Extremism kills

[MamaJunebug]

I only just heard about Kenya.

I don't care what religion it is - extremist fundamentalism is, or has the potential to be, deadly.

Prayers going up for the victims, prayers also that somehow, this will stop.

[SPHASH]

I only just heard about Kenya.

I don't care what religion it is - extremist fundamentalism is, or has the potential to be, deadly.

Prayers going up for the victims, prayers also that somehow, this will stop.

+1

[Chicken bones]

It's horrifying. And sadly, psychologically, terrorism achieves its goal. How many times will any of those survivors feel secure just walking into a mall or most any public place ever again? Jeez it's been well over a decade and I am still weirded out every time I go in a federal building (have close relatives who worked triage on the OKC bombing and my city was one of the potential targets).

[GolightlyGrrl]

It's horrifying. And sadly, psychologically, terrorism achieves its goal. How many times will any of those survivors feel secure just walking into a mall or most any public place ever again? Jeez it's been well over a decade and I am still weirded out every time I go in a federal building (have close relatives who worked triage on the OKC bombing and my city was one of the potential targets).

I've never been the victim of a terrorist attack but I was brutally mugged and beaten several years ago. I cannot be near the corner where it occurred. I get the shakes and nauseous. I was merely coming home from the grocery store when I was attacked.

And that's what is so scary about these attacks. People are simply going about their day. They are shopping at the mall, they are at the office, they are in a house of worship, they are in school, they're in a movie theater...

My thoughts are with the people of Kenya. This is so frightening.

[Arete]

It is some incredible brainwashing these gunmen have been subjected to that allows them to spend hours with people in the throes of fear and terror and still be able to exterminate them. "Killing" is too clean a word. What a travesty.

[2xx1xy1JD]

The reports are horrific, esp. when they talk about the dead children and dead mothers.

How on earth does anyone think, "yes, this is what a good and loving God would want us to do"?

[OkToBeTakei]

Extremism. This why extreme of any opinion scares me. It is not about just religion. If you have an extreme opinion you scare me. It means you are unwilling to see anything that is not extreme.It can mean anything that does not agree with an individuals choice. It is most used in religious extremism but it is not solely the premise of this. Anybody who is not willing to look out of their own belief or demographic is guilty of this.

I grew up in a culture of bombings of not knowing that the 'mall' or shopping centre might be safe. I grew up suspicious of ANY bag on a train that was left unattended. I grew up without bins on public transport or in public areas. I grew up knowing that guns were only normal travelling to see my Nana in Dublin at the border. I grew up knowing that terrorists killed innocents. I grew up knowing how riot police worked on the news or how petrol bombs were used or how nail bombs were used. I grew up with many normalities.

We still have no bins in train stations. We still and always will check people for explosives at borders. We don't tend to complain about it either. When you live with it it becomes normal.

When our esteemed leaders say the way to deal with terrorism is to carry on our daily lives they are extremely right. It is actually the only way to deal with it.

[Burris]

I only just heard about Kenya.

I don't care what religion it is - extremist fundamentalism is, or has the potential to be, deadly.

Very.

And it needn't be religious extremism. Extremism of every sort can lead to things like this.

[Arete]

Never trust a fanatic, any type of fanatic.

[salex]

It is some incredible brainwashing these gunmen have been subjected to that allows them to spend hours with people in the throes of fear and terror and still be able to exterminate them. "Killing" is too clean a word. What a travesty.

From what I'm hearing, people from the USA may be among the group of murderers/terrorists in this incident.

[Arete]

From what I'm hearing, people from the USA may be among the group of murderers/terrorists in this incident.

Brainwashing to reduce other human beings to the level of roaches is the first and last step to making a good terrorist, whether they are from the US or not.

[Clementine]

From what I'm hearing, people from the USA may be among the group of murderers/terrorists in this incident.

Plus (still unconfirmed reports) Canadians, British, Finnish and three from Sweden.

