In one fell swoop, editorialists in the Globe and Mail re-stigmatized the millions of us in this country with mental illness (mine is anxiety/depression) by suggesting that the two terrorists who targeted our soldiers were really just mentally ill. The editorial referred to studies.
“The unspoken issue…the link between mental illness and radicalization. Studies have shown that people suffering from anxiety or depression are more prone to sympathize with violent protest and terrorism than those not affected by mental illness.”
How many studies? Which studies? Whose studies? Were there any meta-studies? How old are these studies?
Then came the disclaimer. “The vast majority of people suffering from mental illness will not go that far.” Thank you. As if that could undo the damage already done by suggesting that anxiety and depression can lead to such horrible acts of violence.
In my humble opinion you chose to plant a seed of fear for the mentally ill in order not to cast aspersions on Muslims, Islam, or be accused of Islamophobia. To deflect, to pivot away.
When I took my training at Toronto Hospital, we were taught to respond to one who says God said to kill, “You may be hearing voices telling you to kill, but it isn’t God. God does not tell us to kill.” Most of these people suffered from schizophrenia not depression and anxiety although I would not be surprised if they had those problems as well.
The West sanctifies life while there are Muslims all over the world and Muslim governments who venerate death. Martyrdom. Jihad. Many Muslims are taught hate while we in the West teach tolerance. The idea that we justify these acts of terror by suggesting it is mental illness is a refusal to see that many millions of people around the world celebrate death, the deliberate killing of others. From Hamas, to Fatah to Hezbollah to Boko Haram, al Quaeda, al Nusra and now ISIS. It is a difference in ethics, values morals and ideology.
There are those in the west who believe that all cultures are equal. Perhaps this is the lens from which editorials such as the one today originates. Unable to accept the fact that not all cultures are equal there is a need to justify the hate by equating it with mental illness. I don’t recall the discussion of mental illness in Rwanda when Hutus went after Tutsis. I haven’t heard mental illness as a root cause of killing Christians and Muslims in the Middle East in the name of Allah.
It seems that mental illness is only a root cause of Islamist terror in Western countries, like Denmark and Germany, Canada and the USA. But Muslims who preach this hate, make videos and use social media to attract Westerners to their cause- they aren’t mentally ill? How, then, do you justify their behaviour?
There is an arrogance in the West that leads some to deny there are those who do not believe what we believe. That all we have to do is explain our values and others will come to accept them. Would you change your views on life, the values you hold dear based on love of life because someone came to explain to you that your views were wrong? I doubt it. Rather haughty to assume that others will accept our way of life, don’t you think? And if they tried to justify your refusal to accept their way of life by suggesting you were mentally ill, how would you respond?
Western civilization is founded on ethical monotheism, the Judea Christian ethic, which moved us from tribal cultures built on fear of the other, and the need to only care only for one’s own family, clan, tribe (as described so well by Ayan Hirsi Ali in “Nomad”) to a revolutionary and evolutionary ethic of care for the other as you care for your brother; do not do unto others what is hateful to you. We have been living with this ethic for 3500 years and are still failing but it is an ideal to which we strive. But not all people on the planet believe in those ethics and values.
Using mental illness as an excuse, a justification for hate, is irrational and illogical and dangerous to our citizens in Canada, especially the millions with mental illness and their care-givers.
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