It was exactly a year ago that a 22-year-old white man went into the Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, S.C., and murdered nine people.
I don’t know, as I write these words, whether you, the reader, are black or white, conservative or liberal, British or American. But I reckon I’m on pretty safe ground in guessing your reaction when you heard of that abomination. Uncomplicated revulsion, right?
A young man is made welcome at a Bible study class, spends an hour with some kindly churchgoers, is taken aback by how nice they all are, and then stands up and fills them with bullets. We can try to enter into that young man’s mind, but our thoughts skim off its surface.
Did you feel, if you are white, that you were in some way guilty by implication? I doubt it. Did you wonder, if you are black, whether your white friends might secretly sympathize with the murderer? Again, I’d be very surprised. We know well enough what we’re dealing with here: a young man with a disturbed mind, to whom normal rules of human behavior don’t apply.
The same is surely true of the murders in Dallas. Neither Dylann Roof nor Micah Johnson — the men respectively accused of the Charleston and Dallas atrocities — should be treated as part of some wider movement. Each was obviously, hideously, tragically deranged.
Such young men — they are usually young, and they are almost always men — exist in every age and nation.
Some of them go on random shooting sprees: Eric Harris, Dylan Klebold. Some try to dignify their violence with rambling and narcissistic statements of “policy”: Anders Behring Breivik, Seung-Hui Cho. Some join terrorist gangs, such as Baader-Meinhof or the Red Brigades. Some get involved with Islamist terror groups.
Although their psychological profiles are similar, we often categorize them very differently. Some commentators who (correctly) saw Dylann Roof as a murderous loner now want to implicate BLM, at least indirectly, in the Dallas horror.
Conversely, some who (correctly) identified Micah Johnson as a sick and troubled man insisted last year that Roof was somehow part of a wider societal problem caused by Confederate flags or some such.
It’s true, of course, that crimes are committed within a context. We can’t know whether these men might have found different outlets for their violence had it not been for America’s troubled racial history.
But it doesn’t follow that Black Lives Matter is responsible for the behavior of everyone who supports it, or that 2 billion Muslims are responsible for the 9/11 attacks, or that the 52 percent of Britons who voted to leave the EU are responsible for every incidence of bigotry in the country or that … oh, you get the picture.
I’m not saying context is irrelevant. For what it’s worth, I have strong criticisms of BLM, I have never cared for the Confederate flag and I think the strain of Islamism that became popular after the Iranian Revolution is a global menace. But let’s keep those issues separate from how we deal with violent criminals.
All sentient adults are responsible for their own actions. That principle is the basis, not just of our criminal justice system, but of the morality of every monotheistic religion. When journalists or politicians start demanding that people disown or condemn the actions of a third party, they blur that fundamental precept and, in doing so, stoke tensions.
I don’t think they’re doing so on purpose. When, for example, writers compile examples of BLM activists who have said angry things about the police, or been involved in law-breaking, they are pursuing a legitimate story.
Still, ask yourself what would have been the first reaction of BLM activists when the news came through from Dallas. Like everyone else, they will surely have flinched at the sheer horror.
Conservatives should acknowledge as much. Equally, liberals should acknowledge that they can’t have this both ways: If BLM isn’t to blame for Dallas, the NRA isn’t to blame for Orlando, Fla.
The elevation of the individual over the collective is the basis of Western civilization. The story of human progress is the story of how we came to be treated as autonomous citizens, rather than having our status defined by birth, caste or tradition. For heaven’s sake, let’s not lose sight of that principle.
Dan Hannan is a British Conservative MEP.
