Can someone help me with this. When a man with mental health issues threatened people in a jewish area of London, it was called terrorism. This incident is… an “incident”.
Who do you want to declare it’s terrorism and how soon after the event?
The article says anti- terrorism police are involved in the investigation but I suspect the police will be saying as little as they can until they have all the facts. It’s only fairly recently they have started saying anything because of how quickly rumours about incidents spread on social media.
I’d like the usual knee-jerk declarations of “TERRORISM” by the usual lot immediatley - without any proper scrutiny and with prejudice.
Who’s the usual lot? The BBC usually sticks to reporting the facts which will be how the police designate it. You’ll notice they don’t say terrorism for the Golders Green knife attack but just report what the suspect is charged with, even though the police declared it a potential terrorist incident at the time.
Two-tier reporting going on with headline-grabbing stuff like this:
The Golders Green terrorist was stopped by heroic members of the public who trapped him with a car before helping police detain him.
The suspect in the Golders Green terror attack has been named as Essa Sulieman, a Somali-born British man
And
The site of the terrorist incident is just a seven-minute walk from where four ambulances owned by a Jewish volunteer-led medical association were firebombed
But I applaud your reticence in using the “terrorist” moniker and calling him a “topless man” instead… because he is white and clearly not a danger to other white people. I forgot “terrorists” are only brown and black people. Apologies.
Well the mail and telegraph are shitty papers, I was confused because the article linked was a BBC one and their reporting at least tries to stick to impartial reporting guidelines.
Quoting two terrible news sources doesn’t help. The DM particularly is hellish, stirring bigotry throughout.
Pretty much all the news outlets I read and listened to said the same thing. There’s no exceptionalism happening. Black and brown men who are possibly - but might not be - followers of Islam are immediately branded as terrorists (even if the “terrorist” has a history of mental illness). White racists engaged in similar attacks (including attempted beheadings, rape, firebombings, knocking down muslim women with cars) don’t receive the same labelling. We saw in Southampton that, instead, the media wants is to understand white “patriots’ grievances”. It DOES help drawing attention to the two-tier journalism we have operating.
Worth also reminding about the so-called “terrorism” of the potestors in the Filton trial. Or the elderly people and priests arrested and soon to be prosecuted for holding up a sign saying they support Palestine Action and will end up with a conviction as terrorists. We DO need to draw attention to the two-tier nature of all this.
The UK is not safe, roving bands of alt-right patrol the streets and attack people, burning homes.
In the real world, they don’t at all in the overwhelming majority of places.
Was it Begbie?
He reminds me of a guy who used to roam the streets of Seattle back in the 90s, locally known as Conan. But IIRC he was usually barefoot, and at least some of the time he had a sword strapped across his back.
