The comedy of terrorism and Nicky Reilly.
Such is the horror of the end result of a successful suicide attack, few have so far attempted to turn perhaps the ultimate act of personal violence into comedy: Monkey Dust, the dark BBC3 animated satire, had hapless Brummies blowing themselves up, while Chris Morris now has his jihadist comedy in film production, having been giving funding by Warp Films. It's all the more surprising because there is such an obvious rich vein of humour running through some of those who consider themselves martyrdom seekers: even going beyond the belief that somehow killing others at the same time as yourself will instantly result in your entrance to the highest level of paradise alongside 72 virgins, the incompetence of the bombers who can't even succeed in killing themselves, let alone anyone else, alongside the arrogance of the finger-pointing last will and testaments meant to cause fear but which instead strike as someone being far too influenced by the personal hubris which infects YouTube, are all potential goldmine material.
With that in mind, it seems even more difficult to countenance the attitude taken towards Nicky Reilly and his comprehensively failed suicide attack in a Giraffe restaurant in Exeter. I challenge anyone not to find the entire thing completely absurd, or even analogous to a potential comedy sketch: an utter incompetent chooses of all places, one of the most bourgeois and trendy franchise restaurants to deliver his payload, but instead of successfully putting together his "bomb", if a concoction of caustic soda and kerosene can really be described as a bomb, he instead gets trapped in the toilet cubicle, with the mixture going off in his face. Somehow, rather than treating this with about the level of concern that it deserved, he is unaccountably charged with attempted murder, when the only person he came close to killing was himself. It's worth keeping in mind that the failed Glasgow airport attacker, despite launching two failed assaults, was not charged with attempted murder, but rather with conspiracy to murder and conspiracy to cause explosions. You have to wonder whether this was purely technical: Abu Beavis and Abu Butthead failed to cause any explosion; Reillly did, even though it went off in his face, therefore he could technically of killed someone, hence attempted murder.
Even so, for Reilly to be sentenced to 18 years in prison seems to be out of all proportion to his crime. Yes, his intention probably was, if he could, to kill as many people as possible, but he transparently failed in that aim. Moreover, everyone seems to agree that Reilly was preyed upon, although it seems he was self-radicalised, and that his Asperger's syndrome was more than a factor. It seems equally likely that he could, through personal programmes and direct help, be deradicalised fairly easily. At most, a sentence of around 5 years would have seen justice served, and everyone could have treated it as the joke it was and should have been. 18 years is the biggest gag of all, except for Reilly himself and his family.
With that in mind, it seems even more difficult to countenance the attitude taken towards Nicky Reilly and his comprehensively failed suicide attack in a Giraffe restaurant in Exeter. I challenge anyone not to find the entire thing completely absurd, or even analogous to a potential comedy sketch: an utter incompetent chooses of all places, one of the most bourgeois and trendy franchise restaurants to deliver his payload, but instead of successfully putting together his "bomb", if a concoction of caustic soda and kerosene can really be described as a bomb, he instead gets trapped in the toilet cubicle, with the mixture going off in his face. Somehow, rather than treating this with about the level of concern that it deserved, he is unaccountably charged with attempted murder, when the only person he came close to killing was himself. It's worth keeping in mind that the failed Glasgow airport attacker, despite launching two failed assaults, was not charged with attempted murder, but rather with conspiracy to murder and conspiracy to cause explosions. You have to wonder whether this was purely technical: Abu Beavis and Abu Butthead failed to cause any explosion; Reillly did, even though it went off in his face, therefore he could technically of killed someone, hence attempted murder.
Even so, for Reilly to be sentenced to 18 years in prison seems to be out of all proportion to his crime. Yes, his intention probably was, if he could, to kill as many people as possible, but he transparently failed in that aim. Moreover, everyone seems to agree that Reilly was preyed upon, although it seems he was self-radicalised, and that his Asperger's syndrome was more than a factor. It seems equally likely that he could, through personal programmes and direct help, be deradicalised fairly easily. At most, a sentence of around 5 years would have seen justice served, and everyone could have treated it as the joke it was and should have been. 18 years is the biggest gag of all, except for Reilly himself and his family.
Labels: comedy, criminal justice system, Exeter bomb explosion, jihadists, Nicky Reilly, sentencing, terror, terrorism
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Funny you should say this, as I went to a comedy gig on Thursday where two of the three comedians had a significant proportion of their set devoted to taking the piss out of terrorism.
"Don't you ever just get the feeling that all the good suicide bombers are dead?"
It really is about time that we laughed more at all of this.
Side Note: the other significant proportion of sets were about public perceptions of interaction with kids as paedophilia, all around my kind of comedy.
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Saturday, January 31, 2009 12:59:00 pm
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