Viewpoint: Manchester Concert Explosion.

My first thoughts in this situation, are the same this time as they always are, they are with the families and friends of the victims. There are no words right now, that will soothe their pain, or ease them through what will be one of the hardest, toughest times they will ever go through.

My second thought is the same one I have every time somebody uses one of the T words in this kind of situation.  The T words being terror, terrorist and terrorism.  Whether the crime fits the definition of terrorism or not, I will not used the T words to describe it.  This was a crime, an act of premeditated murder.  Even describing it that way is emotive enough.  The fact that the perpetrator committed suicide in the act, just means that it saves the expense of a trial and the ongoing cost of keeping him in prison.  Rather than face human justice, the perpetrator convicted himself in the highest court of all, and all he did in the process was to allow the gods and goddesses to send him into his eternal damnation much sooner than originally planned.

My last thought here is simply this.  Carry on as normal today.  Don't let this or any other criminal act of this magnitude change who you are or what you do.

The Sydney Siege: 3 dead, and political opportunism.

The siege that had been taken place at a Sydney cafe, ended with a storming of the cafe, after a total of a dozen hostages had managed to get out.  It was believed there were still 9 hostages in there when Australia’s Special Forces Police made their storming raid.

And 3 lives were lost in that raid.  One of those, was the gunman, the perpetrator, who was identified as Man Haron Monis, who was an Iranian cleric, who was on bail for a number of offences.

Some wondered whether he was with Islamic State, he wasn’t nor did he show their flag, despite what some have said but more on that later, and some wondered whether he was doing this alone, and yes he was.

But 2 of the hostages also lost their lives in the storming.  Whether that was from the gunman’s gun or the police’s guns, we will probably never know.  One of them was a lawyer, the other was the manager of the cafe.  Two lives cruelly cut short.

But something else was lost in that raid.  Understanding.  We will never learn what drove the man to take these hostages, what his motivations were, what was going on inside his head, and that is a missed opportunity. 

And then Australia’s Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, made it worse.

During the siege, he had been rightfully careful with his choice of words, not calling it terrorism, not referring to it as anything other than a criminal act, with the possibility of a political motivation, a possibility that unfortunately can never now be proved or disproved.

But after it, he reverted to type and waded into the quagmire.

"He had a long history of violent crime, infatuation with extremism and mental instability, We know that he sent offensive letters to the families of Australian soldiers killed in Afghanistan and was found guilty of offences related to this.  We also know that he posted graphic extremist material online. As the siege unfolded yesterday, he sought to cloak his actions with the symbolism of the ISIL death cult.  Tragically, there are people in our community ready to engage in politically motivated violence.  Australians should be reassured by the way our law enforcement and security agencies responded to this brush with terrorism,"

“…this brush with terrorism”?  Every time you call an act such as this terrorism, you are legitimising the cause that drives it.  It is an act of criminality, plain and simple, and that’s how you should be categorising it, and talking about it.  You call it terrorism, and call the perpetrators terrorists, and the criminals believe you just acknowledged that they are right to do what they are doing.  So, never call it terrorism, or call them terrorists.

The other statement I take serious issue with is this one, “he sought to cloak his actions with the symbolism of the ISIL death cult”.  Because every black flag with Arabic writing on it, must be the flag of ISIL(!).  In fact, the flag that was displayed early on in the siege, wasn’t an ISIL flag at all.  In fact, it’s a standard Islamic flag, a Shahada flag, which represents a general expression of faith in Islam.  The writing on it reads, "There is no god but Allah; Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah."  The same phrase is on the flag of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Symbolism of ISIL?  Only in the most shallowest of ways, and in fact, the ISIL flag, doesn’t use that phrase or classical Arabic style of writing.  The script on the ISIL flag, looks almost like it was written by a child, it’s got that very handwritten, amateur quality to it.

Tony Abbott, in that one post-siege statement, took his grade for how he’d handled that, down from a B+, to a D-.  He really should have stuck much closer to the original script that he’d been using during the siege.

When the siege started, I hoped and prayed for a swift, but just, conclusion.  The conclusion was swift, but it was also brutal, and to lose the lives of two of the hostages in that raid, will be leaving a bitter aftertaste in the mouths of the Special Forces Police who carried out that raid.  I wanted the perpetrator taken alive, to stand trial for his crimes, and to find out what his mind-set was.  We’ll never get that, and the justice that was so badly needed at the end of this siege, was lost in a hail of bullets.

Viewpoint Extra: Woolwich murder

As a follow up to my post, I am glad to see that at least one politician agrees with me about not allowing fear to win, and even quotes the Koran verse 32 chapter 5 in showing how Islam is not a violent religion...

"If anyone kills a human being it shall be as though he killed all mankind whereas if anyone saves a life it shall be as though he saved the whole of mankind."

The full story is here.

Thank you, Nick Clegg, for being a voice of sanity within the madness.

Woolwich Murder and the problems of using the wrong word.

It's no secret that a lot of us have felt something in the wake of a soldier being murdered just outside of Woolwich Barracks in South London.  The story has some unique oddities to it anyway.  No criminal of any kind hangs around waiting for the Police to pick them up, and only the dumbest think that the police will kill them rather than capturing them.  Also, not since the days of the Northern Ireland troubles have the armed forces been a regular target for murder in this country.  So, this is an unusual case all told.

But the media, especially the press, and parts of social media have been bandying about the words "terrorist" and "terrorism" in relation to this murder of Drummer Lee Rigby, a member of the 2nd Batallion of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. 

It is far too easy to use the words terrorist and terrorism, in situations where we just don't know the full back story.  The security services had picked up one of the suspects before, and one is believed to have converted to Islam.  However, no killing done in anyones name, never mind the name of God, is justified.  Calling it terrorism, or the perpetrators terrorists, is giving credence and credibility to their complaints, which is the last thing you need to do.  In some cases, it might actually glorify their actions and their motives, and that is a definite no-no.

And just as bad, is several facebook postings that crop up all over the social network from pages and organisations with agendas of their own, shared by well meaning people who do not realise what these postings really mean.  Some of these posts that get shared espouse racial hatrid, contain statements attributed to politicians that were in fact never made by those politicians, and do nothing to help solve the real problems of the world.  In fact, some of these posts are borderline incitement to violence against other people.  Be very careful what you share, some of these posts are close to or borderline illegal.

What happened was a murder.  That is emotive enough.  Calling it terrorism is too emotive, it provokes fear and anger, which is exactly what these people want.  They want us to be afraid, they want us to be angry.  It's irresponsible, especially for this Conservative government and the media, to do the radical's job for them.  They should be more responsible and not use over-emotive words, that do the radical's bidding.  For the Conservative government, that's their modus operandi, provoke fear, emotionalise everything, divide and conquer. For the media, it's all about sales, ratings, numbers. They think emotionalising the story will get better ratings, more sales.

The best thing to do, is actually to de-emotionalise and de-editorialise this story.  It was a murder.  The murder victim was a serving soldier, two men charged at police, they were arrested.  Those are the pure undiluted facts.  Calling it terrorism, or butchery as one columnist in the Telegraph did, is emotionalising and editorialising the story.  Now a newspaper columnist can do that if they want.  But if they feel like they should do things like that, then do it about a week or so afterwards, not in the relatively immediate aftermath, up to 72 hours after the event.  

The English Defence League amongst others are not helping this whole situation by declaring war on extremist preachers of Islam.  That will do nothing to decrease tensions.

In short, never call it terrorism.  Never call them terrorists.  You will give them what they want.