Maybe we need in cases like the recent Moscow stabbing (*) of a female radio journalist by a male lunatic who allegedly states to have been telepathically harassed by her during 5 years. She (Tatyana Felgenhauer) worked for an ‘independent radio station’ (Ekho Moskvy) in Moscow that has been object of threats to its staff several times. Threats that occur in the same time that official Russian media personalities criticise this radio station for its independent stance, especially in relation to the upcoming presidential elections in the year 2018. ….
As police sources said that the attack was not political but personal, so NOT a ‘terrorist attack’, maybe we need to use a new term for such a violent actor:
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NUT-PROXY TERRORIST = a lunatic committing an attentat, combing personal obsession with a current news issue, a proxy of interests beyond her/himself. [my own definition]
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LONE-WOLF-TERRORIST = “someone who prepares and commits violent acts alone, outside of any command structure and without material assistance from any group” [Wiki]
LONE-WOLF-TERRORIST = “someone who prepares and commits violent acts alone, outside of any command structure and without material assistance from any group” [Wiki]
Checking out an academic study this (new) class of terrorists came to my mind.
Here an abstract of the book:
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Lone-Actor Terrorists : A behavioural analysis Paul Gill – This book provides the first empirical analysis of lone-actor terrorist behaviour. Based upon a unique dataset of 111 lone actors that catalogues the life span of the individual’s development, the book contains important insights into what an analysis of their behaviours might imply for practical interventions aimed at disrupting or even preventing attacks. It adopts insights and methodologies from criminology and forensic psychology to provide a holistic analysis of the behavioural underpinnings of lone-actor terrorism. By focusing upon the behavioural aspects of each offender and by analysing a variety of case studies, including Anders Breivik, Ted Kaczynski, Timothy McVeigh and David Copeland, this work marks a pointed departure from previous research in the field. It seeks to answer the following key questions: Is there a lone-actor terrorist profile and how do they differ? What behaviours did the lone-actor terrorist engage in prior to his/her attack and is there a common behavioural trajectory into lone-actor terrorism? How ‘lone’ do lone-actor terrorists tend to be? What role, if any, does the internet play? What role, if any, does mental illness play? This book will be of much interest to students of terrorism/counter-terrorism studies, political violence, criminology, forensic psychology and security studies in general.
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Here two quotations that speak about the grey zone between ideological motivated terrorists and violent lunatics:
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“The role of mental illness and personality became so completely downplayed that one noted expert recently stated: ‘we also tried to distinguish terrorists from violent lunatics. Crazies, by definition, could not be terrorists’ (Jenkins, 2013: 9). Malkki (2014: 186) makes a similar distinction. ‘One of the key issues in this debate is how to draw the line between politically motivated lone wolf terrorism and mass murderers acting primarily motivated by personal grievances or mental health problems’. Others make the case that there is too much focus on mental health issues. The introduction of a special issue of Terrorism and Political Viol- ence on the topic of lone-actor terrorism complains of the overt focus on psycho- logical problems of lone-actor terrorists (Kaplan, Lööw, & Malkki, 2013: 5–6). Pantucci (2011a: 37) agrees: ‘a further complicating factor is how to separate and distinguish them from those individuals who for their own perverse reasons decide to act’. Sageman (cited in Pantucci, 2011b: 5) also expresses similar thoughts: ‘There are two kinds of Lone Wolves, real lone wolves and mass mur- derers’. While the former, according to Sageman, are part of a virtual com- munity, the latter works from their own ‘personal insane ideology’. Burton and Stewart (2008) distinguish between ‘lone wolves’ and ‘lone nuts’. The latter are ‘mentally ill individuals motivations for other reasons … not conducting politi- cally motivated terrorist attacks’. “
[Gill, Paul. 2016. Lone-actor terrorists. Routledge. ; p. 105. ]
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“In other words, an act of targeted violence is either the action of a rational ter- rorist or an irrational mentally unstable civilian. Over the space of 40 years of research on terrorist motivation the literature has jumped from one extreme posi- tion (‘they are all mentally ill’) to the exact opposite (‘by definition, a terrorist cannot be mentally ill’). This is also reflected in some major criminological research. For example, Hirschi and Gottfredson’s (1983) control theory views ‘regular criminals’ as impulsive, whereas terrorists need higher levels of control and are implicitly more calculating and therefore less likely to be mentally ill. In reality, such distinctions are probably less clear-cut. A false dichotomy may exist that categorizes violent individuals as either a rational terrorist or an irra- tional and unstable individual.” [Ibid.; p. 106.]
