Rod Liddle
Already a subscriber? Log in
You will remember too that the grotesque murder of Labour MP Jo Cox by Thomas Mair in 2016 was immediately identified as an act of far-right terrorism, which led to our intelligence services increasing their monitoring of supposed right-wing extremists. Nobody suggested Mair was simply mad. In the Times, David Aaronovitch, in an unusually stupid piece of writing, even linked Cox’s murder to the language of pro-Brexit campaigners.
I have a problem with this patent inconsistency. The yearning on the part of the left to find what we might describe as ‘evil’ in right-of-centre opinions leads directly to the corrosive political divide we have now, where the deputy leader of the Labour party can describe Conservatives as ‘scum’ and be cheered to the rafters. At the same time the left will exculpate Islam because to do other-wise would be counter to its agenda.
My own analysis is perhaps simplistic. All of these murders, by the far right via Islamist jihadis to the Red Brigade and the Baader-Meinhof Gang, are committed by deeply disturbed individuals and sociopaths who should be in the booby hatch. I tend to cleave to the view expressed by one of the first psychiatrists who examined Breivik and later saw his reputation thoroughly trashed when the political tide turned the other way. Torgeir Husby told me, back in 2015: ‘My theory is that violence is the primary thought and that the political ideology comes along afterwards. His political world exists just to have a world to be psychotic in.’ That diagnosis at least has the benefit of a certain clarity. Ideology should not itself bear responsibility for acts of carnage and violence: the individual is to blame, not the world view to which he or she subscribes. But then that leaves us with a difficulty regarding the National Socialists in Germany and the more recent manifestation of unrestrained sociopathic violence by Isis.
There is one more twist to this conundrum. Another reason for the Norwegian authorities performing an abrupt volte-face on Breivik was the stunning leniency of Norway’s laws governing the incarceration of the mentally ill. As Breivik’s sanity was being reassessed, a chap dubbed ‘The Halloween Killer’ — real name kept secret to preserve his privacy, natch — was released on licence from a mental institution only months after he had murdered his best friend, wounded another and daubed religious slogans. He had, according to the doctors, ‘got better’. That is the law in Norway. What if Breivik suddenly got better, too? The way in which we react to these crimes is always contingent, then, and guided by our political beliefs — something we should remember as we grieve for poor David Amess.
Trending
Because you read about anders breivik
Also by Rod Liddle
Latest
Comments
Join the debate for just $5 for 3 months
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for $5.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just $5 for 3 monthsAlready a subscriber? Log in