A couple of days ago on the 11th January 2017, a man, presumed to be Muslim, walks into a supermarket in Spain and goes on a shooting spree whilst dressed in what witnesses described as a ‘suicide belt’. Predictably this assumed Islamic savage shouted ‘Allah hu Akbar’ the Islamic war cry whilst carrying out his attack. Equally predictably was the behaviour of the Spanish police and government authorities who very swiftly made a statement to say that this was not terrorism, but ‘mental illness’.
Thankfully this attack led to no casualties among the staff or shoppers in the supermarket and the savage with the gun was detained by the police. The authorities said that the assault was carried out by a man who lived next door to the supermarket and who had ‘psychological issues’. This statement may well be correct and the guy may indeed have some mental health problems, but the public have been fed the ‘mental health’ excuse so many times following apparent Islamic attacks that ‘mental health’ as a catch-all excuse is now wearing pretty thin.
It’s got to the stage now that when attacks like these happen and the authorities say ‘it’s because of mental illness’ the public say to themselves ‘pull the other one it’s got bells on’. ‘Mental health’ is becoming an untenable excuse for incidents of apparent Islamic savagery, because a growing number of people just don’t seem to be believing it any more.
There have been a number of incidents where ‘mental health’ has been used as an explanation for what are plainly Islam-related attacks. These range from the beheading of an elderly woman in Edmonton North London, through to this latest incident. In each case the authorities have swiftly reached for the mental illness excuse.
Unfortunately the authorities have used this excuse so often and so inappropriately that it has engendered a feeling of cynicism among the members of the public who hear it. We know that most mentally ill people don’t run into supermarkets with a gun shouting ‘allah hu akbar’ and attacking people or beheading them. We who have had contact with mentally ill people in our lives know that in the vast majority of cases such individuals are of more danger to themselves than to others. Most of the genuinely mentally ill people I’ve encountered have had suicide attempts, major self harm problems or have self medicated themselves into a stupor with drink and street drugs. They live in a state of enormous mental pain that nothing seems to ameliorate. What they don’t do is shout out the Islamic war cry and kill or attempt to kill people. Only the followers of Islam or those influenced by Islamic ideology do this.
The use of the phrase ‘mental illness’ to describe attacks that have all the hallmarks of an Islamic attack, apart from often being dishonest, begs the question: If Islam was classed as a mental illness then surely it would be one of the most deadly and lethal in the world? After all if a ‘normal’ mentally ill person suddenly becomes violent after learning about or being exposed to Islam, as in the Edmonton case, then Islam is an aggravating factor in mental health just as alcohol or some street drugs are? Maybe it’s a case of you don’t have to be mad to get involved with Islam, but it helps.
I can certainly see how some mentally ill people can be attracted to Islam if only for the apparent certainty it gives them. Islam is a belief system where no thought or consideration or judgement is required, you just have to obey. I can well imagine how someone with catastrophic mental illness and in considerable psychological pain and unable to cope with society that involves a multitude of daily choices by the individual, may cleave to an ideology that requires no choices. Those for whom their very own mind is tormenting them with voices, accusations and terror may long to throw away all that is giving them pain even if it is their own sense of ‘self’ that is giving them pain.
But, just because there may be a mental health aspect of a particular Islamic attack should not mean that we as free societies ignore any Islamic aspect to attacks where there is a mental health element. We can’t just file these sort of attacks under ‘mental illness’ and not look beyond this. To do so would be both futile and dangerous. This is because Islam when taken as a guide to life makes people violent, sometimes randomly violent. If people have a suppressed tendency to violence then the certainty that Islam gives the person and the permission it gives to the individual to commit acts of violence needs to be taken into account.
Stating that ‘mental health’ is the sole reason behind attacks like the one in Spain is really not good enough. Even if there is a mental health aspect to the attacks there is often to a greater or lesser degree an Islamic aspect to them as well and shouting ‘allah hu akbar’ and wearing a home made suicide vest certainly screams ‘Islam’ to many people. Using the mental health excuse dishonestly encourages a sense of cynicism among the public especially when reports start to circulate that contradict the State’s narrative of ‘mental illness’ and that is something that is no good for the health of our societies in the long run.
It’s time that our government’s stopped saying ‘it’s just a random madman’ after these attacks and instead told us the truth, which is these madmen are not ‘random’ at all, but are followers of an ideology that has been at war with civilisation since the 7th century. The continual dishonesty about the true reason behind the majority of the attacks where there is an Islamic aspect to them will not, as the State may hope, calm things down or reduce panic, but is merely causing the average citizen to despise these lies and the liars who tell them. These sort of attacks cannot completely be blamed on one particular individual being unhinged because they are too often linked by a common factor and that factor is Islam. The quicker that free societies recognise the threat that comes from Islam and stop with the rubbish excuses such ‘mental health’ the better. We have an enemy and it’s not a chemical imbalance in the brains of those who carry out these attacks, it’s a rapacious and violent ideology called Islam and for our own survival we all need to recognise that fact.
Link
Coverage of the Spanish attack
