Good Morning,
It’s a shocking attack. A British Member of Parliament, who was meeting his constituents at a local church in Leigh-On-Sea England, was attacked by a knife wielding man, who stabbed him up to 17 times.
David Amess, wasn’t known for anything special except the usual; campaigning for animals rights, a critic of Europe, pushing for local improvements. It’s nothing extraordinary that every other politician doesn’t deal with week in week out. A friend asked me “why him”? The horrible but real answer seems to be, just because he’s a politician, a target for the disgruntled, and someone who advertised where he would publicly meet his community a week ahead of time.
And perhaps that makes this attack even more disturbing, because it shows the level of violence against politicians which has been reaching ridiculous levels in recent years. Many MP’s have complained of daily death threats, and constant attacks on social media. Politicians themselves have openly labelled each other as “scum”.
And this is not the first attack of its kind. Jo Cox, a Labour lawmaker who opposed Brexit, was killed in 2016 by a man who attended her constituency meeting attacking her with a knife and a gun.
In 2010, another Labour lawmaker, Stephen Timms, was stabbed twice in the abdomen by an Islamist extremist, but survived.
In the case of David Amess, his attacker is a 25 yr old British National, originally from Somalia and someone with ties to Islamic extremism. We will hear more details in the coming days. He was arrested by police at the church. And the case is now being handled by the anti terrorist unit. The police have yet to say if the man was an ISIS sympathizer of what group he came from, but it again raises the issue of security.
Should politicians meet people in their communities? Of course they have to. Will they call for metal detectors of personal body guards? It’s expensive and largely unworkable.
So the result, is sitting MP’s may meet their communities slightly less often. Some people have said they won’t seek reelection because of physical threats and constant social media harassment. They can have police if there is a tangible threat, but the threats are so numerous and ugly, politicians say it’s impossible to understand which one they should take seriously.
But the real solution is for all of us, is to ramp down our language and anger, at people we don’t agree with. In the U.S. the climate of Trumpism has fuelled disgusting calls for civil war, and taking up arms.
Civil discourse, where people show respect for differing views has become a rare commodity, and we have to return to showing tolerance and respect for the political opposition.
Media should show both sides of an argument, and feature politicians who actually have those debates in respectful and reasoned environments. It might hurt their cable ratings, but that’s the challenge for promoting civil discourse. And we as journalists have responsibility to air better, less bitter debate. That means programming less argument and more reason.
The venomous rants by TV hosts against ‘the enemy’ create hatred and promote violence.
Trump and his rally’s where he calls for fighting and throwing people out, or veiled calls for the storming of the Capitol, rightfully deserve tempered and tepid coverage or none at all.
It may be the man who murdered David Amess, was inspired by online hatred. That’s another challenge for the big tech companies. But that doesn’t mean we all don’t have a share in this. We have to remind ourselves to be rationale as we scroll through our Twitter feed or Facebook friends, and don’t hate people you don’t agree with.
The political environment is about to become even more heated as the U.S. approaches 2022 mid terms, and then again in 2024. Amess’ tragic death is a warning to all of those TV hosts, and politicians to dampen down their rhetoric. And if they don’t, for us to tune them out and turn them off.
Well said Dana and I agree wholeheartedly with the points you make - as do the vast majority of people. However, I feel that a faction of society has been given a voice and their message is hatred, mistrust and violence. People point to Trump but the fact is that he would be a non-issue if he didn’t have millions of followers. He simply tapped their anger. He is very dangerous in that he is not a leader but one who capitalizes upon that anger and then feeds it to expand his followers - he is effectively a cult leader. Now, more than at any other time in recent history, we need strong leaders who will push back against this slide towards civil unrest. In the absence of strong leadership I fear that things will get much worse before they get better.