Hello, world. I’m MacDara Conroy, and this is my blog.

Thoughts on the Tube Shooting

On Saturday afternoon, just a day after the Tube shooting incident in south London which has stunned the city even more than the detonator blasts merely 24 hours before, it emerged that the victim of the shooting — the alleged suspected terrorist bomber — was actually innocent. In the wrong place, at the wrong time, as The Independent has put it.
Jean Charles de Menezes, an electrician from Brazil living in south London, was on his way to work on Friday morning when he was surprised by a team of plain-clothes police officers at Stockwell station, who then gave chase through the building. What subsequently unfolded was a tragic chain of events that lead to the death of an innocent man — and, in turn, to a lengthening list of unanswered questions regarding the safety of all Londoners, especially those who might appear slightly unusual. Whatever that is.
The Metropolitan Police were quick to apologise in the aftermath of this event — unusually swift for a law enforcement agency — though that did come with a caveat: that the officers involved acted within their remit, to protect the public from a perceived imminent danger. ‘Shoot to kill to protect,’ I think they’re saying.
But now that the inquest investigating his shooting has heard that de Menezes was shot eight times — seven times in the head, once in the shoulder — and not five times as previously reported by eyewitnesses, their policy and motivations deserve much closer scrutiny.
Early on in the controversy the BBC News site provided a forum for readers’ opinions on the shooting, such as this telling point made by Greg, from London:
> The problem with the shooting is that the police were plain-clothed. If a man flees uniformed police and jumps onto a train in the current climate, the police have little choice. But the police were not uniformed. All Mr Menezes saw was a group of men pulling guns and screaming in a Tube station. Given the events of the last few weeks, no wonder he fled.
The BBC’s Brazilian correspondent Tom Gibb also gave his perspective, which puts the chain of events in an similarly different light:
> The murder rates in some of these slums [in Sao Paulo, where de Menezes lived for a time] are worse than in a lot of war zones and that could explain why, when plain clothes officers pulled a gun on him, he may have run away.
It’s the fight-or-flight response, isn’t it? And for most people, I’d say flight is the only option. If you put yourself in de Menezes’ shoes, you might see what I see: if I’m suddenly yelled at and chased by a gang of scruffy-looking yobs brandishing machine guns, the last thing I’d do is stop. I wouldn’t have time to process what they were shouting at me. I’d run the fuck away from them! Hop a turnstyle if I have to. Anything to get away from an armed gang who’ve appeared out of nowhere, and seem to be gunning for me.
Now if they were in uniform, it might be a different story; I might start to flee on instinct, but I’d register the black and white uniforms. It would quickly hit me that these people were the police, and I’d be in worse trouble if I didn’t stop. Of course I’ve never been chased by the police, or an armed gang for that matter, so I really don’t know what I’d do. But I can identify with what de Menezes did. Though judging my many others’ reactions, I feel like the only one who does.
I noted there was much talk over the weekend about how de Menezes’ jacket was ‘unseasonable clothing’, and how that compounded police suspicions. I can imagine people nodding and thinking ‘ah, he must have been hiding something — what other possible reason could have have for wearing a bulky coat?’ But I have to ask, since when is wearing a winter jacket in the summer punishable by death?
De Menezes was from Brazil, a much warmer country than Britain even in wintertime. Is it not fair to assume that what’s warm to a Brit might be nippy to a Brazilian? I can tell you from experience. My significant other is from South Africa and feels cold when it dips down to 20 degrees celcius — people in this part of the world take off their tops at lower temperatures. I, myself, have been known to wear a heavy coat on a warm day, for any number of reasons: maybe my coat is the only place I can keep my wallet, or maybe I feel like sweating off some weight. Does it matter what the reason is? Do I now have to run all my sartorial choices by the thought police before I leave the house?
