Let’s not jump to conclusions (unless we feel like it).

A lot of the mainstream media and many commentators on social networks are busily and scrupulously pointing out that it is wrong to jump to conclusions about the ‘motivation’ of the madman responsible for the carnage in Nice. According to this point of view, there is no link to be made between this latest outrage and any religious, political or cultural grouping and it is, at the very least, morally dubious to draw any conclusions from the ethnicity or religious affiliations of such a deranged individual.

Fair enough. I can see why that seems like a reasonable line to take. Just because the adherents of a certain politico-religious movement -in the cause of furthering some clearly delineated global ambitions- behave like mediaevalist savages doesn’t mean that everyone who follows a certain religion should be tarred by association.

I accept that premise, although I do struggle to understand why some folk will deny that such a link could possibly exist, even when the perpetrators of attacks make explicit claims about their motivations. To ignore or repudiate the avowed aims of these perpetrators (in effect, to deny them agency), requires quite an intellectual leap on the part of those doing the repudiating. Some might put it down to arrogance, but I’m not convinced that this is necessarily the case. I’d be more inclined to the view that it represents a conscious reaction to a sub-conscious wound; terrorism wins, not when it blows people up, but because -when it blows people up- it forces some otherwise rational minds to rebrand ‘fear’ as ‘conscience’.  

As someone who generally tries to form my opinions around rational interpretations of the available evidence, I’d agree that it’s usually unwise to jump to conclusions from a base of flimsy evidence. But over the last few weeks, I have gathered the distinct impression that jumping to conclusions has become all the rage; some of the very same people and news organisations urging caution and restraint over Nice have been doing quite the opposite over the binary choice faced by the British electorate at the recent EU referendum. 

First there was the disgraceful citation of the murderous actions of a mentally ill individual as ‘evidence’ that the Leave campaign had somehow unleashed dark and powerful forces. It was depressing to witness seemingly rational people choosing to interpret a psychotic episode in a way that satisfied their own prejudices. Since the vote, various attempts have been made to suggest, for example, that relatively minor examples of stupidity and nastiness (like someone posting anti-immigration graffiti) represent evidence of a gathering tidal wave of racist enmity in the UK. Anyone who can argue, on the one hand, that some racist idiot shouting ‘Paki go home’ (disgraceful as that undoubtedly is) is evidence of malicious intent among 15 million voters while, on the other, suggesting that the latest in a very long line of atrocities has got ‘nothing to do’ with Islam is, intellectually speaking, unlikely to pass go and unlikely to collect £200.  

It is either acceptable to jump to conclusions from little available evidence, or it is unacceptable to jump to conclusions from little available evidence. Whichever side you’re on, you can’t pick one of those options when it suits your own particular prejudices and then pick the other option when it doesn’t.

Although … now that I think about, it’s obvious that some people can do just exactly that.

Which people? 

The kind that you shouldn't take seriously.

When 'the story' isn't the story

The murderous attack on the American consulate in Benghazi has been followed by further assaults on other western embassies. It is claimed that the ‘reason’ for these so-called riots is that locals have taken offence at the content of a low-budget film produced in the US. The film, 'Innocence of Muslims' (by all accounts, a pretty amateurish production), portrays the Prophet Mohammed as a womanizer, a ruthless killer and a child molester.

Depressingly, much of the reporting of these terrible events has chosen to focus on who made the film and why they made it, as if any of that matters. Some commentators even decided to focus on how certain Western political figures interpreted the attacks.
One particularly striking headline in yahoo news ('Romney politicises embassy killings') provided a near-perfect illustration of the ‘let’s-just-put-our-blind-eye-to-the-telescope’ approach some people have taken to this story.

The truth is that ‘the story’ here isn’t about why or how a bunch of amateurs made their little film. Nor is it about how a politician who isn’t even in power reacted to the events. The story is that innocent people got murdered by an ugly mob intoxicated on a heady mix of belligerent ignorance, a childish sense of grievance and sheer political opportunism. All of this, we should not flinch from pointing out at every available opportunity, is depressingly underpinned by a myopic, literal, atavistic interpretation of a text written around 1400 years ago.

To pretend that the motives of the folk who made the film is somehow the story or that Mitt Romney’s reaction to events is somehow the story, is to collude in giving the murderers an easy ride. Instead of apportioning blame in the right places and making some rational judgements on an irrational, pre-medieval set of superstitions and values, some have chosen to retreat from responsibility and focus instead on what they perceive to be the political bad manners of the film makers and the Republican party candidate.

Let’s get this clear: Mitt Romney didn’t politicise this event; the act of attacking the American consulate was not only hugely symbolic, but explicitly political. To deny that is to patronise and belittle those who carried it out. Radical Islam has a global political vision, about which it is deadly serious. None of us really know exactly how much of a threat it carries, but it has enough of a track record to suggest that we should at least accord it the respect of taking its political acts and political intentions seriously.

Another egregious element of that headline was the clearly pejorative use of the word ‘politicise’. To use politicise as a dirty word demeans political discourse. Politics doesn’t have to be about consensus and constraint. It can be awkward, dirty and rife with conflict. By denying politics -that is, adult, frank, no-holds-barred political discourse- we willingly diminish our cultural options. Little wonder then, that today’s political landscape is as sterile as Teletubbyland, wherein each photogenic protagonist is merely a colour-coded deliverer of the latest vapid sound bite.

It is this very de-politicisation of politics that has helped smother our cultural discourse. Framed within the stiff, formal and stifling boundaries of political correctness and cultural relativism, we are reduced to interpreting events like the Benghazi attack by focusing on anything other than the naked truth.

Sadly, the US government, by asking YouTube to ‘consider’ its policy on sensitive material, now seems to believe that freedom of speech is not such a noble cause, after all. By bringing the film-maker in for questioning, the administration also appears to have adopted the same view on 'Innocence of Muslims' as the folk who burned down the consulate.
These actions alone will have confirmed to the rioters that they are on the right track. It’s hard to see how they could conclude anything other than the fact that they can, with impunity, carry out similar attacks on American and other western embassies.

But some folk still want to put that blind eye to the telescope. Some folk still want to believe that the story isn’t really 'the story'.