Chickens, roosting
Oct. 22nd, 2014 05:53 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sabotabbySo there was a shooting in Ottawa today. Ottawa isn't very far from me. I have a lot of friends there; my first instinct was to check Facebook and make sure that everyone I knew was okay. (Seems like.) I think that's a natural urge, to care more about violence that happens in your own backyard—relatively speaking—than on the other side of the world. It's not tribal; friends of mine were on lockdown. It's scarier than distant events happening to strangers.
This follows on the heels of a man mowing down two Canadian soldiers in his car, killing one. I suppose that was the first act of terrorism on Canadian soil resulting in fatalities since the 80s, and this latest killing and shootout the second. You know, if you don't count the murders of sex workers and indigenous women, the routine shootings of people of colour and the mentally ill by police, and the systemic poisoning of native land, etc. There are varying definitions of terrorism, after all. Martin Couture-Rouleau was a white man with a French-Canadian name, so the media is not sure whether to call him a terrorist or not. For now he's simply "radicalized." One of us, led astray by the lure of the internet and the mullahs. Robert Pickton, who murdered at least 26 women that we know of, is never referred to as a terrorist, because systemic racism and misogyny is not political.
Now we are "under attack" by "homegrown terrorists" and "ISIS sleeper cells," so the country must revert to jingoist-mode, or else. No doubt Harper will use this to his advantage, both in promoting his ill-advised kicking of the hornets' nest that is Iraq and Syria (the definition of insanity being repeating the same mistake and expecting different results), in shoring up election support next year, and in churning the swamp of hatred and Islamophobia that spawns the likes of his core of supporters. The war has come home, at last, and our Dear Leaders rub their hands together expectantly. When the drums of war start pounding, the profits are soon to follow.
Let me tell you something about these ISIS sleeper cells. I know a little about them, without ever having met anyone who belonged to one, on account of what I do for a living. I can tell you that they're exactly the kind of people who lurk on Reddit and send rape threats to Anita Sarkeesian. It has nothing to do with politics per se; it has everything to do with frustrated juvenile masculinity. Why do you think so many of them turn out to be white converts to the most radical form of Islam they can find, one which practically doesn't exist as an organized thing? They are the same boys who, in other circumstances, open fire on schools. Girls with those frustrations slit their own wrists; boys take others with them in a hail of gunfire. That's the face of the enemy—not Islam, not the Middle East, but troglodyte junior misogynists searching for meaning. I'd bet you anything when the details of the shooters' lives emerge, somewhere in the story will be an overly entitled cockwomble who couldn't get a date.
And so I am angry, very angry, and scared, but not for the reasons I'm being told to be. It's never going to affect me personally; when they knock down doors, they'll knock on mine pretty late in the game. I'm scared for friends, I'm scared for the broader community, which includes Muslims who'll be targeted for racial profiling for no good reason. I'm angry at Harper for painting bulls-eyes on our cities because he wants to gain points in the election. I'm scared for the path that this violence has blown for crackdowns on our liberty and civil rights. I have no reason to be afraid of a terrorist's bomb, but I have reason to be afraid that one of my kids will get shot down in the street for wearing a hoodie or carrying a cell phone. I'm scared, and furious, that the resources that could make this country worth living in will now be redirected to depriving other people's children of lives and limbs.
There's a war on, but it's a very different one than we're being told about.
ETA: Looks like another white guy who converted to Islam and spent too much time on armchair jihadi sites, colour me surprised.
This follows on the heels of a man mowing down two Canadian soldiers in his car, killing one. I suppose that was the first act of terrorism on Canadian soil resulting in fatalities since the 80s, and this latest killing and shootout the second. You know, if you don't count the murders of sex workers and indigenous women, the routine shootings of people of colour and the mentally ill by police, and the systemic poisoning of native land, etc. There are varying definitions of terrorism, after all. Martin Couture-Rouleau was a white man with a French-Canadian name, so the media is not sure whether to call him a terrorist or not. For now he's simply "radicalized." One of us, led astray by the lure of the internet and the mullahs. Robert Pickton, who murdered at least 26 women that we know of, is never referred to as a terrorist, because systemic racism and misogyny is not political.
Now we are "under attack" by "homegrown terrorists" and "ISIS sleeper cells," so the country must revert to jingoist-mode, or else. No doubt Harper will use this to his advantage, both in promoting his ill-advised kicking of the hornets' nest that is Iraq and Syria (the definition of insanity being repeating the same mistake and expecting different results), in shoring up election support next year, and in churning the swamp of hatred and Islamophobia that spawns the likes of his core of supporters. The war has come home, at last, and our Dear Leaders rub their hands together expectantly. When the drums of war start pounding, the profits are soon to follow.
Let me tell you something about these ISIS sleeper cells. I know a little about them, without ever having met anyone who belonged to one, on account of what I do for a living. I can tell you that they're exactly the kind of people who lurk on Reddit and send rape threats to Anita Sarkeesian. It has nothing to do with politics per se; it has everything to do with frustrated juvenile masculinity. Why do you think so many of them turn out to be white converts to the most radical form of Islam they can find, one which practically doesn't exist as an organized thing? They are the same boys who, in other circumstances, open fire on schools. Girls with those frustrations slit their own wrists; boys take others with them in a hail of gunfire. That's the face of the enemy—not Islam, not the Middle East, but troglodyte junior misogynists searching for meaning. I'd bet you anything when the details of the shooters' lives emerge, somewhere in the story will be an overly entitled cockwomble who couldn't get a date.
And so I am angry, very angry, and scared, but not for the reasons I'm being told to be. It's never going to affect me personally; when they knock down doors, they'll knock on mine pretty late in the game. I'm scared for friends, I'm scared for the broader community, which includes Muslims who'll be targeted for racial profiling for no good reason. I'm angry at Harper for painting bulls-eyes on our cities because he wants to gain points in the election. I'm scared for the path that this violence has blown for crackdowns on our liberty and civil rights. I have no reason to be afraid of a terrorist's bomb, but I have reason to be afraid that one of my kids will get shot down in the street for wearing a hoodie or carrying a cell phone. I'm scared, and furious, that the resources that could make this country worth living in will now be redirected to depriving other people's children of lives and limbs.
There's a war on, but it's a very different one than we're being told about.
ETA: Looks like another white guy who converted to Islam and spent too much time on armchair jihadi sites, colour me surprised.
