Doubt over scale of Nice killer’s Islamist radicalisation

[struggle4progress]

Tom Burgis in Paris and Jim Brunsden in Nice
July 17, 2016 8:17 pm

... French academics have clashed over whether the country is witnessing the radicalisation of Islam or the Islamisation of the radicalism that breeds in its urban ghettos.

“I don’t think he was radicalised at all,” says Farhad Khosrokhavar, a sociologist at the School for Advanced Studies in Social Sciences in Paris, who has spent 20 years in France’s prisons and banlieues examining the links between marginalisation, religion and extremism. “It’s a case of raw violence. He took a decision to kill in a moment of despair. My guess is that it’s much more like a mass shooting in the US than [Islamist] radicalisation.”

Mr Khosrokhavar says the Nice attack, like the beheading in January near Lyon of a factory boss by a disgruntled employee who claimed allegiance to Isis, is best understood as “mimetic violence”. Attacks such as Paris and Brussels have created “a model that fragile people can imitate”. The decreasing availability of psychiatric treatment has left many of those in need of help unassisted or bouncing in and out of prison, he adds ...

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/e1eca052-4c28-11e6-8172-e39ecd3b86fc.html#axzz4EloR1KB8

[rug]

1. I'd like to see a serious contrast between them and Action Directe.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_directe

[muriel_volestrangler]

2. Planned for at least a week, with an interest in jihadi violence

Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel had grown a beard in the eight days before he carried out the attack and told friends “the significance of the beard is religious”, prosecutor François Molins told a press conference.
...
Investigators had found no proof of any “allegiance or any direct link” to Islamic State or other terrorist organisations, according to Molins. However, Lahouaiej-Boulel’s computer contained “very violent” images from radical Islamic sites and links to jihadi websites, as well as articles about the Bastille Day fireworks display in Nice, the recent nightclub attack in Orlando, shootings in Dallas, the killing of two police officers in Paris suburb Magnanville, and research into Osama bin Laden and the Algerian terrorist leader Mokhtar Belmokhtar.
...
On 7 July, Lahouaiej-Bouhlel had researched the Qu’ran on his computer as well as religious songs.

He picked up the lorry used to carry out the massacre on 8 July at 8.30am. He was due to return it on 11 July and left a guarantee cheque for €1,600. In the three days before the attack he went to the Promenade des Anglais several times.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jul/18/nice-attack-premeditated-mohamed-lahouaiej-bouhlel-beard-prosecutor

[Brettongarcia]

3. So people with mental illness, often attach to religion?

Last edited Tue Jul 19, 2016, 11:10 AM - Edit history (1)

By the way, whether it's 1) radicalization by Islam, or 2) Islamicization of radicalization or marginalization? In either case Islam, religion, is a factor..