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Nothing more spectacular about him

Nothing more spectacular about him published on No Comments on Nothing more spectacular about him

The BBC has a profile on Omar El-Hussein, the man who carried out Saturday’s killings in Copenhagen. He apparently was assisted by two other men, who have since been taken in police custody. They were charged with providing El-Hussein with weapons and helping him escape after the attacks.

We know El-Hussein was not an immigrant– he was a native Dane. He first attacked a gathering of people discussing free speech and blasphemy, and then a synagogue, in what looks like a clear attempt to emulate the Charlie Hebdo masscre in Paris in January (Charlie Hebdo offices in that case and then kosher market). Lars Vilks told the AP that he believed the Charlie Hebdo attacks “inspired” the shootings in Copenhagen.

According to the BBC, El-Hussein had in fact just been out of prison for two weeks before Saturday’s attacks. He sounds like a rabble-rouser and anti-Semite:

El-Hussein told psychologists he had a happy childhood and a good relationship with his parents and younger brother, according to a report obtained by Danish broadcaster TV2, but he failed to graduate from school or win a place at university. Classmates who spoke to the Ekstra Bladet newspaper (in Danish) remembered a loner with a hot temper who loved to discuss Islam and the Israel-Palestine conflict. He was not afraid to voice a hatred of Jews, said one. As a young man he was a criminal rather than a radical – reportedly arrested twice for possession of cannabis but let off with a warning. He took up kickboxing and began to smoke cannabis heavily. He was arrested once in a Copenhagen nightclub with a knife, and another time with brass knuckles – earning him a night in custody, according to Ekstra Bladet. But things took a much more serious turn in November 2013 when El-Hussein stabbed a 19-year-old man on a subway train. He evaded capture but was arrested by chance two months later in connection with a burglary, the Politiken newspaper reported (in Danish). He escaped an attempted murder charge, convicted instead of grievous bodily harm and sentenced to two years in prison. 

I’m sure the response by many Americans to this would be that El-Hussein just didn’t sit in prison for long enough, but short prison sentences (compared to in America, that is) are normal in Denmark, and it has worked out pretty well for the country so far.

Rather, some people are arguing that the problem– at least, I hasten to say, concerning last weekend’s killings– may have been that he went to prison at all:

Prison guards in Denmark fear Hussein, 22, was the latest case of prison radicalization — in which criminals become devotees of militant Islam. Union leader Kim Østerbye said that Hussein had been housed in Copenhagen’s Vestre Fængsel alongside extremists including convicted terrorist Said Mansor, who had previously tried to radicalize other inmates. He said many young Muslim inmates at the facility were openly anti-Semitic and cheered in happiness at news of the massacre at the Charlie Hebdo magazine in Paris in January. He said they often chanted and called for the execution of cartoonists who depict the Prophet Muhammad. The prison service would not comment on the claims when contacted by NBC News. A reporter who covered Hussein’s assault trial told NBC News that the young man had seemed liked “just a hardened criminal” rather than an Islamist extremist before going to prison. “Omar, at the trial, didn’t seem religious at all. Almost the opposite,” Jesper Braarud Larsen said earlier this week. “He just seemed like a callous, hardened criminal … nothing more spectacular about him.”

Interesting phrasing there, when “religious” in this case means “interprets his Muslim faith to justify murdering Jews and blasphemers.” That isn’t the opposite of being a callous, hardened criminal at all, is it? That’s being a callous, hardened criminal whose choices of worthy targets of crime have shifted to focus on perceived enemies of religion.

Or maybe it wasn’t that much of a shift? The passion for Islam was already there. The anti-Semitism was already there. I can’t seem to find any further details about the identify of the 19 year old man El-Hussein was imprisoned for stabbing, but if he had also been a blasphemer or Jewish (or both) it wouldn’t exactly be incongruous with either El-Hussein’s previous character or his post-imprisonment terrorism.

It’s tempting to say that Larsen, the reporter, was valorizing religion– claiming that religious people are somehow by definition not criminals– but I think it’s more likely he meant that they are not petty criminals. That “spectacular” Islamist extremists are a fundamentally different sort of person than thuggish pot smokers who carry brass knuckles to clubs.

I’m afraid– really, this thought frightens me– that they’re not. That’s the banality of evil for you.

Brief summary and context of yesterday’s violence in Copenhagen

Brief summary and context of yesterday’s violence in Copenhagen published on No Comments on Brief summary and context of yesterday’s violence in Copenhagen

Yesterday a symposium to discuss blasphemy and the meaning of free speech was held at a cafe in Copenhagen called Krudttønden.

In attendance at this meeting was Lars Vilks, a 68 year old Swedish man upon whose head the Islamic State placed a $100,000 bounty for his 2007 depictions of Islamic prophet Muhammad as a “roundabout dog” (As a dog, basically. An Invasion of the Body Snatchers-reminiscent creature standing on four legs with a human head, bearded, wearing a keffiyeh).

