooting/hanging people (innocent Muslims I may add) and when these people are face-to-face with the LGBT community, they're not so fond of them.
As Steff would say, all in the spirit of debate bud. There is where I see the inconsistency lies. I say this because as a third generation (I think) immigrant, I am exceptionally proud of being a Londoner and a UK citizen. And with that I would like to make my voice heard because this country allows me to do so.
Finally yes he was described as a lone wolf, but that's not the same as not calling him a terrorist.
I've listened to that podcast, some interesting theories in there.
Let's be honest, ISIS are a nothing more than bunch of crazies who place far too much emphasis on a fictional book, the Koran. They're getting annihilated in Syria and Iraq so they've had to retreat and these lone wolf/domestic terrorism attacks are the final card they have to play. Judging by the amateur hour nature of recent attacks they are to be less feared that poor quality building regulations..
Terrorist acts has been a part of their strategy all along and their capacity for that hasn't changed despite their losses on the ground.
I agree that the reaction to these people shouldn't be out of proportion and one of the ways they win is by us changing our societies for the worse in response to their attacks.
What is worrying is what happens if IS can be sufficiently marginalized? Will another organization spring up the same way IS has "replaced" Al Qaeda? 40,000 foreign warriors joining the fight is a considerable number, what if a similar number of people could be recruited for terrorist acts across Europe by a new organization?
The potential harm from these terrible ideas stretches way beyond IS. And so far we haven't even been able to have a proper and honest public conversation about how to handle those ideas.