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Chickens, roosting
So 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.
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Gotta wonder about women who join ISIS. Is it kind of like the one black guy in the Republican Party?
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Based on her case and the guys who have joined, I think that people end up being converted when they're at a low point in their lives because they befriend people who are already into that stuff. In the case of women, I don't think it's so much manpain and a frustrated sense of entitlement, but maybe more personal problems that make them want to feel accepted and valued somewhere. The woman I'm talking about gave a couple of interviews, one to a newspaper from Portugal and another from the Netherlands, and in them she talks about women are "treated like queens" or something. It wouldn't surprise me if part of her reasoning had been based on hearing things like that from others and feeling like she'd be treated better (of course, I disagree with her reasoning).
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Turning aggression and frustration outward is something that specifically men are socialized to do, but there's nothing to really stop women from doing it either.
I agree but I think that how differently men and women are socialised shows even among people who join those movements. I've rarely heard of women blowing themselves up or shooting others; I've seen a few cases in the news over the years but they've been fewer than the cases of men doing that. On the other hand, most news I've seen about Western women joining them seems to be focused on how they do things like participate in message boards to post propaganda or run away and marry a guy with the same ideology. That's very different from the articles about Western men doing the same thing which are focused on how they pose with guns, threaten others, and boast about killing people.
It reminds me, in a way, of women who join far-right movements. I remember that a few years ago, there were articles making a big deal out of research pointing to a change in the way women in those movements behaved. It was something about how previously, they were relegated to being wives and mothers that their Aryan warriors could go home to or whatever, but how perceptions within those groups are changing, so that they're expected more and more to go out and beat people up like men do. This means that until relatively recently, most women who were into that stuff would have just stayed home while their boyfriends and husbands went out to beat people up or protest.
Of course, embracing an ideology that is harmful is still harmful, but I think it's interesting how even among pretty extreme groups, there's a big tendency for women to get jobs like just spreading the word and supporting men.
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I'd have mixed feelings if they started wearing boob armour. On one hand, I hate boob armour. On the other hand, boob armour is also dangerous and not at all useful, which means that if there were a war against fascism but involving armour and swords, they'd lose.
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(Unless you count Kathy Ford—whom I have never encountered. She looks like a drug addict, which she is, and most of them are.)
I'm in favour of Nazis wearing boob armour. It will make for a quick fight.
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I've met another neo-Nazi girl, and for some reason a group of friends/acquaintances I had at the time adopted her, even though it included multiple POC and we were left-wing. That was weird. She didn't have a particularly great taste in fashion, though. There's also this girl I was friends with who knew a suspicious amount about the neo-Nazi scene, but for several reasons I think it was more because of knowing neo-Nazis from the metal scene and not being one (her politics weren't particularly neo-Nazi).
I'm in favour of Nazis wearing boob armour. It will make for a quick fight.
Good point.
I now feel like there should be a story about 20th/21st century political factions going to war with each other, but with armour and swords.
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That's always bizarre. But I honestly think a lot of the younger ones are confused, attracted to the aesthetic, and haven't thought it out. We used to beat them up anyway when I was younger, just to teach them to not be Nazis, and that usually worked. The one ex-neo-Nazi I know basically had it beaten out of him and then got cool.
I now feel like there should be a story about 20th/21st century political factions going to war with each other, but with armour and swords.
This is kind of a thing I'm plotting out. It's Neoreactionaries vs. a quasi-socialist movement that grows out of Occupy, + magic. No armour and swords, but there are genre-savvy characters who would suggest them.
Oh! And also The Red Star is that for 20th century politics.
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But I think even more than that, the real difference is in attitude towards conversion. I can easily see an imam looking at one of these white boys and thinking "Well... if he's going to be an asshole, he might as well be a Muslim asshole," since Islam considers being Muslim a necessary part of an acceptable relationship with God/the world. Whereas Judaism would consider the conversion of someone thought to make a "bad Jew" (whatever that means to the community/rabbi) not just not an improvement, but a total disaster.
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