1) The sheer racism involved in immediately speculating on the religion of the shooter. Back in May, an Army Sgt. stationed in Iraq and suffering from PTSD shot and killed five of his fellow soldiers. That man's name - John Russell - was Anglo Saxon. Nobody speculated on the role of his religion in the killing. In this instance, as an article in the New York Times makes clear, Hasan, who joined the military out of patriotism, faced harassment for being Muslim and wanted out, even pursuing a failed legal route to early discharge. As a psychiatrist, he had counseled many returning vets who suffered PTSD. The combination of these two things apparently made him "mortified" at the prospect of being sent to Iraq or Afghanistan.
2) This racism also provides a cover for the fact that men and women trained to kill and who experience the brutality of enforcing occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq, suffer from mental breakdowns, suicides and commit murders at far higher rates than the general population. A 2007 CBS News investigation into military suicides found:
"Veterans aged 20 through 24, those who have served during the war on terror... had the highest suicide rate among all veterans, estimated between two and four times higher than civilians the same age. (The suicide rate for non-veterans is 8.3 per 100,000, while the rate for veterans was found to be between 22.9 and 31.9 per 100,000.)"And according to an article in the Washington Post, based in part upon an investigation by the Colorado Springs Newspaper, the rate of homicides amongst veterans from the Fourth Infantry Division's Fourth Brigade were 114 times higher than the rate amongst the general population in Colorado Springs, where they are stationed stateside.
"During their deployment, some soldiers killed civilians at random -- in some cases at point-blank range -- used banned stun guns on captives, pushed people off bridges, loaded weapons with illegal hollow-point bullets, abused drugs and occasionally mutilated the bodies of Iraqis, according to accounts the Gazette attributed to soldiers who said they witnessed the events."Another study by the New York Times found that at least 120 people had been killed by returning vets. However, the Times itself assumes that this is a conservative number since it was reached only by looking at newspaper reports and it only includes active-duty soldiers and new veterans. The CBS survey used government statistics.
3) The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan have led to the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of innocents and the destruction of infrastructure and social networks that will take generations to repair. The media and government are utter, utter hypocrites to condemn these murders while taking no note - or reporting as simply normal operation procedure - the families slaughtered wholesale by US drones that fire missiles at wedding and funeral parties, into Pakistani villages. In Afghanistan alone there have been an estimated 8,400 - 28,000 direct and indirect civilian deaths caused by ISAF and US forces.
4) Mass murder has become as American as apple pie with dozens killed in spree murders this year alone. What is it about American society that brings about such a large number of these types of violent acts? The roots have to be found in the fact that America is the world's biggest, most violent empire, whose means of domination and largest single budget outlay goes towards the military. This year alone the military will take up to $700 billion directly with more indirectly through military aid to countries such as Israel and Colombia. This is a country jacked on violence. America, as the wealthiest nation on earth, also had the third highest levels of inequality and poverty in a study by the OECD released in 2008. The only two countries above the US were Turkey and Mexico. The combination of poverty and glorified violence, in the shadow of historically unprecedented levels of wealth creation is key to understanding the prevalence of violence in America.
There is a danger that in the days following the Fort Hood shootings, the right and the media will whip up terrible racism. Arguing wherever possible the real reasons for this terrible act will be an important part of the ideological struggle to maintain the momentum of opposition to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. We mustn't allow the truth to drown in a sea of racist filth.
8 comments :
An excellent post, which unfortunately, will not be considered by those who are hell bent on ignoring the facts.
Yes - the torrent of racist insanity will be stoked by the media, for certain. But perhaps, like in Spain several years ago after the bombings of a train, enough of the population will by now have understood the effects of these wars that it will shift the debate.
One can always hope...
Indeed very good analysis. Totally agree with you.
I saw the clip from HuffPo where Fox News interviews the suspect's cousin. Suspect was born and raised in the USA, is 100% American, and entered the Forces right after high school.
I was happily surprised that Fox News let that information go out that soon.
Maybe there is hope.
You raise some good points, but you're certainly overstating the inappropriateness of references to Hasan's religion. Within initial reports of such an awful incident, information is scattered and incomplete, so the media often will inflate the significance of something simply by reporting it, given a lack of other details. Of course, this can reflect racism or a variety of other biases. But it doesn't seem inappropriate to report, as they did, that Hasan shouted "Allahu Akbar" as he opened fire on other people. If he had said "Praise Buddha," that would have been a significant clue to follow for his motivation and state of mind as well.
There's no doubt that racism enters into much reporting, and that a dangerously apocalyptic perspective frequently prevails in reporting about the current wars and attacks by individuals and groups. But it would be foolish and irresponsible to overlook the role of religion belief in many conflicts and acts of violence. That's not racist, that's pertinent information to bring understanding. This is not to say that the media fully and appropriately take on the difficult, complicated nature of motivations within extreme and intolerable acts; all too often, they take deplorable shortcuts across analysis to conclusions that are, much of the time, racist and/or anti-Muslim.
It is a fact that religion is involved in the motivations of many killings, and that many prominent killings at least over the last decade have been by people who are explicitly identifying themselves as Muslims and declaring their murders to be related to Islam. They are of course wrong; they represent an extreme, horribly misguided interpretation of Islam that should never be taken as a reflection on the vast majority of Muslims who have faith in a religion that embraces peace. However, this is where we are... Extreme religious beliefs are indeed wrapped up in sociopathic, homicidal beliefs. To deny this is to further marginalize the extremists and prevent a discourse that could open avenues other than violence.
Is Hasan one of these people who have entangled theology with sociopathy in a way that lead to sickening violence? I don't know, the media doesn't know, but it's not an inappropriate question of a mass murder that was preceded by an explicitly religious shout, at a time when explicitly religious motivations are behind many similar acts.
Nidal Hasan's shout of "Allahu Akbar" makes reports of his sickening murderous rampage necessarily and reasonably different from that of John Russell.
Of course, this doesn't justify the racist or anti-Muslim attitudes that "online newspaper comments boxes" show. Racists and idiots have internet connections too. And it doesn't justify similar attitudes within news reports either. But it's a meaningful detail and one that reasonable people can also consider as a way into understanding such terrible events and the effects of the marginalization that so often help produce them.
I disagree. We don't know if Russell prayed or if McVeigh was wearing a crucifix when he blew up the Alfred P. Murrah Building. The point is that the immediate examination and exploration of Hasan's religion is a means by which the media both demonizes and dehumanizes Hasan - allowing us to forget the close contact he had with soldiers suffering PTSD and addiction problems related to their time in combat. It allows the US government - the world's biggest killer, done in the name of "democracy" and "Freedom" - to escape scrutiny. And it makes this event seem like a freak event, rather than, frankly, another mass murder in a country of mass murders. In fact, the town where Fort Hood is located, Killeen, had another mass murder in 1991 where 23 people were killed.
And Killeen is just down the road from Waco, Texas where (largely Christian) ATF troops killed 82 members of the Branch Davidians.
I agree with your last comment Redbedhead, what the guy shout before shooting (if he did) has been amplified as if there's less responsibilities on the system around him. Also this tragic incident in Florida, that happened the day after Fort Hood, would have taken other dimensions if he had been a Muslim http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/11/08/2736383.htm?section=justin
Yes, Muslims come in for special examination because there are assumptions about them and their religion that are not applied to the rest of the world's population (at least until we decide that they're our enemy). It's called racism.
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