Sure, I might look ‘unusual’, but who doesn’t? To me a turban is unusual — you don’t see them every day on the streets of Dublin — but that doesn’t mean there’s a bomb hidden under every one, does it? Somehow I get the feeling that many would disagree with that, even if for a split-second.
But back to the events in question. The one thing to me that makes this shooting all the more unfathomable and all the more frightening is the fact that de Menezes was followed from his home, onto a bus, and into the station before the police chose to stop him. If de Menezes was really assessed as such a potential danger to the public that it necessitated his killing, then why was he not stopped from boarding the bus? Was he not an equal threat to the people on the bus? Or are the lives of Tube passengers somehow worth more? Because that’s the distinct impression I’m getting.
The more I think about it, the more I consider the facts as they have emerged piece by piece, the more it appears to be like one giant cock-up from beginning to end. It’s certainly not the first time that’s ever happened — police records the world over are undoubtedly filled with monumental investigative mistakes — but even though they do happen, that’s no reason to let them.
The journalist and author Malcolm Gladwell was quoted among a panel of experts in yesterday’s Guardian, giving his reaction to Friday’s shooting:
> I would say a well-trained and experienced police officer will put himself in that situation as little as possible. The function of training is to avoid ever having to shoot to kill … I don’t think some blanket statement that it’s never justified is helpful but … when you look at instances where the police shoot innocent people there is … some failure of training, some failure of perception, some circumstance that could have been avoided.
Gladwell, incidentally, was also featured in a special interview programme on CNN International on Sunday evening, promoting his worldwide bestseller Blink: The Power of Thinking without Thinking. (There doesn’t seem to be a transcript available yet, so what I repeat here is from memory.) In the course of the chat Gladwell made a point about police officers doing a better job on their own rather than in groups. He used the Rodney King incident as illustration: in the group mentality, the officers who beat him were ruled by testosterone and the aggression it cultivates, to give just two factors. In spite of their training they were more prone to acting impulsively, without consideration for the consequences of their actions, when caught up in the moment. If there had been a single officer on the scene, Gladwell speculated, then the Rodney King incident might never have happened.
Listening to Gladwell, I couldn’t help but think of those plain-clothes officers who bundled on top of a ‘petrified’ de Menezes before pumping seven bullets into his head.
> The police acted to do what they believed necessary to protect the lives of the public. This tragedy has added another victim to the toll of deaths for which the terrorists bear responsibility.
The above comment comes from London’s mayor Ken Livingstone, who gave a statement to the press on Saturday evening.
If I might reply directly: actually, Ken, you’re wrong. The terrorists bear little if any responsibity for this killing. In this specific instance, the police bear it all. They’re supposed to be trained for these types of situations, so arguing that they had to do what they had to do ‘under the circumstances’ doesn’t wash with me. In fact, this situation mirrors any number of ‘accidental’ police shootings of black males in the United States – at least one has been shot for brandishing a weapon that turned out to be a chocolate bar.
De Menezes was a victim of terrorism, not a victim of the terrorists. He was a victim of a dangerous climate where the very people who are supposed to protect us in times of crisis have allowed themselves to be frightened and paranoid, have allowed their latent xenophobia to colour their thoughts and their perceptions. An entirely human reaction that might be, ‘under the circumstances’, but it’s one we should be able to control. In this case, it’s obvious we haven’t. And that’s exactly the way the terrorists want it.

