Our obsession with the Ottawa shooter's religion reveals more about us than about him. [View all]
Last edited Thu Oct 23, 2014, 07:04 PM - Edit history (1)
Deceased shooter had lengthy history of crimes, robbery to fraud to drunk driving and psychiatric interventions.
http://www.vox.com/2014/10/23/7043845/ottawa-shooter-muslim-religion-does-not-matter
Yesterday, the media reported that Michael Zehaf-Bibeau, the man allegedly responsible for a horrifying shooting spree in and around the Canadian parliament, was a convert to Islam. News reports on the shooting then spent much of the day fixated on that unconfirmed fact — even though there is as yet no evidence that his religion was a motivation for his actions. More sensational coverage discussed dubious social-media connections to ISIS.
These reports imply that because Zehaf-Bibeau was Muslim, jihad is the likely motivation for his attack. But at this stage, without any actual evidence, it makes no more sense to come to that conclusion than it would to assume that he was motivated by Quebecois separatism, just because he was from Quebec. At this point, our focus on the Ottawa shooter's religion says more about our own fears than it does about anything to do with Islamist terrorism.
On some level, of course, this feels like an obvious connection to make. ISIS dominates the news right now and we hear story after story of people from Western countries joining its jihadist campaign. Surely, it seems, Zehaf-Bibeau's religion must be relevant to the terrible crimes he committed yesterday?
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A man with a long and documented history of criminality, drugs and mental instability...but, hey, what religion was he? P.S. He was not on any police terrorist watch list....he was clear and irrefutably crazy man first, formost and only.
Watch the Canadian news sources, they are as honest and level headed as American sources are sensationalist and low brow.
(much more common sense and anti-fear mongering at the link)
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