The incidents in Paris have been frequently juxtaposed with the recent premeditated and ideologically motivated domestic violence at the Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado Springs. This leads to sharp public exchanges between those pointing out that little separates these two incidents in motivation, if not in scale, and Republicans asserting defensively that one group of perpetrators threaten our very civilization while the other is merely a mental health problem.
Irrespective of the doubtful Republicans claims of moral innocence a glance through Robert Dear’s biography suggests they may have a point regarding his mental condition. Arguably most of the domestic terrorists and mass murderers of recent years fall into this category. It would seem such behaviour speaks for itself even without a clinical diagnosis.
Curiously, this assignment of blame to mental illness may be useful in one disappointing aspect of the asymetrical conflict with global jihad, discouraging potential recruits. There is a remarkably powerful stigma against mental illness in many Islamic communities:
For many Muslim people and their families, the community stigma that surrounds mental health is profound, since Islam is seen as the only source of strength and healing, especially as it relates to mental health.
Muslim Mental Health, Social Stigma and Discrimination Presentation Affinity Services 7 Apr 15
While understanding this stigma is a public health problem which must be remedied before the Muslim community receives appropriate mental health care it remains dominant among exactly the populations where the psychological battle for moderation against violent extremism is sometimes apparently lost. Beyond treating terrorism as a law enforcement issue, treating it as a mental health problem probably has far reaching consequences within the Muslim diaspora where jihad is deemed attractive or fashionable.
It seems hard to argue that the callous indifference to human suffering and compassion presenting in individuals performing suicide bombings and grotesque massacres is not aberrant and abnormal. The jihadis make a great fuss about the state of religious grace which overcomes the mundane personalities of suicide bombing candidates. The necessity of this smokescreen speaks to their sensitivity about the irrationality of the actions and the instability of the actors. It probably wouldn’t take much convincing for surviving family and local communities to believe that something more significant than socioeconomic injustice was at issue.
Just putting it out there. Whatever the merits of this approach there must be dozens of wiser and more prudent responses than the first few that always seem to spring readily to our minds. It seems our bombs might as well be considered “terrorist eggs”; a new little jihadi hatchling appearing each time one is dropped.