May 22nd marked 4th anniversary of the murder of British Soldier Lee Rigby, who was hacked to death in the streets of London by two men Michael Adebolago and Michael Adebowale. This year, another man succeeded in again murdering innocent civilians, children, with a bomb that would kill (at the time of writing) 23 children. These three men, who acted on the same day four years apart had one thing in common, the Islamic faith, but also as Donald Trump would say: being “losers”.
Trump made the statement whilst in Bethlehem, standing beside Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. He said “I wont call them Monsters, because they would like that term. They would think that’s a great name. I will call them, from now on, losers, because that’s what they are”. Now this statement is a classic Trumpism, the list of people he has called losers includes: Credit agency Standard and Poors, Rosie O’Donnell, Cher, Russell Brand, Jeb Bush and CNN, many of these on multiple occasions. However, Trump, intentionally or not, hit the nail on the head concerning Islamic terrorism. These people aren’t troubled people held down by the system, they’re just losers.
From what we know about Manchester attacker Salman Abedi, his life was not defined by devotion to God nor love of his fellow man, but he was in fact a loser. Abedi managed to get into Salford University, but dropped out and then worked in a bakery. During his later years before his life was defined by killing children, Abedi was a keen user of cannabis, his friends described him as very short tempered. Moreover, a school colleague of Abedi described him as very gullible, “you could tell him anything and he would pretty much fall for it”.
Hamid El-Sayed who worked for the UN tackling radicalisation, states that Abedi struggled “adjusting to the European lifestyle”. One must call El-Sayed out here and find him to be absolutely false in his analysis of Abedi’s life. Abedi wasn’t struggling with life in the UK, he was born in the UK, went to school in the UK, went to University in the UK and then killed a large group of children in the UK. He wasn’t struggling; he was a loser. Abedi’s life was reminiscent of someone with low intelligence, University was clearly too much for him and he dropped out, comments from his school friends paint him as someone who clearly wasn’t smart. So let’s remember him the way Trump does, as a loser.
Being a loser is very relevant; these people are the most likely to commit these acts. People with little else to live for have a clear interest in engaging in these types of attacks because it finally puts them on the front pages as a monster who brought fear to innocent civilians on the streets, in the name of God.
The aforementioned Lee Rigby killers had a similar tale. The two men grew up in Christian households in a nice polite family, in their teens they plunged into gang crime, and used drugs. Adebolago was in a bad place, before converting to Islam in 2003; he even changed his name to Mujaahid, meaning warrior, which is actually quite sad. There is clearly a link between these three men; their negative role in society and their realisation of it.
Extreme Islamists make up less than 1% of all Muslims in the UK, but they are full of stories like this. Stupid but ambitious men and women who want nothing more than their life to have meaning. People much smarter than them, who prey on the weak, recruit them.
What the point here is, is that rather than remember these people as parties of God, Monsters, dealers of death etc, just call them for what they are: Losers. Weak and fragile people who undertake gun massacres in the US are never the jocks, just like these men, they’re the losers. They’re the people who never felt like they fitted in and no one gave them the time of day; now if their last acts consist of this type of behaviour, they should be remembered that way.
Trump here might just redefine the way we look at terrorists. This peppy group hug attitude towards terrorist attacks where we all affect a new Facebook profile picture filter, is just weak. We weren’t attacked by ISIS, nor Al Qaeda, a loser killed those kids and a loser he will forever be. Forget the attitude of hiding the perpetrator under the guise of them not being worthy of attention; blast them on every television and every paper and declare “for they be losers”. We were attacked by losers, nothing else.
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