Narrative and the necessity to stand up for our rights

by andrianart

I’ve been having an interesting discussion over Facebook with author Robert Bidinotto around the importance of narrative in our society. It all started with a discussion about Ayn Rand. Robert’s contention was that, no matter whether you agree with Rand or not, she changed the popular narrative of her time.

It’s an idea that struck me after the events here in Ottawa on Wednesday.

The first item on the 10:00 am. CBC news was that a soldier had just been shot at the War Memorial. I told others in the office where I work. We were all shocked—it was just a few blocks away. We all thought of the same things: about Warrant Officer Patrice Vincent being killed in a deliberate hit-and-run last Monday, and the supposed ISIS/ISIL message exhorting sympathizers to strike against Canadian civilians for our warplanes being sent to the Middle East.

The human mind is wired to see connections and patterns. It’s an evolutionary advantage. So it’s to be expected that we’d very quickly try to fit the events of last Monday and Wednesday into a pattern—and one already lives in the zeitgeist, the narrative most spectacularly exemplified on 9-11: the industrialized, democratic West is under attack by Islamic terrorists around the world. Now, we have a new idea added to that narrative because of the Islamic State formerly known as the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant formerly known as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria: there are supporters embedded in Western societies around the world—even here in uber-peaceful Canada—who will strike unexpectedly, viciously and effectively.

The facts do not support that narrative, however. Just as the facts of our world do not support Rand’s narrative.

The Ottawa shooting does not fit the terrorism narrative.

When I compare these events to other terror attacks, it makes no sense. If it were a terrorist attack, it would have to be, thankfully, a remarkably ineffectual one. One fine man is dead, and that’s a tragedy.

But look at other terrorism attacks in the West since 2001: New York, Madrid, London, which killed dozens or even thousands of people. What good it do anyone to shoot an unarmed soldier standing honour guard? What hope could Bibeau have had to advance any cause by acting alone, if as violently as he did?

But when you look at this through the lens of mental illness, it makes a lot more sense.

As more facts about Michael Zehaf Bibeau emerge, it seems his mental state had a lot more to do with his motivation. He has a history of mental illness and drug abuse. He was homeless and unemployed. He tried to get incarcerated in Vancouver.

A day after the Ottawa attack there was a multiple shooting in a school Washington — not linked to terrorism, ISIS/ISIL or anything else. And none of the analysis of it linked it to terror. Instead, and rightly, in my opinion, the talk orbits the debate over gun control.

Maybe if we look at “home-grown terrorism” from the perspective of mental illness, we can begin to get a handle on how to deal with it. Why don’t we ask these questions:

• How did Bibeau get a rifle? 
• Where did he buy it? 
• What if there were some kind of, I don’t know, a list or a database of long guns so we could track who’s buying and selling them, so that if one is used in a crime, we could work out how the criminal obtained the weapon and then take steps to prevent recurrence. Crazy idea, I know, but still—worth thinking about.

Maybe that’s how we can account for the appeal of an organization like IS/ISIL/ISIS to new converts to Islam in the West: they have personal histories involving isolation, loneliness, mental illness and/or substance abuse. And maybe, just maybe, if we addressed those problems before they manifested as violence, we’d have a less violent world. 

Our government is trying to use the events to advance their own agenda.

The Conservative government lost no time in fitting the attack into their own narrative and using it to advance their own agenda. At 8:00 p.m. on Wednesday, Prime Minister Stephen Harper said, “Any attack on our soldiers or our institutions by definition is an attack on our country and our values.” And the next day in Parliament, he said “our laws and police powers need to be strengthened in the area of surveillance, detention and arrest." (CBC news)

Even Opposition leader Tom Mulcair said the attack was “driven by hatred, and designed to make us hate others.”

Sorry, Tom: there was no evidence of that on Wednesday. Only on Sunday did the investigators mention the existence of a video that supposedly reveals Bibeau's political and ideological motivations. And so far, no one outside the investigation team has seen it.

What there is evidence of is this: the Conservative government wants more power to observe us, and thereby control us. To detect dissent, in other words. To find those of us who diverge from their narrative.

We do need to stand on guard. We need to protect ourselves and our rights. But what we need to guard against is not necessarily found overseas. Often, we find it much closer.

Canadians and thinkers of the world: do not fall for the false narrative. We are all we have to protect our freedom of thought and expression.

How we respond to tragedy



Image: Creative Commons

 My hopes and prayers go to the families of everyone killed, wounded and hurt, traumatized and terrified by the bombs in Boston on Monday. My sympathies go to everyone who is struggling through the clean-up, the aftermath and the traffic snarls as the city recovers from the cowardly sneak attack.
And for whoever planted the bombs, whoever encouraged and enabled the attack, I have only contempt and condemnation.