I guess that our media will do their best not to write about it or investigate where they were radicalized it since that would be "islamophobic".

The radicalization of young muslims in the west is scary as hell.

[Verin Sedai]

I read this last night, haven't followed up yet this morning:

http://www.bringmethenews.com/2013/09/2 ... robi-mall/

(Not breaking, news site)

After I pasted that in I went to check CNN and I guess it is still undetermined but more and more likely that there were US citizens among the terrorists. I wouldn't be surprised if the report above about them being from the Twin Cities is true -there's a sizable Somalian population there and I remember there being lots of suspicion and hatred against them from some sectors of the white population. If these were young Somalian-Americans who felt rejected by American society, I could see how, for the right situation (home life, personality, etc) for them to be picked up by terror groups.

[bekkah]

I am saddened to hear about this tragedy.

I am incredibly mad that some of the perpetuators are from Minneapolis. And I feel incredibly saddened for the Muslim community here. The whole community has been trying to solve this issue. Most of the time they are young men who drop out and have no significant ability to get a job. The city of Minneapolis has been trying to fix this issue.

[Clementine]

Today the BBC reports that one of the terrorists is Norwegian, but born in Somalia:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-24577711

Scandinavia seems like a very good breeding ground for terrorists who have come here as asylum seekers. I wonder what we do wrong to make them turn around and hate us and our way of living.

[latraviata]

Today the BBC reports that one of the terrorists is Norwegian, but born in Somalia:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-24577711

Scandinavia seems like a very good breeding ground for terrorists who have come here as asylum seekers. I wonder what we do wrong to make them turn around and hate us and our way of living.

It is the same situation in the Netherlands and Belgium:

[2xx1xy1JD]

My experience with clients from the Somali community in Toronto in the last 1990s was that it was absolutely the most marginalized community with the biggest cultural barriers. With most of the other ethnic communities, there is an existing base to greet the new immigrants and help service them. That wasn't really there with the Somalis. A huge number arrived in Toronto in the 1990s, but very few had become established here prior to that. That meant that we lacked decent translation services, and the community didn't have established professionals. In the 1990s, you couldn't find Somali doctors, lawyers, social workers, psychologists, teachers, etc. working here. Unfortunately, the community desperately needed good services. Most of the refugees didn't speak English. Many were illiterate. Those who had been caught in the civil war had gone through hell. The country was in complete anarchy, so it was impossible for them to get basic documents. Without documentation, refugees couldn't be properly processed and had to wait years for their immigration status to be finalized. The culture shock was pretty extreme. The entire structure of society and clan in Somalia was different. The role of women was entirely different (eg. the most extreme forms of female genital mutilation are very common). Child rearing was different. [i know that her views on Islam are controversial, but Ayaan Hirsi Ali's book "Infidel" goes into a lot of detail about her life in Somalia and Kenya, and discusses the appeal of radical Islam as the country descended into chaos as well as the culture shock immigrants experienced in the West.]

Here's a small sampling of what I was dealing with in my cases:

- child being removed from home because uncle used physical discipline (not ok in Canada, totally common in Somalia)

- grandmother who spoke absolutely no English and was illiterate

- completely incompetent interpreters - one translated "Crown Wardship" (child being made a permanent ward of the state) as "Crown worship" and explained that it meant bowing down to the Queen. That was THE most important issue in the case, and he got it completely wrong. Another interpreter was so unprofessional that he didn't show up, sent his cousin instead, and the cousin spent the meeting yelling at me about "you white people in Canada" instead of actually doing his job.

- Child protection agency having illiterate grandma sign papers without sending them to me first, and without having them translated and read out to her

- attitude from the same agency that illiterate grandma couldn't possibly be sophisticated enough to understand the serious mental issues of grandson, without once considering that he was likely suffering from PTSD and/or depression because his parents were dead and he went through unbelievable shit while fleeing the civil war and being in a refugee camp, and that the person most likely to relate and understand would be the grandma who had been there with him