To me, there are several obvious similarities between Mair and Bouhlel. They both carried out their attacks alone, even though evidence of support for Mair may yet emerge, and Bouhlel's last text message before he set out to commit mass murder does seem to point to the involvement of others.
Bouhlel's final text message read: "Bring more weapons. Bringing in 5," while an earlier text said:"It's good. I have the equipment."
Both appear to have been loners. Mair was regarded by his neighbours as a quiet man, if somewhat eccentric. Bouhlel was regarded as being anti- social by his neighbours, even though he was married with three children. Whereas Mair helped his elderly neighbours with their gardens, Bouhlel showed the nasty side of his nature by beating his wife, who left him. As one of his long-suffering neighbours said: “He was rude and bit weird. We would hold the door open for him and he would just blank him...He kept himself to himself but would always rant about his wife. He had marital problems and would tell people in the local cafe. He scared my children though.”
Significantly, both had a history of mental health problems, which, in the context of terrorism, I have discussed before, on June 17th. The question of mental instability and terrorism is a thorny one, but it has now become more topical and, in my opinion, deserves urgent attention. After all, terrorism is not a rational activity, so should not all terrorists be judged insane? Counterpoint to that, as has been pointed out previously, MIND has said that one in every four Britons will suffer mental health problems in their lifetime, so can these problems really be regarded as legitimate excuses, or even explanations, for terrorist actions? We are told that Bouhlel suffered from depression, but so do tens of thousands of people who do not go out to commit mass murder.
Now, Mair and Bouhlel have one outstanding difference, and that is in their ideological beliefs, which inspired them on to carry out their atrocities. Mair, as I have said before, is a racist and a fascist, who appears to have had links to the far-right outfit, Britain First, while Bouhlel is thought to have been a radical Islamist. With Bouhlel, however, some people, including his lawyer, doubt that he was a Jihadi. As his wife's cousin, Walid Hamou, said of him:
“Bouhlel was not religious. He did not go to the mosque, he did not pray, he did not observe Ramadan. He drank alcohol, ate pork and took drugs. This is all forbidden under Islam.
‘He was not a Muslim, he was a shit. He beat his wife, my cousin, he was a nasty piece of work.”
"His latest conviction was in March, when he received a six-month suspended sentence for violence with a weapon, having used a wooden pallet against another driver during a traffic incident."
Far from Bouhlel not fitting a Jihadi terrorist profile, I believe he fits it only too well. Most of the attackers in the Paris massacres had criminal backgrounds and became radicalized very quickly. The same thing could well have happened with Bouhlel. The fact that he sent the text messages (see above), and seems to have researched the murderous route he took, points to his having some tactical and logistical support. It also shows him to have been capable of forward planning, which, again, calls into question the view that he was mentally deranged.
The link between Jihadi radicalism and crime is borne out by a local youth worker, who told the BBC:
Kamel, a youth worker in the Nice area, says one of the reasons for the recent success of the Salafist ideology that has inspired jihad, is that it provides a ready and easy way of justifying the actions of petty criminals.
"The kids are told that they are in a land of unbelievers, so when they steal and attack people it is justifiable; the petty criminal is turned into a holy warrior, and is promised status, sexual gratification and eternal life."
Bouhlel's sudden radicalization, which many doubt, is not so unlikely after all. Both Bouhlel and Mair knew what they were doing, and acted according to their beliefs and (lack of) consciences. The killing of innocent people they perceive as enemies is rational behaviour to both neo-Nazis and Jihadis. Mair goes on trial in November, and, hopefully, will be judged accordingly.
To conclude, I know that we all have felt helpless in the face of what happened in Nice last Thursday. Lives have been ruined, 84 people have died, 202 injured and many others traumatized. We tend to feel helpless - I know that I did - when such things happen, but I would like to close with a positive suggestion that I offer to all who read this post. You may wish, as I did, to send a message of support and sympathy to the French people, and here is a link to the email address of the French Embassy in London - CLICK HERE. It is better to light a candle than complain about the darkness.
"It also shows him to have been capable of forward planning, which, again, calls into question the view that he was mentally deranged." I see no logic in that assertion. Hitler was perfectly capable of forward planning, but most of us think he was mad.
ReplyDeleteMore recently, Timothy McVeigh was an American terrorist who bombed a federal building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people and injured 600+ more, in revenge against the US government for the way it dealt with the Waco siege two years earlier. To exact revenge upon people whose only connection to Waco was that they were employed by the federal government that forcibly ended the siege would in the UK be rather like blowing up a tax office in Birmingham in revenge for Blair's Iraq war – not the actions of a sane person. I'd suggest that the McVeigh case would have involved much more forward planning than the lorry driver in Nice: obtaining explosives, choosing a target, setting a bomb, detonating it and making an escape involves much more forward planning than deliberately driving a lorry into a crowd.
Your speculation that the lorry driver had been radicalised flies against every shred of evidence from people who know him. Mass killers don't necessarily have to have a distorted political or religious principle to justify mass murder. Hundreds of mass shootings every year in the USA (there were a shocking 376 last year) provide ample evidence to support that. One infamous shooting incident in the USA was explained away by the killer simply as “I don't like Mondays. This livens up the day ” - hence the song.
Forward planning is not an infallible indication of sanity, and committing mass murder does not always require a radicalised agenda.
Well, I said it was a vexed issue, and I was right. Actually, Nev, it looks as if Bouhlel was radicalized speedily. Today's Guardian carries an article that supports this: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/18/nice-attack-premeditated-mohamed-lahouaiej-bouhlel-beard-prosecutor
DeleteHis mental and marital problems, together with the social grievances of the North African community in France, would have easily sent him over the edge. The mass killings in the USA and elsewhere beg the question: are terrorists, by virtue of the fact of their ideologies, to be judged as rational, thinking people, or as people with mental health issues? I would say the former.
I'm not convinced; it all seems very sudden. Murderers often try to justify their actions either by claiming lofty motives or by blaming others. I think that, even in death, he'd prefer to be regarded as some kind of deadly idealist, rather than just a bitter and twisted nasty piece of work with a grudge against the world, which is how I see him.
ReplyDeleteThe trouble is, we'll never know now whether Bouhlel would be judged insane by experts or not. It will be interesting to see what psychiatrists make of Thomas Mair. Whether they assess him as sane or mad, he should never be released. If Bouhlel had lived, to face the same test, had he been marked down as insane, he should have been permanently incarcerated - not released, as so many murderous mental patients are here in the UK. had he been declared sane and responsible for his actions, that I would not have opposed him receiving the death penalty - which he wanted anyway. Maybe those who commit terrorist murders should never be released, whatever their mental condition. But where would that have left the peace process in Northern Ireland?
DeleteIf you are dealing with people who want to be martyred to get their ration of virgins in Paradise, the death penalty wouldn't be much of a deterrent. Better to make them rot in prison for 50 years knowing that their lives have been completely squandered entirely through their own choices. It is a worse punishment to endure the mind-numbing tedium of a lifetime without purpose.
ReplyDeleteChild torturer and murderer Ian Brady has wanted to die for years. What better punishment than making him continue to live an utterly pointless existence?