He had acted alone

"He had acted alone". This is what we always hear when a white Western man commits a crime such as the one committed by the American soldier who went on a shooting rampage leaving 16 Afghan children and women dead (he set some of the bodies on fire), or when  the Norwegian Anders Behring Breivik killed 77 innocent people, white Norwegians like himself, or when some white teenager shoots some other kids in some state in the US. The latter have become quite commonplace in the US, but we never hear anyone talk of influence or some secret circles behind these white men committing such atrocities. Most of the time, they are referred to a psychiatrist to assess their mental health and in most cases they are pronounced unstable, out of touch with reality or crazy.

Why are these people always acting alone? Is it because these white men from civilised countries are clever enough to commit crimes without being instructed to do so. Or is it because they are programmed to kill just like Terminator but there is no programmer, they are born with the genes that lead them to commit crimes.  So, it is innate in them and it is not the influence of the surrounding environment in these white-majority civilised nations that turns one into a mass murderer. But if that were true, why are they proclaimed unstable, or crazy. Is it because white men cannot do such a barbaric thing unless there is something wrong with them. There must be a lot wrong with Bush and Blair who led the ‘coalition of the willing’ to kill masses of Iraqi civilians.

So these white civilized crazy murderers could not have been under the influence of anything such as the media which keeps demonising their to-be-victims and turning them into deserve-to-die people, they are definitely not influenced by politicians’ speeches who blame every problem in white nations on immigration from inferior less civilized nations. How could they?

Now, when a non-white man whose 5^th or 10^th great grandfather hails from a non-civilized  Muslim country, commits a crime,  the story is very different. This average Mo who has never seen a mosque in his life and does not know what Islam is, suddenly turns into a devout Muslim who ain’t acting alone.  He is instructed to commit a crime by some obscure group headquartered in some exotic Afghan place. Names like Kabul and Kandahar spring to the surface. The media digs deep to find out where his 10^th great grandfather comes from.  If he isn’t white then they have to find out his origins. That’s how journalism works, don’t you know? So, after we find out where his roots lie, he is referred to as Mo a European or American of [Muslim country origin]. All newspaper have to do that, they couldn’t leave the right-wing papers enjoy the exclusivity of mentioning the origins of a mass murderer [or a shop-lifter].  Left-wing and right wing papers differ on many issues, but in this department, they shake hands and leave all their differences aside.

I am no sociologist nor an anthropologist, but I would like to know the relationship between skin-colour and religion on the one hand and acting alone when it comes to crime on the other. Why do people whose origins are non-white never act alone when committing a crime? but white men always act alone. Do people of Muslim origins show more solidarity even when it comes to a murder. After all Islam emphasizes the importance of solidarity. Could it be that people of non-white non-Christian origin are not clever enough or brave enough to act alone. Or could it be that these people are so human, so kind, so angel-like that they cannot commit a crime without being under the influence of an evil group based in Afghanistan. The latter explanation has not been circulated in the media, I wonder why?