Some Related Links:

• Plastic: Metro Police, License To Kill
  A good discussion thread, unpicking arguments from all sides.
• The Guardian: Crucial questions over shoot-to-kill policy
  Outlining the investigations triggered by the killing of de Menezes.
• John Kampfner: Challenge, don’t emote
  The New Stateman’s Kampfner encourages journalists to keep asking the tough questions, especially after events like this.
• Gary Younge: No tails or tridents
  The Guardian’s Younge reminds us that appearances, and suspicions, can be deceiving.
• No apologies for knee-jerk posting
  Markham holds his own against the bitter-tasting triumphalist reactionism of Richard Waghorne.
• Observer Blog: The facts, please
  “Fear and terror spread in the gaps where there is ignorance. Give us the full picture and let us judge for ourselves…”

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The Tragic Vision

In my previous post I mention that Londoners have “had to put up with a lot these past couple of weeks.” That they have, but few would challenge that fact that what London has been through recently pales in comparison to the multitude of crises happening elsewhere in the world — not least the terrifying conditions the ordinary people in Iraq (and most of the Coalition troops, for that matter) have had to live with for the last two years.
But attacks in Iraq don’t cause the rolling-news channels to interrupt their schedules for blanket reports. They don’t cause huge spikes in web traffic as internet users scramble to get the latest information. They don’t elicit that ‘we shall overcome’ solidarity, the ‘we’re all [insert victims here] now’ sentiments and well-wishes. They just happen. We read about them in the paper, or see a bulletin on the news; we sigh for a moment; and then we turn the page or change the channel.
In Chapter 16 of The Blank Slate, Steven Pinker refers to the idea of the Tragic Vision, in which “humans are inherently limited in knowledge, wisdom and virtue, and all social arrangements must acknowledge those limits.” It’s a very Hobbesian world-view but, judging by the way of the West today, it’s an accurate one.
Pinker goes on to explain that “[i]n the Tragic Vision, our moral sentiments, no matter how beneficent, overlie a deeper bedrock of selfishness. That selfishness is not the cruelty or aggression of the psychopath, but a concern for our well-being that is so much a part of our makeup that we seldom reflect on it and would waste our time lamenting it or trying to erase it.”
To illustrate this Tragic Vision, Pinker takes a quote from The Theory of Moral Sentiments, published in 1759 by the renowned economist and philosopher Adam Smith:
> Let us suppose that the great empire of China, with all its myriads of inhabitants, was suddenly swallowed up by an earthquake, and let us consider how a man of humanity in Europe, who had no sort of connection with that part of the world, would react upon receiving intelligence of this dreadful calamity. He would, I imagine, first of all express very strongly his sorrow for the misfortune of that unhappy people, he would make many melancholy reflections upon the precariousness of human life, and the vanity of all the labours of man, which could thus be annihilated in a moment. He would, too, perhaps, if he was a man of speculation, enter into many reasonings concerning the effects which this disaster might produce upon the commerce of Europe, and the trade and business of the world in general. And when all this fine philosophy was over, when all these humane sentiments had been once fairly expressed, he would pursue his business or his pleasure, take his repose or his diversion, with the same ease and tranquility as if no such accident had happened. The most frivolous disaster which would befall himself could occasion a more real disturbance. If he was to lose his little finger tomorrow, he would not sleep to-night; but provided he never saw them, he would snore with the most profound security over the ruin of a hundred million of his brethren.
It doesn’t speak wonders for Western society, does it? But unfortunate as this is, it does accurately describe our general attitude (of our governments, of ourselves) towards events the world over, from the tit-for-tat mutual destruction and terrorism in Israel and Palestine, to the recent massacres on northern Kenya, and the drought crisis in Niger that Markham is keeping track of, not to mention the issues of famine and poverty throughout Africa that Live8 was intended to highlight — and to make an even closer parallel, the repeated suicide bombings and attacks by Coalition forces in Iraq, which have killed thousands more people and terrorised Iraqis for far longer than Londoners have ever had to put up with, and yet have attracted far less blanket coverage in the media (the blogosphere included) than the London bombings have in the space of a fortnight.
I readily admit I should be implicated in that number for everything that I’ve written about the London attacks in the last two weeks. And the reason, as guilty as it makes me feel, is simply proximity. London is on my doorstep, and what happens there has a visceral impact on me, regardless of my relative safe distance from the city. Iraq, though, is some place far away; out of sight, and out of mind. If I was nearer to Iraq I’d feel much different, I’m certain. But I’m not. I’m in Ireland. And I sleep well at night.
That’s the Tragic Vision for you.