According to the BBC,

A description of the event asked whether artists could “dare” to be blasphemous in the wake of attacks by Islamist gunmen in Paris last month against satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo. In an indication of the threat faced by the cartoonist, a note was included on the website saying there was always “strict security” whenever he spoke in public.

Inna Shevchenko of the Ukrainian feminist group FEMEN was reportedly speaking when the shots were fired. She said later:

I was talking about freedom of speech. I said that sometimes one has the illusion of being able to take advantage of this freedom, but it is an illusion and it is at this moment that we heard a burst of gunfire. 

 According to Jenny Wenhammer, who was in attendance [roughly translated]:

Gunfire when Lars Vilks Committee today held an international meeting in Copenhagen on “Art, blasphemy and freedom of expression”. During the Femen International’s leader Inna Shevchenko’s speech for two hours, then were fired 20-40 shot outside the doors and all started running. The French ambassador was also there to discuss Islam. Vilks was able to escape into a cold room, and Inna fled with others out through the back door.

The French ambassador, Francois Zimeray, tweeted during the attack that he was “still alive in the room.” One attendee, however, was not. The shooter reportedly fled the area in a black Volkswagon Polo while pursued by police, leaving behind one murdered civilian, Finn Norgaard, and three wounded police officers.

The shooter, identified later as 22-year-old native Dane Omar Abdel Hamid el-Hussein, wasn’t finished.

A few hours later and some miles south in Copenhagen there was another murder outside the Krystalgade Synagogue, of a 37-year-old man called Dan Uzan who was a member of the local Jewish community and was guarding the synagogue while a bat mitzvah was going on inside. Two additional police officers were shot and wounded in their arms and legs.

Copenhagen police reportedly killed el-Hussein last night after he opened fire on them in the Norrebro district. The officers had been staking out the address they had identified as his, and when he returned home he pulled a gun and fired on them. They returned fire and shot him dead.

Danish Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt did not hesitate to call el-Hussein’s acts terrorism, saying

We will defend our democracy. When the Jewish community is attacked, the whole of Denmark is attacked. The Jewish community does not stand alone. We don’t know the motive for the attacks but we know that there are forces that want to harm Denmark, that want to crush our freedom of expression, our belief in liberty. We are not facing a fight between Islam and the West, it is not a fight between Muslims and non-Muslims.

My friend and former colleague Anders Lisdorf, who lives and works in Copenhagen, had this to say:

Our company office is 100 meters away from where the “terrorist” apparently used to live and was shot. I have lived and worked in the area for 10 years. I like the neighbourhood a lot, so first of all I can tell you that most people are not terrorists, but in general very nice and decent people, so I am not afraid to go there tomorrow. I can also tell you that you cannot walk in peace with a jewish Kippa there, because you will be harassed by certain Muslim residents and violently so. The Mosques in the area have been known to preach a less than tolerant agenda. It is a poor neighbourhood with the typical problems of such a neighbourhood. The attacker was also involved in gangs and illegal gun possession. These problems are everywhere. In Norway it was a fundamentalist nationalist who was the terrorist (Breivik). The real issue is not the west versus Islam, I agree, but to protect tolerance and fight racism. We have to take issue with racists no matter whether they are Western Nationalists, Christian, Jewish or Muslim.

Atheism and (not) being a dick: a belated rant with copious footnotes

Atheism and (not) being a dick: a belated rant with copious footnotes published on 2 Comments on Atheism and (not) being a dick: a belated rant with copious footnotes

The “What would convince you that there is a god/supernatural/really weird thing out there?” argument continues. I didn’t read the whole thread.  I’m feeling fatigued on the subject, honestly.  It’s easy to demonstrate the existence of weird things (even really weird ones), rather more difficult to prove the supernatural (depending on how you define it), and impossible, so far as I’m concerned, to prove the existence of a god.  There.

A few months ago the discussion was raging over what it means for a skeptic to be a dick, after “Bad Astronomer” Phil Plait gave a talk entitled “Don’t Be a Dick” at The Amazing Meeting (TAM) in Las Vegas.  You can read Daniel Loxton’s* summary of the situation on Skeptiblog here.  He and P.Z. Myers had quite a lot of back-and-forth during that time, both on Skepticblog and on Twitter,** which was definitely interesting to read.  But it was disenchanting as well, because it’s always disenchanting to see (or be one of) people who are part of a group defined as much by the perception of outsiders as by those of insiders disagree dramatically about what that group represents, and how much they should care.  I’m trying to describe this without portraying it as if there are only two sides, because there never are.  There are not simply a) those people who tell it like it is, vs. b) those people who accommodate.  There are also people who think they are “just telling it like it is” but are actually dicks, and people who are perceived as accommodating but are actually just telling it like it is according to them rather than those accusing them of accommodation.  And, of course, other people in between those groups.  If you’ve taken part in any ideological group’s discussion concerning “strategy,” “message,” or “framing,” you probably know what I’m talking about…especially if there were scientists involved in the discussion, as scientists are notorious for not giving a damn about how their revelations are perceived.  That’s not their job– they do the work and report the results.  How you think about the results is your problem.

