Monday 10 June 2013

Meat cleaver media

Remarkable: I read a Dutch newspaper article from 23 May and it explains how the woolwich meat cleaver murder suspects stuck around for 20 minutes after it happened, waiting for the police, asking bystanders to take pictures, and explaining their motives (they did it to ask attention for the muslims killed by British soldiers in Afghanistan). I heard nothing about their motives on the UTV news except that they were crazy radicals, possibly influenced by a controversial imam. News focused on the personal story of the soldier and his family.

What I'm surprised about is the huge difference between reporting style in the Netherlands and the UK. I'm guessing the UK media did not want to give the killers what they wanted i.e. attention. It would be in line with Thatcher's line on terrorism during the Troubles: do not give the terrorists an inch, as it will encourage other people to consider violence a valid/succesful way of asking attention for a case.

I'm wondering about the cultural differences this indicates though - how come it is normal openly to discuss suspect motives in the Netherlands? They did so when Mohamed B. killed Theo van Gogh (A lot of people said that "to be fair, van Gogh did make a habit of calling muslims goat fuckers".) Maybe it is because people haven't experienced sustained campaigns of terrorism here yet. Then again, that could be correlated: maybe there is more space for alternative opinions, meaning less people resort to terrorism.

Edit: the Daily Telegraph article actually does transscribe what the suspect says in the video.

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