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Not Again

Two weeks after the terrorist bombings that claimed 56 lives and affected countless others, London suffered another attack yesterday afternoon when a series of minor explosions disrupted the city’s transport network.
In an echo of the July 7 attack, three Tube lines and a bus were hit by relatively small detonator blasts. Thankfully only one injury has been reported, though it has since emerged that the bombs had malfunctioned, and were intended to kill; anti-terrorist officials have described this fortuitous turn of events as a “forensics bonanza”. It’s not yet known for certain whether this was a related attack or the work of copy-cats (it did occur in the middle of the day, when the transport network is at its lowest capacity) but more details should be emerging even as I write this.
The web, as ever, was swift to report on yesterday’s events. The Guardian and BBC News have comprehensive coverage, while Wikipedia has once again outdone itself.
On top of that there’s already plenty of commentary and opinion on these thwarted attacks. The Guardian’s security editor Richard Norton-Taylor gave his early thoughts, while a host of world leaders have spoken of their outrage at the bombings and of their solidarity with the people of London, who’ve really had to put with a lot these past couple of weeks.
Contrasting this, academic and weblogger Norman Geras has written a damning polemic (prompted in part by an opinion piece in yesterday’s Guardian, and which has been republished by The Guardian itself) attacking the apologists who supposedly make excuses for the attacks, blaming them on anyone but the actual perpetrators of the bombings. While I can agree with that sentiment in general to an extent, to ignore conditions that might, even in the slightest, be conducive to breeding such acts of wanton destruction and murder is just as dangerous.
As far as apologism goes, I have a story to tell. A couple of years ago I remember getting into an argument with someone over IM about Nestl�‘s presence in Africa. Basically, this person was trying to rope me into supporting a particular anti-globalisation protest, the message of which can be summed up in three words: ‘Nestl� Kills Babies’. Though I’m no expert on this subject and if I’m wrong about the facts feel free to correct me, it’s pretty well-known that Nestl� had (if it hasn’t still) a policy whereby it heavily advertised its powdered milk formula products to new mothers in many African countries, often with posters and sales reps right outside the hospital, probably in an effort to sell off overstock from Western markets (where breastfeeding was/is becoming more popular). Aside from the health implications of using powdered milk over natural breast milk, the root of the problem here was the contaminated water supply used by the mothers to mix the baby formula. Obviously, if you use poisoned water, the milk will be poison too, and the result was a tangible link between the use of baby formula and the infant mortality rate. The logic seems pretty clear: Nestl� makes formula, formula used to make milk, babies drink milk, babies die — therefore Nestl� kills babies.
But it’s never as simple as that, and I refused to demonise Nestl� exclusively. I put to this person that, hypothetically, if Nestl� were to withdraw from Africa and halt its undoubtedly morally-dubious powdered milk marketing, would babies stop dying? Most likely they wouldn’t — because the poison is in the water, not the milk formula. Take away the powder, and the water is still contaminated. And why is the poison in the water? Well, there’s any number of factors, but most of them point to Western exploitation of Africa as a whole: the West has allowed African dictators to destroy their countries; allowed callous multinationals like Shell to rape their environment; and exploited their ecomonic and societal weaknesses for capitalist gain. Of course Nestl� knew that their powdered milk would be mixed with contaminated water so they are culpable, and I never denied that — but to label them baby killers and not accuse any one else in the chain of culpability of the same is narrow-minded at best, and at worst lets the killing go on unperturbed. And for that, I was branded an apologist for Nestl�? Incredible.
I suppose what I’m trying to say is, it’s stupid and weak-minded to absolve the terrorists who committed these atrocities, and anyone doing so should be ashamed of themselves, but highlighting the conditions that may have lead to their extremism taking hold so strongly is not making excuses for their actions. In my own opinion it’s very likely these bombers would have attacked London anyway, just for being London — after all, the United States did little if anything to deliberately provoke al-Qaeda and its supporters until after September 11. However, it would be irresponsible of us not to ask why the extremist position is apparently becoming so popular among young Muslims, in Pakistan or the UK or anywhere else. A ‘shoot first, ask questions later’ policy (for that is what preemptive action is, in essence) only makes us — the West — as bad as the terrorists we want to see defeated.
“They hate us,” the hawks and warmongers cry. Which is true, but they hate us for a reason. That reason might turn out to be no reason at all, yet it’s still our moral duty to find it. Hopefully those responsible for yesterday’s attacks will be found and brought to justice — and what we learn from them will shed a little light so we no longer have to stumble blindly in the dark.
Update: Man shot dead at Tube station. So much for my ‘shoot first, ask questions later’ point…

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