I first heard the news about last week’s terror rampage in Sydney via ABC radio. As I drove home, I listened to two earnest ABC types discuss the just-unfolded event for over fifteen minutes. They talked about the suspect running down the street, covered in blood, randomly stabbing people, and “shouting”. They also mentioned that the attack appeared to be linked to a woman’s body found in an apartment nearby.
But it was what they didn’t say that was most telling.
They mentioned that the attack and the suspect’s apprehension by an extraordinary group of men were captured on a video posted on the internet. They didn’t say just what the suspect was “screaming”, nor did they once say the word “terrorism”. So, as soon as I got home, I looked up the video. There it was, clear as a bell: Allahu Ackbar!
The attack had all the hallmarks of a lone wolf terror attack: random stabbing, the jihadist call-to-arms – even luring a sex worker to a murder trap, as Yacqub Kharye did in Melbourne in 2017. So why is everyone, from police to media, to so-called “experts”, so determined to deny it?
“People jump to that conclusion. But the people who very bravely responded were quick to point out they weren’t jumping to that conclusion, and it does look much more like a mental health come [sic] drugs problem come unhappy messed-up life, sad loner rather than somebody who was motivated by extremist ideas. The police will check it out very thoroughly.”
Yet he “had a USB full of terror propaganda.” Why do Australian authorities believe that if Mert Nay had mental health issues, he couldn’t be a jihadi? Why couldn’t a believing Muslim who has mental health problems try to cure himself by acting upon the Qur’an’s promise to “heal the hearts” of Muslims who wage jihad against non-Muslims? “Fight them; Allah will punish them by your hands and will disgrace them and give you victory over them and heal the hearts of a believing people” (Qur’an 9:14-15).
The “experts” never consider questions of that kind. Perhaps they think that to do so would be “Islamophobic.” In any case, they confine their analysis to the most superficial level, which renders their conclusions worse than useless.
“When you meet the unbelievers, strike the necks…” (Qur’an 47:4)…
These “experts” are reminiscent of the imbecilic “terror expert” Max Abrahms, who insists that jihadis are “ignorant about Islam.”
Let’s be clear: Ney does indeed have a long history of deteriorating mental health and appears to have spiralled into the abyss in the days leading up to the attack. But mental illness and jihadi terror are not mutually exclusive.
In fact, it is not uncommon for the two to be interrelated. Ney is also a recent Islamic convert. Terror recruiters are well-known to deliberately zero in on people with mental illness and other such problems because they are precisely the kind of people who can easily be manipulated into carrying out lone-wolf attacks.
Ney’s conversion may have been part of searching for an ideological crutch to prop up his paranoid and delusional psyche. The mentally ill, or people struggling with drugs and crime – or any combination thereof – are easy prey for the ruthless and unscrupulous.
But the spin was instant and obvious. Why, for instance, given that Ney had a USB full of information about terror attacks around the world, did police and media repeatedly refer only to Christchurch? Because they are manipulating the narrative. They know that people, on hearing “Christchurch”, are likely to think “white supremacist” rather than “jihadist”. But it is perfectly feasible that a jihadist would focus on Christchurch from a sense of Islamic grievance.
Now, let’s be perfectly clear: much of this is speculation. I don’t know whether Ney is really an Islamic terrorist rather than a nutter trying to commit suicide-by-police (indeed, both at the same time is more than possible). Nor does anyone else – yet. But we do know the basic facts: mental illness, Islamic conversion, terror propaganda, well-established jihadist modus operandi and the infamous battle-cry of jihad.
Deakin University terrorism expert Professor Greg Barton says he can see why people “jump to conclusions”.
jihadwatch.org/2019/08/australia-experts-claim-muslim-who-slit-womans-throat-and-screamed-allahu-akbar-is-not-a-terrorist
Because people have an extraordinary habit of adding two and two and deciding that the answer is four. It takes an expert to conclude that the answer is five.