Much of the blogo- and twitter-sphere seems to be split between those who absolutely refuse to see any link between the murder of Lee Rigby and Islam, and those who are equally adamant that UK foreign policy cannot possibly be behind this violence. When I saw this tweet from Seumas Milne it struck me that it was remarkably similar to the kind of thing Tommy Robinson might say. I can even imagine the very same pairing – ‘political class & most media’ – being blamed for refusing to cover Islam4UK or grooming gangs.
Many commenters have invoked foreign policy when discussing Woolwich. Some can’t wait five seconds before raising the topic – others slip it in quickly towards the end. I don’t think many of these commenters would be too thrilled by someone who argued that, although what Breivik did was barbaric, the external factors causing his crime do need to be addressed to ensure something similar doesn’t happen again. Of course disagreement with the UK’s foreign policy and anxieties about religious extremism are both entirely legitimate topics for discussion – but not when used to just hint at some kind of justification for murder, even if that truly is not the intention. Here’s Norman Geras on this topic:
Nothing is wrong with genuine efforts at understanding; on these we all depend. But the genuine article is one thing, and root-causes advocacy that seeks to dissipate responsibility for atrocity, mass murder, crime against humanity, especially in the immediate aftermath of their occurrence, is something else.
Note, first, the selectivity in the general way root-causes arguments function. Purporting to be about causal explanation rather than excuse-making, they are invariably deployed on behalf of movements, actions, etc., for which the proponent wants to engage our sympathy or indulgence, and in order to direct blame towards some party for whom he or she has no sympathy.
Tommy Robinson oddly brought the two kinds of violence together here with his incongruous reference to an EDL suicide bomber:
“I think it’s disgusting, and my thoughts and prayers are with all the victims. We don’t want English lads blowing themselves up on our soil, but that will happen if they don’t give us a platform.”
There is another possible reason why too much focus on these ‘root causes’ – religious extremism and foreign policy – is of limited use. Both kinds of extremist might well find other reasons to turn to violence even if these ‘root causes’ were no more. For some Muslims hostility to the West may be exacerbated by foreign policy, but is by no means dependent on it. And although some counterjihad/far right types may be genuinely exercised by extremism, many others would have supported the NF a few decades ago.
