Show us entire video
Canadians should have seen the video made by Michael Zehaf-Bibeau months ago. Even now, astoundingly, the RCMP won’t show us the whole thing. Commissioner Bob Paulson had better have a sound investigative or ethical reason for censoring the video, because Canadians have been treated like children long enough.
Paulson said 18 seconds had been edited out, for “operational” reasons he would not disclose. Presumably, if the reasons truly are “operational,” we’ll be able to see the edited parts eventually.
In the video, Zehaf-Bibeau says that his actions are “in retaliation for Afghanistan and because Harper wants to send his troops to Iraq.” He includes himself among the “mujahedeen of this world.” He rambles about Canadian society, although he was born and raised in this country: “It’s a disgrace you guys have forgotten God and have you let (sic) every indecency and things running your land. We don’t, we don’t go for this.”
In other words, vague Islamist boilerplate.
The long wait, the dramatic buildup and the mysterious edits imbued this video with political significance it would not have had if the RCMP had simply shown it to Canadians in the days after the attack. This is convenient for the government, which uses the Oct. 22 attack as a justification for its terrorism legislation.
It is reasonable to call Zehaf-Bibeau a terrorist: he targeted civilians and had an ideological motivation. It is reasonable to point out that he had a history of addiction and mental illness, that there are reasons why he might have been particularly vulnerable to radicalization. Those facts do not mitigate one whit against the need to guard against terrorism, and they do not necessarily imply that Zehaf-Bibeau was unaware of what he was doing or unaware of right and wrong.
“Mentally ill” does not always, or even usually, equal “not criminally responsible.” But these facts do mitigate against the government’s insistence that terrorists are terrorists because they’re terrorists, that there is nothing to be gained from understanding how they think or how they’re recruited, that the way to prevent men like Zehaf-Bibeau from taking up arms is to broaden surveillance, disrupt their activities and criminalize expression.
In fact, the release of the video demonstrates the foolishness of keeping information from the public for the public’s ostensible protection. The proposed law against the promotion or advocacy of terrorism is misguided and undemocratic.
The banality and fundamental stupidity of evil needs to be continually uncovered and exposed to the light of day, so we know what we’re dealing with, and can counter it more effectively.