Every terrorist attack, every underhanded, gutless affront like this generates a hurricane of media. And when it happens in a major city in the biggest media source in the world, the US, we all know to expect a biblical flood of reportage. And we know that the media’s attention in general will be distracted from all sorts of other subjects, worthwhile of attention and less so, at least until the next shocking event diverts them again.

It’s fitting; this is an event worth our attention. And it’s right that all of us pause, for at least some time, in our normal daily routines.

But what should we put on hold? And for how long?

Getting slagged

Immediately following the bombing, I got a couple of messages from followers of this blog or my Twitter feed saying that I should hold off in my normal advertising because of the bombing and the innocent blood shed. I read that the Kardashians got scolded for continuing to Tweet about their vapid activities as the first news reports continued to trickle through the Web and the broadcast media.

My first reaction was: “Oh, right. Sorry — I’ll get right to correcting my automatic Twitter feed.” Then I thought: “Wait a minute. Why?”

I am not trying to capitalize on this tragedy. No one should ever even try to use it to promote himself or herself, or a product or service. It happened, and we have to acknowledge it, honour the memory of the innocents killed, hurt and scarred.

It’s also right, though, to look at the coverage, to think about and analyze and discuss our reactions. There is a lot to be learned, a lot worth learning from the aftermath.

My first impression of the news coverage of the terrible event was that it was better than what we got after earlier terror attacks on the US and elsewhere in the West. It seems to me that it’s been more rational and cautious with less jumping to conclusions about the perpetrators than after 9/11 or the foiled bombing in Times Square on New Year’s Eve, 2010.

Reaction

Should all of us suspend everything else we’re doing in response to this event? Should we refrain from our usual tweeting? For how long?

The Fox network has reportedly pulled an episode of Family Guy from broadcast and hulu.com because it depicts Peter Griffin running down runners at the Boston Marathon with his car.

I was chastised for tweeting a quote from a review of my novel, The Bones of the Earth, which mentions violence, gore, monsters and more.

I think that’s fair in the immediate aftermath; it does seem insensitive to be promoting fictional gore when most people’s attention is caught by the real-world variety and people are suffering.

On the other hand, that response gives the perpetrators of this crime exactly what they want.

Many years ago, I read a story called “Very Proper Charlies,” about how journalists around the world decided to stop covering any terrorist attacks. No matter what the damage or how many the casualties, the news ignored it. The result was that the terrorists eventually gave up, because attention was the reason they did what they did.

Sure, it was an exaggeration. But it still had a point: terrorism is a tactic to draw attention to a cause that has no other way of getting any. Whether it’s effective in the long term is a different discussion. But when the news media descend on a terrorist strike like crows on a corpse, the criminals are fulfilled.

And the more that we turn away from what we normally do, from the activities that build the world up and make it a better place, the more we hurt ourselves.

Let’s face it, terrorist acts happen all the time. People living in Iraq, Israel, Afghanistan and many other places around the world deal with checkpoints and continuous threat of bombings every single day. No one bashes Kim Kardashian for tweeting about her new sweater when bombs go off elsewhere.

We cannot stop our normal lives, working toward our goals, for every tragedy or crime that happens.

Maybe we should try treating terrorists like very proper charlies. Of course, that would not acknowledge the suffering of the victims.

It’s a difficult question. What do you think we should do? Leave your opinion in the Comments.

Hallowe’en Treat, part 4: Six spooky sentences

The ride of fear



Photo used under Creative Commons from wwarby


It’s the last Sunday before Hallowe’en, and this is the last installment of my Hallowe’en treat to readers of this blog. Don’t worry, I’ll have lots more posts in the future, including more excerpts from various works.

This six-sentence excerpt comes from Part 2 of The Bones of the Earth. Here, Javor is riding with a column of Roman Legionnaires because … well, you’ll just have to read the book for the “because” part.

At any rate, they column is riding two wide along a long, twisting forest path, when suddenly they’re attacked by something they cannot see. Their only hope is to gallop as fast as they can to the end of the path and hope …

Three times, they heard screams; three times, legionnaires at random points in the column fell to the side. But the column dared not break stride and flew along the path. Horses stumbled, but righted themselves. Men gripped their saddle horns and prayed for salvation. Javor heard nothing but thundering hooves and jangling steel, and the amulet was vibrating so hard it felt like it was on fire.

Up ahead, he could see light as the path came to some kind of clearing, but at that moment, something cold and damp clutched around his neck and yanked him from the saddle.

Want to find out what happens to Javor? Click the cover image on the right and get the whole book!

For more great six-sentence samples, visit SixSunday.com. And leave comments on every one that you visit today!