Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.
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Notes -
Last night, there was a "stabbing attack" in Belfast.
The reason for the scare quotes is that video footage of the assault is circulating on social media, and "stabbing attack" must be the understatement of the decade. The attacker straddles his victim, stabs him in his eyes and then attempts to saw his entire head off with a blade. Thankfully, some brave good Samaritans intervened and tackled him before he could finish the job.
The attacker is Sudanese. The BBC is reporting that he migrated to Belfast from Dublin and was granted leave to stay in Northern Ireland. Less than twenty-four hours after the attack, politicians in Northern Ireland were already calling for "tensions not to be raised" in response, and insisting that no ethnicity or race has a monopoly on violence. Commenters in /r/ireland seem more concerned about Protestants rioting than they are about the victim of the stabbing, who will probably never be able to see again on top of his various other injuries.
The attack, the diligent but futile attempts to suppress the identity characteristics of the perpetrator, the criticisms of the people drawing entirely reasonable conclusions from the attack, the naked emotional appeals and guilt-tripping – all as tiresomely predictable as the tides. I feel like I'm in Groundhog Day.
I'm genuinely so fucking sick of this.
Damn. That’s horrific.
I’m going to, at risk of looking like said diligent but futile apologists, suggest taking the response a bit less seriously.
Think about the incentives of social media. Ingroup is allowed to do no wrong. Outgroup is not allowed to score points. Also, it’s free to say whatever shit you want, and if you get controversial-yet-brave enough, the algorithm might even reward you. Hence the Reddit hivemind.
Compare lobbying and special interest groups, which are specifically designed to spin anything and everything to their specific issue. I think it’s distasteful and against common decency, but also not particularly unique. Call it the price of free speech.
Then you’ve got the actual politicians, who in theory have skin in the game. Elected officials are incentivized to call for calm, procedural responses no matter what. The killer is in custody, the facts are out there, but Belfast still has some unburned trash cans and they’d like to keep it that way. It is rational to make milquetoast calls for public order. It is their job.
The same goes for mainstream outlets. I’m seeing articles like this which remind people, hey, burning cars is still illegal. Forming mobs is still going to get you in trouble. I think this is what I’d want from a major outlet. I would be a lot more worried if they were calling for volunteers.
I waffled on writing this because I think the crime was awful and I didn’t want to look like an apologist. Think about that dynamic. I’d like to be able to say “don’t burn buses” without also saying “this guy did nothing wrong.” I’d like to say “fuck this guy” without also saying “deport all the foreigners.” It’s hard to make that clear when the very act of calling for restraint is treated as a naked emotional appeal, a criticism of the reasonable people, an attack in the wider culture war.
Well put.
I think appeals not to set buses on fire would get a better reaction if they were accompanied by an acknowledgement somewhere, anywhere, that at least some of the protesters have grievances which are entirely legitimate. If Keir Starmer gave a public speech in which he sincerely stated "the Henry Nowak case has exposed serious, undeniable deficiencies in British policing which I'm committed to rectifying – but please don't assault police officers", I imagine quite a few protesters in Southampton would take that to heart. Likewise here.
But when the pleas for calm, collected responses are accompanied with no admissions of wrongdoing and barely concealed insinuations that the activists are far-right nutcases who've been manipulated by Elon Musk – I think it really amounts to pouring petrol on the fire. Adults do not like to be treated like naughty children.
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