Revenge terrorist attack

It was the fire service that Boris cut, 550 London firefighter jobs plus a dozen stations, have gone. Those stations now luxury flats.

nigglynellie you are so right!! I consider myself English but going back over the generations I have Scandanavian, Irish, Scottish, Welsh and Cornish ancestors.

Britain is now a multi-racial community. The vast majority of its citizens are law-abiding and peace-loving.

We have to celebrate and tap into that fact to improve the sense of a shared community.

I am not suggesting that a multi-cultural, multi-faith society does not carry with it challenges and subtle distinctions between assimilation/integration and tolerance of difference. But we now live in a global world and cannot turn the clock back. We have to emphasise our shared humanity.

Does anyone know of a petition/website along the lines of

NOT IN MY NAME

I have been watching with increasing dismay the radicalisation of someone I know well. As far as I can see it has all been done on Facebook. Someone posted something which resonated with him and he 'liked' or 'shared' it, which ensured that more such posts would come his way. The more he shared the more the posts would have kept coming. I first realised something was up when he shared a post from the EDL and another from an Australian hate group. Oh I see I didn't share with you that he is not a Muslim but a white man with no belief, living in an area where seeing a Muslim would be a very unlikely occurance. He took to posting his own hate utterances. I began to message him about fake news and reputable sources and for a while I thought he was listening to me, then the Manchester attrocity happened and he and his nasty followers and 'friends' ratcheted the hate up a notch. I told him that he is as much a brainwashed idiot as the lone young man with a chequered past and a death wish.
I took a look at his Facebook and every post was deluded raving about how Muslims want to take over the world and depose the Queen and impose Sharia Law and are all plotting war. I asked whether he thinks concentration camps would be his solution but he hasn't replied. He says he cannot understand why I am not afraid of the imminent war with Muslims. Throwing statistics at him is useless, reasoning with him is pointless, he tells his wife that he doesn't want to read anything from me because I am too stupid to see what is in front of my nose. What is actually in front of my nose living in London is my delightful Muslim neighbours who beg me to let them know if there is anything they can do for me, the Syrians in my corner shop, the Muslim cabbie who brought my daughter back from hospital with such care, the Afghani lady from whom I buy the most delicious bread, a large percentage of our doctors and nurses, many of the kids I used to teach, perhaps 17% of the people living in my part of London. Maybe there is a wrong'un among them just like among any group of people but my experience of Muslims here is that they are horrified by and fearful of terrorism and are here for a peaceful life. So I have seen radicalisation happening and in answer to the question someone asked, what do they want from us? they want to be famous, to please their brainwashing masters, to cause discord and to make us hate one another.

What a lovely post Nelliemaggs [flowers}

And for Joelsnan, too.

How very sad you must be and so brave to post here when you must be feeling very raw.

joelsnan we suffered a similar tragedy in the extended family early in May. We have no idea of his reasoning but I have some understanding of the shock and bewilderment and send sincere condolences.

*Nelliemags' Your post resonates so well. I was living and working in a Muslim country whilst my son was being 'brainwashed'. I flew him out to be with me so he could see just how lovely Muslims are and who, like most Christians do not take their holy books as gospel truth and who just want to get on with life.
The truth is anxiety and paranoia are totally irrational to those who are not afflicted and totally real for those who are, sadly recent events in the media reinforced his fears.

devongirl I saw something about that on Facebook. a search brings up
www.youtube.com/watch?v=hAxIOC8Zisc
isisnotinmyname.com/
www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/notinmyname-paris-attacks_us_56494ef7e4b045bf3defbf7a
uk.reuters.com/article/uk-italy-muslims-march-idUKKCN0TA0UA20151121

And one which does not think that organisations like this do any good - but there are some good comments. leftfootforward.org/2014/10/why-muslim-not-in-my-name-campaigns-are-part-of-the-problem/

Calling this a 'revenge terrorist attack' is giving credibility to the killer. He was possibly just an ordinary hating man driving about and saw a group of obvious Muslims on the pavement and aimed at them. From the accounts so far it seems they were tending to a man who had collapsed on the pavement so were possibly more visible than usual. Hating man expressed his hatred, not 'revenge'.

