With the latest mass shooting in Chattanooga, corporate media followed the usual pattern of being ready and willing to label violence as “terrorism” so long as the suspect is Muslim—e.g., Time‘s report on the shooting, “How to Stop the Next Domestic Terrorist” (7/20/15)—despite questions occasionally raised about whether “terrorism” is the appropriate frame to describe attacks on military installations (e.g., Slate, 7/17/15).
Anderson Cooper recognizes that “depression” doesn’t explain mass violence—but seems to suggest that “Islamic extremism” does.
At the same time, perhaps responding to critics of the double standard in treatment of Muslim mass murder suspects, US journalists did do something with reported shooter Mohammod Abdulazeez that is often reserved for white suspects with Christian backgrounds: delving into Abdulazeez’s psychology and viewing his alleged crime through the lens of mental illness—as with the New York Times‘ report, “In Chattanooga, a Young Man on a Downward Spiral” (7/20/15).
Trying to square the terrorist narrative with the mental illness narrative, CNN‘s Anderson Cooper (7/20/15) came up with a peculiar question (as noted by Sam Husseini), asking correspondent Gary Tuchman:
Now, did the gunman’s parents acknowledge the possibility their son committed these murders in the name of Islamic extremism? I mean, they say it’s depression, but, you know, depression doesn’t lead most people to kill other people.
It’s true what Cooper says: Most depressed people, and people with mental illness in general, will never hurt anyone. But it’s just as true that religious beliefs—”extremist” or otherwise—don’t “lead most people to kill other people.”
It’s a sign of media failure to understand the criticisms made of terrorism coverage that Cooper doesn’t recognize that “Islamic extremism” is no more a satisfying explanation of why someone might become violent than “depression” is.
Jim Naureckas is the editor of FAIR.org.
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As some of our fellow citizens regularly tell us after each such massacre (but are silent now, for some reason), the problem is that there aren’t enough guns. This never would have happened if the Army would only train its people how to load, fire and clean a weapon, and assign one to each soldier for that purpose.
With only 300,000,000 firearms in the United States, no wonder we can’t protect ourselves!
It may be true that depression isn’t linked to violent tendencies, BUT the anti-depressant DRUGS (made by BigPharma, approved by the FDA and prescribed by doctors) HAVE been linked to violence and aggression. No surprise this was omitted from CNN’s piece.
@steve – au contraire. I’ve seen plenty of people claiming those deaths would’ve been prevented if the servicemembers had been armed. And that they should be armed from now on (because of course).
Religious extremism most certainly does lead to mass violence and murder. Have you forgotten the Holocaust? The Crusades? Both are instances of mass violence instigated by one group of sky-god cultists against another, with horrific results. Guns and anti-depressants play their part nowadays, but religious extremism is right up there.
@ Alex Cox – The Holocaust wasn’t really religious in nature. The Nazi belief in the inferiority of the Jews was a kind of secular eugenic prejudice. Their aim was to wipe the Jew from the gene pool, not necessarily to suppress their religious practice. This is, in fact, closer to the racist motivation of Roof than the more religiously motivated Jihadi.
Personally, I think that religion makes a convenient justification for any such authoritarian compulsion. But I also think that without religion, those determined to subjugate “others” will prove to be remarkably adept at finding other, more secular, excuses.
Janson, I suggest you read James Carroll’s Constantine’s Sword to put the Shoah in its proper perspective. Someone sent me wonderful photographs of Roman Catholic higher-ups giving the Nazi salute. There is no question in my mind that virulent anti-Semitism is rooted in a certain brand of Christian ideology, and Nazism had/has many of the hallmarks of religion.
One possible problem exists with the possible linking of antidepressant use (SSRIs, specifically) and violence. The percentage of women taking these drugs is enormous, yet women do not commit these acts. Do antidepressants and testosterone combine in some way? I doubt we’ll ever see any studies about this.
Good points.The insanity defense is political farce. There is no objective means to diagnose insanity.
@ Dogtowner – Thank you, I own and have read Constantine’s Sword. I won’t bother pointing out instances of antagonism between the Nazi regime and Christianity at the time, not just because of the truth of the too-often capitulation of the latter, but because it misses my overall point. History has a number of examples of oppression and atrocity being committed for reasons not based on religion. Religion is an instrument, used for oppression, occasionally for liberation. But an instrument is not a cause. If we want to identify the cause of oppression and our capacity for atrocity, that would require delving into darker depths of human nature and motivation.