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Incidents in London


HexMachina

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Absolutely shocking. I was passing through London Bridge last night at the same time. 

This has really brought it home and made it real to me. It's easy to pretend it's not happening when it's another country or town. That so many of these incidents are happening at the same time is what's so shocking, previously it just felt like lone nutters but having 3 of them makes it more organised ( in a four lions way)

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That's a reference to Four Lions, a film by Chris Morris which is very uncomfortable (and uncomfortably funny) but well worth watching. It's about four men planning a suicide attack in London and I suspect the low-key, bickering and shambolic approach to such operations is much closer to the reality than some evil mastermind in a cave in Afghanistan or a building in Raqqa pointing his finger and telling people what to do.

I was at a gig at the Olympic Park, maybe a couple of miles away. The news was breaking just as we came out. Armed police everywhere within minutes. People very calm and collected overall. One friend o' the board was working in the immediate vicinity when the incident took place, but he's fine.

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27 minutes ago, Channel4s-JonSnow said:

Yes I meant that movie which I absolutely love. I think it really manages to poke fun at the subject and those who commit these crimes whilst at the same time making some clever points about the absurdity of their actions

One review of that movie I saw (I think it was Moviebob maybe) made the excellent point that the movie works becuase presenting the terrorists as a bunch of bickering failures who don't even know that much about the religion they're supposedly sacrificing themselves for is simultaneously funny but also kind of scary. After all, an ideologically committed, criminally-hardened mastermind might be a dangerous threat but they're also pretty thin on the ground and can conceivably be sought out and fought against. Whereas almost any bored, jaded, nihilistic, not-particularly-bright young adult could conceivably become the sort of loser terrorist from four lions, and could still kill a lot of people (particularly with the new prevalence of vehicle attacks).

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London is one of my favorite cities for all sorts of reasons. As soon as possible, we are going to travel there, spend tourist money in and around London Bridge and tell as many people as possible what we think of the President of the US and his tweets. What else is better?

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On 6/4/2017 at 10:25 AM, Which Tyler said:

The quote from this guy is amazing. Seth Meyers used it for the lead-in for his Closer Look segment the other night. Awe inspiring lols.

From 30 seconds in to about 1:15

 

"If the extremists have a problem with me having a G&T with friends, and flirting, and being gay, I'm going to carry on doing it. If that's so barbaric to these people, then two fingers up to them." 

 

/Fantastic

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  • 2 weeks later...

And now this:

Quote

Several people have been injured after a van struck a crowd of pedestrians near a north London mosque in what police have called a "major incident".

One person was arrested following the collision near Finsbury Park Mosque in Seven Sisters Road.

Officers were called at 00.20 BST and remain at the scene, the Metropolitan Police said.

The Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) said a van "intentionally" ran over worshippers.

Many of the victims are believed to have just left evening prayers after breaking the Ramadan fast.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-40322960

<sigh>

Hoping for no fatalities. 

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1 hour ago, kairparavel said:

And now this:

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-london-40322960

<sigh>

Hoping for no fatalities. 

And the media attempts to erase the fact that this too is terrorism is well under way, whether by downplaying what happened, eg "a van knocked down some people" or by making it sound like the van itself had agency and ignoring the man driving it, eg "a van knocked down some people". Clearly the first piece I saw doing this managed to be an example of both.

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So do you only care about this shit in one direction? Or does hypocrisy only apply when you don't like the conclusions being drawn? The only point in my post you could draw this issue with is my use of the word "terrorism" and sure, strike that out. The media is still immediately trying to frame the story in a completely different way to when a person of colour happens to be driving the vehicle and that is my actual point, but sure try and make it about hypocrisy on the left.

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15 minutes ago, karaddin said:

So do you only care about this shit in one direction? Or does hypocrisy only apply when you don't like the conclusions being drawn? The only point in my post you could draw this issue with is my use of the word "terrorism" and sure, strike that out. The media is still immediately trying to frame the story in a completely different way to when a person of colour happens to be driving the vehicle and that is my actual point, but sure try and make it about hypocrisy on the left.

No, I think the assumption is sound. I disagree with you that the BBC article attempts to obscure the fact that this is terrorism. Even the earlier version of it stated that a Muslim organization had already decried it to be an act of clear Islamaphobia, and if you read the update that is up now, there are eyewitness accounts of the perp yelling "where are all the Muslims, I want to kill all the Muslims". 

 The point I was making was that when the same sorts of claims were made about the last incident (in the other direction, as you put it) there was a bit of an outcry. Both acts should be defined as terror.

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I wasn't referring to the BBC piece, but to several others I have seen on twitter which I consider to be more egregious examples of what I'm talking about. Looking back to my post I can see how there may have been confusion about it, although I note the BBC piece as quoted by Kair still initially ran with the language that removes the driver from the equation "a van struck a crowd of pedestrians". That is what I'm objecting to here, its the insidious game of language that downplays or emphasises acts of violence depending on who is committing them, and language used forms the ground of how things are perceived.

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http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/18/europe/urgent---london-vehicle-collision/index.html

jfc, scroll down to "historic reputation "

Quote
CNN national terror analyst Peter Bergen said the Finsbury Park neighborhood has a large Muslim population and the nearby mosque had a notorious reputation as a place where Islamist militants used to gather.
"If you were interested in targeting a group of Muslims at a mosque that was notorious, this would be the mosque you would do it at. I think it's significant that they had the reputation historically of being one of the most militant mosques in London. And that reputation may be more historical than current," he said. 
Bergen added: "Ramadan, particularly in a country like the UK, where the days are very long in June, you know you're fasting from dawn to dusk and you're breaking the fast at night. ... Night comes pretty late in London this time of year. It wouldn't be odd that you would have large numbers of people breaking their fasts and praying at this time."

this is the same "had a history with police/ extensive record" bullshit we see to try and justify police shootings in the u.s....

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The 'van hit pedestrians' line was also used initially for the London Bridge attack by most media outlets. Given that a suspect was taken alive, the press will also have to be more careful in their coverage to avoid undermining any trial.

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TBH Everything I've seen reporting on this is either considering it to be a terrorist attack, or being treated as "suspicion of being a terrorist attack". Initially they were probably waiting to assertain whether it was deliberate or an accident.

 

As for the perp. being arrested - that's typically what happens here; from all accounts the perpetrator was dragged out of his van by the pedestrians, who started giving him a slap or two until the Imam came out and took control of the situation, and they just sat on him until the police arrived.

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Yeah most of the headlines I've seen so far have absolutely labelled this a terrorist attack, there doesn't seem to be anyone really treating this differently than other attacks, which is a good thing. 

I'm sure the reporting on this will be different anyway, as for once, we now have someone in custody who will end up going to trial.

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