Joelsnan, I am very sorry for your loss. It must be so very hard to bear.

As for the recent attack, it plays right into the hands of ISIS, etc, because it is the exact result they want from their own terrorism - to provoke the same response and divide the communities. Fortunately, I believe (or maybe I just hope) that most people have enough kindness and decency to draw together in response to the pain and grief caused by such violence.

I do think violence committed for ideological reasons such be labelled as terrorism, regardless of the colour or creed of the perpetrator. Identifying the man who did this and the man who murdered Jo Cox as "men with mental health issues" does seem rather a case of using weasel words to avoid calling them terrorists. I think it would be fair to say that the Muslim men who carry out terrorist acts most likely have mental health issues too, but that isn't usually the focus of media coverage.

Still, whatever you call it, the attack was a terrible thing to happen, and I feel very sorry for the people hurt.

In the USA where because of the millions of guns available, mass shootings happen with horrible frequency, they are usually done by white men. Then there is a lot of investigation into their mental states, history, upbringing, to find them other than ordinary men.

Of course deliberately murdering their fellow human beings means they have mental health problems, often narcissistic psychopaths. But only white shooters get this analysis, whereas all terrorists are the same. This white terrorist had detached himself from being fully human, so do the others.

Calling this a 'revenge terrorist attack' is giving credibility to the killer. ....... Hating man expressed his hatred, not 'revenge'.

So, Pamish, how do the words uttered by the perpetrator, "I've done my bit, you deserve it" not sound like an act of revenge? Even the Muslims are saying it's equivalent to his meaning "I am punishing all of you for your atrocities."

Joelsnan and Nelliemaggs it must be very hard to know someone who is being or has been radicalised in whichever sense of the word.

Good post, Bluecat.

Riverwalk ...it's a lot of comments back now, but the Police have money and resources to investigate terror attacks ( or anything designated terror) they have been well funded over the last few years.
As the man is Welsh, they will be working with local police on this incident.

The cat is well and truly out of the bag with vehicles being used to kill and injure groups of people now, it will happen for all kinds of reasons.

Hatred just breeds more hatred!

Well said Rigby46. totally unnecessary.

@ Lillie, because 'revenge' is a justification. It isn't.

Well said Rigby46. Totally unnecessary.

Joelsnan

From one of Elegran's links (for which thanks):

"Rather than offering such shallow condemnations, we as Muslims need to stop being solely concerned with the image of Islam and Muslims and recognise that challenging jihadists and associated extremists proactively will do more to rehabilitate the image of Islam than shallow ‘not in my name’ statements."

An interesting POV - but one that requires immense and superhuman courage to put into action. He is saying that "not in my name" all too often results in nothing concrete happening - a sense of it is "none of my business."

What a tangled mess things are in world-wide at present.

But at least the "Not in my name" projects give the lie to those who keep saying that "ordinary" Muslims are not doing enough to distance themselves from the jihadists. In fact, there have been several stements by Muslim groups condemning the attacks.

I am not sure what effect their more proactive confrontation would have - would it get them killed too? That is a lot to ask of them.

Joelsnan

Another act of male violence

It's an act of terror which was meant to hurt as many members of one of our communities as it could.

Some of the far right propaganda floating round the internet is utterly vile, they want to go back to an England that never existed.

Joelsnan- deep commiserations. You are so right about the 'winding up' the media do . Many radio and TV reporters actually sound really excited when something shocking happens and they are then like a dog with a bone and will not quieten down and allow people to grieve with dignity.
No wonder mental health issues are on the rise. So much anxiety being constantly fed. I just have to turn off the TV and radio news after a few minutes because It's making me feel really ill. ?