UPDATE:
○ Martin Place, Sydney siege gunman identified as Man Haron Monis – Iranian refugee (1996)
How White Australia blogs about socialists and Muslims, also lists four articles about the criminal past of “Sheikh” Haron. He was recently released on bail for felony charges. His FB page here – Sheikh Heron. His webpage has been suspended, however via WayBackMachine the pages can be found in cache.
This time I fully, fully agree with the essay written by Prof. Juan Cole @InformedComment …
The Banality of Terrorism: Sydney’s other Hostage Crisis, of 1984
IC doesn’t usually cover hostage-taking, since it is an artificial and manipulative criminal act. Any two-bit thug can grab someone off the street and push them into a car, and subsequently kill them. It doesn’t take intelligence or any other admirable quality, just brutishness.
One’s heart goes out to the Sydney hostages. But it is distressing to see the hostage-taker made 10 feet tall by the media and to have Daesh (which is what most Arabs derisively call ISIL or ISIS) invoked. He is likely not mentally well, and he is not evidence of Daesh’s reach. Just that sadists are willing to franchise just like purveyors of hamburgers.
In fact, Sydney had another hostage crisis, in 1984, in a bank. A formerly wealthy (secular) Turkish-Australian became unhinged at losing his fortune. Today’s incident is not more important than that one, which few now remember. Both of these hostage-takers were common criminals. Neither is a “terrorist.” Today’s Sydney hostage-taker is not representative of a new activity. He isn’t important, and ordering a black flag won’t make him so. The only one who can bestow recognition on this criminal is the mass media and the press. They shouldn’t do it.
Nor are Australia’s Muslims responsible for this maniac. All white people aren’t responsible for motorcycle gangs or white supremacist groups. No one has ever asked a white person on television, `why don’t you condemn the Aryan Nation?'” The mainstream or `unmarked’ ethnic identity in a society doesn’t suffer from guilt by association. It is only the minorities who do.
FULL READ @Informed Comment
In The Netherlands, the Dutch were hit by worse hostage takings in the 1970s of terror and other criminal acts.
- Hostage taking train at Wijster – Drente
- Another event with twin hostage taking/attack of a train and school
- Embassy of France in The Hague
- Bombing by ETA elements, also in The Hague
- Murders by members of the German Rote Armee Faction (RAF)