I’m sympathetic to that position, but it’s also terribly naive when it comes to communicating to the public.  People, including scientists, are susceptible to scores of biases and information filters they’ve never even heard of.  Studying these biases and filters is fascinating and I’ll never tire of it, but thinking that it will somehow cure you of having them yourself is a little like thinking that if Data from Star Trek: TNG learned enough about emotions, he could somehow acquire them.***  Your nature won’t allow that to happen– the best that will happen is that occasionally you will be able to catch yourself exercising a bias and make some effort to correct it, or feel the discomfort of cognitive dissonance at times when it would otherwise have passed you by and allowed you to comfortably maintain mutually exclusive views in peace.  People react differently to the same information depending on the source, language, time of day or year, and so on.  Context matters.  If you have a specific message you want to get across, paying attention to the context in which you express it is essential, and it doesn’t require dishonesty either to yourself or to your audience despite what is claimed by those who refuse to pay such attention. 

Sometimes, by contrast, being a dick involves dishonesty.  Or at least, it involves misrepresenting the truth when you really should know better, such as saying that people are religious or have different political beliefs than you because they are idiots.  Gah.  People who actually do think that don’t need a lesson on framing or strategy; they just need to look around once in a while.  Francis Collins is religious, Ken Miller is religious, Justin Barrett is religious….these people are not morons.  Every member of my immediate family, which includes four people with the title “Dr.”, are religious.  They are not morons.  Nor are they insane, or evil, or any of those facile explanations so often used by a different kind of “new atheist.”****  Such is the language of people who are eager to embrace an “us vs. them” mentality and have no interest in promoting understanding– having an opponent, and feeling like you’ve trounced them, is so much more satisfying.

And it’s so much more understandable in a country like America, which cherishes freedom of speech and has the luxury of mass communication but also includes a number of people convinced that they live in a Christian nation whose laws should reflect those in the Bible (the one in their heads at least).  Copenhagen was an interesting location at which to hold an international atheist conference this year, given that Denmark is generally acknowledged to be one of the most secular countries on the planet.  This country, in which I spent three years working on my PhD, has an official state religion– the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Denmark.  By law, its monarch (currently Margrethe II) is required to be a member of that church.  But like the U.K. which has its own established church, there is little inclination in the country’s government to pay lip service to religious beliefs themselves or to compel the people via legislation to do so by word or deed.  Hence there is a large population of nonbelievers who nevertheless should probably not be considered atheists at all,***** let alone angry ones.  When the conference was announced, a Danish friend of mine commented on Facebook that (I paraphrase) while he doesn’t believe in a god, he finds the idea of gathering specifically for atheists mystifying and unnecessary at best and downright obnoxious at worst.  I can entirely understand that sentiment from his perspective, but from mine it’s very different.  People who perceive themselves as oppressed, rightly or wrongly, will attack the ideology of the perceived oppressors vociferously and actively.  An atheist group in Denmark, in spite of (or perhaps because of?  I pondered this in England too) its state religion, is about as subversive as opting to have chicken rather than beef at a barbeque.  It’s not that European countries don’t have their own very heated conflicts about religion– they obviously do, as the Muhammad cartoon controversy reveals to this day– it’s just that the right to be a secular person is not nearly as much in question as it is in the U.S., and that can throw anyone who has such desires into defensive mode.  I just wish that didn’t translate into the kind of culture war we’re seeing now.

All of this is at the top of my mind at the moment because next week I’m off to Missouri to attend Skepticon 3, which might as well be called Atheistcon judging by its schedule.  That in itself does not bother me– I’m really looking forward to it, actually– but I’ve never been to a skeptical or atheist conference in the U.S. and am not quite sure what I signed up for at this point.

* Daniel’s the guy who produces the Junior Skeptic feature in Skeptic magazine and recently published his first book, Evolution: How We and All Living Things Came to Be, an evolution primer for kids.  It’s a beautiful book and well-written, worth checking out even if you’re well past your years of being “junior” anything.  

** If you’re one of those who– like I used to– think that Twitter is just a place for people to compare what they had for breakfast and write in abysmal grammar about who they hooked up with last night and what they watched on TV…..you’re wrong.  Or at least you’re following the wrong people. 

 *** Yes, Trekkers, I know…..Data did exercise emotion on several occasions on the show.  I also know the problems inherent in postulating a consciousness, even an artificial one, that tries to function without emotion.  Do not try to think this example through past the intended meaning. 

****People apply the term “New Atheists” to those like Richard Dawkins and Daniel Dennett.  They should be applying it to people who have recently concluded that they are atheists, especially in America, because it would be a much clearer usage.  People who think Dawkins is strident should talk to a 22-year-old in a chat room who refers to the “holey babble” and all religious people as “god-botherers.” It’s a phase….at least for most.  

***** I don’t share the definition of “atheist” Phil Zuckerman uses.  To me the label for a person who won’t necessarily say they believe in a god but nevertheless believes in “something” (as did the majority of interviewees described by Phil in a talk he gave to us in Aarhus, as I recall) is not properly “atheist.”