The aftermath of the beheading murder in Edmonton, North London. (Picture from Sky News)

The appalling, tragic and senseless beheading of 82 year old Palmira Silva, in broad daylight, by a man, said by local reports to be a convert to Islam with mental health problems, is an early indication of a problem that Britain may face a lot more of in the future. The problem is that of mentally ill people being attracted to the ideology of Islam, probably because of the false sense of certainty which that path gives a person. I fear that we will be seeing a lot more cases like this, where Islamic Dawa merchants who support the idea of Jihad, hook the unbalanced with selected Qu’ranic quotations and send them off to create havoc. We should never forget that an Islamic ideology which hides its fighters behind children in schools and sick people in hospitals, will have no scruples about manipulating the psychologically vulnerable into killing, maiming or destroying for Allah.

Over the years, I’ve seen many normal, sane people change religions, as is their right, and become Christians, Jews, Buddhists, neo-Pagans etc. However, those who I have encountered that have converted to Islam seem to have something really odd about them. They have either had tragic abuse-filled lives culminating in mental illness, or are so adrift from the rest of society that they cling on to any psychological or religious lifebelt that they feel will give them a sense of certainty.

During my life I’ve also encountered quite a few mentally ill people who have become obsessed with the wilder shores of religion, especially eschatology, the theology of the end of the world or the end of the universe. I’ve seen some people lose it in a pretty spectacular manner, when mental health issues and religious belief met. This included one person who kept a weapon under their bed, in case the Devil came to call and another who papered their bedroom with pages from the biblical Book of Revelation and who wrote in animal blood, the words: ‘Washed in the Blood of the Lamb’ on their door. Sometimes the mentally ill can run with the more whacko religious ideas, that the sanely religious consider to be either of lesser importance or which have been re-interpreted. My experience has taught me, that someone who quotes excessively from, for example the Book of Revelation, is probably someone who is either completely mad or experiencing some form of mental health crisis.

It is highly likely, based on Twitter and press reports, that the assailant in the Edmonton case is a mentally ill person, who has been sucked into Islam and radicalised by Jihadis. To the Jihadis, such a person would be nothing more than an expendable ‘divvy’ who could be relied upon to flip out and cause havoc.

This comment from the Daily Telegraph is very telling about the background of this assailant:

“The man was arrested after armed officers, who had distracted him to prevent further attacks, cornered him in a house and brought him down with a Taser stun gun. Some officers were injured.

Mrs Silva, who was of Italian descent, was pronounced dead at the scene.

One line of inquiry for detectives is understood to be that the man was inspired by recent footage of terrorists beheading two American journalists in Syria.

Some residents claimed last night that the suspect was a local man who had converted to Islam last year, but those claims could not be verified. Detectives said they had ruled out terrorism.”

Although the police are correct in saying that this was not an act of terrorism committed by a sane member of a terrorist group, it seems very likely that he was, at the very least, influenced in some way by the violence inherent in the ideology of Islam and by Islamic terror. Hopefully the eventual trial, and in particular the medical reports, will expose the path that this man took to get where he is today.

This may well be the first of many similar attacks by the unhinged, who have become enamoured with the absolute certainties that Islam says it can give people. Since the closure of the big mental asylums from the late 1970’s onwards, Britain has seen many people who should be protected from the hurts and vicissitudes of the world in a hospital, treated in what is laughingly called ‘care in the community’. We know that there are thousands of people out there with mental health problems, many of them are a danger only to themselves and at a stretch to members of their immediate family. What we don’t know is how many vulnerable mentally ill people are stuck in bedsits, being quietly persuaded to take part in Jihad by the Dawa merchants, who may be these people’s only human contact, outside of those in either their family or the health profession.

Maybe it is time for society to accept that when a mentally ill person converts to Islam, it may be a sign that not only is all not well with the workings of this person’s brain, but that they may be coming under dangerous influences, that could eventually have catastrophic results. Just as suicide ideation, self-loathing and feelings of hopelessness are symptoms of depression, so we should see conversion to Islam, especially by those who have existing mental health problems, as a crossed red line. It should be a trigger to instigate both treatment for the afflicted person and a police/security service investigation into this person’s social contacts. If, as is highly likely, there are Jihadists who are grooming the mentally ill for Jihad, then those jihad grooming groups really do need to be broken.

If we do not get a grip on those Jihadists who are going round converting the mentally ill or the vulnerable, then we may well see a lot more tragedies like this one. Not all religions are mad, but some, like Islam, are much madder, and less choosy about rejecting the mad convert, than others.

Link

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/11075380/Woman-beheaded-in-north-London-garden.html