Terrorist Or Not?

[-Talbot-]

This potential attack in Australia made my TV screen
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-australia-31390036

This fatal attack (executions?) in the USA didn't
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/chapel-hill-shooting-three-young-muslims-gunned-down-in-north-carolina-at-their-family-home-10037734.html



I've looked at many articles covering the second event and not one of them mentions the word 'terrorist'

[jno]

presumably because one involves a charge of a terror offence and the other doesn't (yet).

Still, a fair point that media cover events very selectively

[naomi24]

Are you asking if the lone gunman should be classed as a terrorist?

[Old_Geezer]

I guess the TV news can't show everything, and killings in the US are commonly shown so less newsworthy ?

[Old_Geezer]

Ah, having looked at the linked sites, are you implying a racist/religionist slant ? If so I don't think there is evidence of that.

[-Talbot-]

Is the OP too ambiguous?


If it was a lone Muslim who shot dead three inoccent atheists or christians etc...would we see the word 'terrorist' in the news? ( I think it's a given that we would actually see it on the news)

I think we would.

[ummmm]

I agree.

[-Talbot-]

I'm positive I deleted the last line of that post, yet it still appeared...weird..

[Peter Pedant]

Talbow I think you are lurching towards the idea that

terrorism in Oz is a social construct

[ there is no terrorism but oz society feels a need for it at present so anyone with a long beard who speaks Arabic ( or in a foreign voice ) may be a terr' ]


[ dja remember devil worshipping child abuse circles from twenty years ago in the UK. Where did they go ? Were they stamped out by determined police efforts, or did they .... never exist in the first place ? }

[Svejk]

There are dozens of shootings in the US every day. This would be the first, if it was, militant Catholic/Baptist attack. I'm afraid you'll just have to wait for more details before you can gleefully equivocate it with Islamic terrorism.

[ummmm]

Can you explain your thinking again, Peter?

[Svejk]

Remarkably short memory you have there, PP. I should see a doctor if I were you.

[-Talbot-]

I will make it simple, svejk 'If' this murderer killed these people because they were Muslim...is he a terrorist?

[Svejk]

I'll make it simple for you, big word IF.

[ummmm]

But doesn't a terrorist aim to cause terror around them? Beheading someone in the street in front of people would cause terror and panic. Going into a home and shooting 3 people, out of sight, would that cause the same amount of terror?

[Peter Pedant]

erm from the internet:

Social construct is something you might not be aware of. You are somewhat living in segregation depending on what gender, race and class you are. Race, class and gender don't really mean anything. They only have a meaning because society gives them a meaning.
What is a Social Construct? - Oakes College

For us Anglos - "class" in English society is an obvious social construct - we in society give it meaning and it means nothing to all the foreign on-lookers

[Peter Pedant]

.

er oh dear

does one young man in oz with a pubic beard who says in bad English:
"I am terroristen" and does little else
mean that Oz is infiltrated with terrorist networks EVERYWHERE ?

My own inerpretation is that Oz is filling its prisons with mad unshaven young men.

[Peter Pedant]

// I will make it simple, svejk 'If' this murderer killed these people because they were Muslim...is he a terrorist?//

Talbo - you have made a good point...

If someone says: I am terroristen - does that make him a terrorist ?

If another says ( whose name is not Carney ) I am governor of the Bank Egland, that doesnt make him the guvnor ? so why are we so exercised by the word ( or er social construct ) 'terrorist' ?

Talbow you are correct - you can tell this by the number of people telling you are talking ***.

[-Talbot-]

A person who uses terrorism in the pursuit of political aims:
a person who terrorizes or frightens others.

Wiki
There is neither an academic nor an international legal consensus regarding the definition of the term terrorism.[1][2] Various legal systems and government agencies use different definitions. Moreover, governments have been reluctant to formulate an agreed upon, legally binding definition. These difficulties arise from the fact that the term is politically and emotionally charged.


So basically contort the word any wich way but loose.

[sandyRoe]

In the aftermath of 9-11 wasn't there an innocent Sikh shopkeeper shot dead in revenge in America? Some Islamophobes will probably be thinking at least this time the gunman got the right targets.

[Peter Pedant]

Hi Sandy - ah the Irish dimension....

actually in San Francisco, we met a shop keeper from Bradford who was desperate to re-immigrate to ... Bradford. His comment was: I was held up at gun point three time last month .....