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http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/949913090
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(*) – The Guardian 23/10/2017: ‘Nobody defends us’: Russian journalists respond to knife attack – Reporters decry climate of hatred after Tatyana Felgenhauer is stabbed in neck at Ekho Moskvy radio station
– The Moscow Times 23/10/2017: “Ekho Moskvy Editor Felgenhauer Expected to Survive Stabbing Attack (…) St. Petersburg-based Channel 5 television aired a police interrogation with Grits in which he said he’d had a telepathic connection with Felgenhauer for 5 years. “I was motivated by the fact that she has been sexually harassing me for 2 months,” he said. “Every night, using telepathic means of contact, she entered and sexually harassed me.” Channel 5 earlier reported that Grits had been diagnosed with schizophrenia. The Investigative Committee has opened a murder case. Ekho Moskvy is among the last independent media outlets in Russia and has been repeatedly been issued warnings by state media watchdog Roskomnadzor, which said in February the station was violating a Russian law passed in 2016 restricting foreign media ownership to no more than 20 percent of shares. Earlier this month, Russian state media accused Ekho Moskvy of working with unspecified “Western non-profits” to influence Russia’s 2018 presidential election. Asked if the topic of her most recent radio show could be behind the attack, editor-in-chief Venediktov declined to speculate and said he would leave it to the police. He cited a string of attacks and threats against female journalists at Ekho Moskvy which he said authorities had not prosecuted. These included Yulia Latynina, whose car and home were attacked before she fled Russia last month, Ksenia Larina and Karina Orlova, who also left Russia. “It is precisely this impunity that enables psychiatrically unstable people to commit these attacks,” he said. In a statement on the attack, the Journalists’ Trade Union said part of the blame fell on state television.
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(*) – The Guardian 23/10/2017: ‘Nobody defends us’: Russian journalists respond to knife attack – Reporters decry climate of hatred after Tatyana Felgenhauer is stabbed in neck at Ekho Moskvy radio station
– The Moscow Times 23/10/2017: “Ekho Moskvy Editor Felgenhauer Expected to Survive Stabbing Attack (…) St. Petersburg-based Channel 5 television aired a police interrogation with Grits in which he said he’d had a telepathic connection with Felgenhauer for 5 years. “I was motivated by the fact that she has been sexually harassing me for 2 months,” he said. “Every night, using telepathic means of contact, she entered and sexually harassed me.” Channel 5 earlier reported that Grits had been diagnosed with schizophrenia. The Investigative Committee has opened a murder case. Ekho Moskvy is among the last independent media outlets in Russia and has been repeatedly been issued warnings by state media watchdog Roskomnadzor, which said in February the station was violating a Russian law passed in 2016 restricting foreign media ownership to no more than 20 percent of shares. Earlier this month, Russian state media accused Ekho Moskvy of working with unspecified “Western non-profits” to influence Russia’s 2018 presidential election. Asked if the topic of her most recent radio show could be behind the attack, editor-in-chief Venediktov declined to speculate and said he would leave it to the police. He cited a string of attacks and threats against female journalists at Ekho Moskvy which he said authorities had not prosecuted. These included Yulia Latynina, whose car and home were attacked before she fled Russia last month, Ksenia Larina and Karina Orlova, who also left Russia. “It is precisely this impunity that enables psychiatrically unstable people to commit these attacks,” he said. In a statement on the attack, the Journalists’ Trade Union said part of the blame fell on state television.
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