Mick Hartley

Joan Smith's book Home Grown: How Domestic Violence Turns Men Into Terrorists made the connection between terrorism and violence against women. Terrorists, it seems, are very likely to be violent misogynists. She writes about it in the Guardian – What do many terrorists have in common? They abuse women:

Five years ago, I began to notice that the perpetrators of some of the worst terrorist attacks had something in common. A high proportion shared a history of assaulting wives, girlfriends and other female relatives, sometimes involving a whole series of victims, long before they attacked total strangers.

In the summer of 2016, for example, when just two terrorist attacks in Florida and the south of France left 135 people dead and hundreds injured, both perpetrators claimed to be Islamists. But I was struck by the fact that each had a horrific record of domestic violence.

A year later, there were four fatal attacks in the UK and all six perpetrators turned out either to have abused women or, in one case, to have witnessed his father abusing his mother and sister. There were striking similarities between the histories of Darren Osborne, the rightwing extremist who drove a van into worshippers leaving a mosque in north London, and Khalid Masood, the Islamist who staged an attack on Westminster Bridge. Both men had criminal records for violent offences – and both had abused women.

It wasn't a theory that gathered much interest from the authorities at first, but some new research lends considerable support:

They commissioned groundbreaking research using data on just over 3,000 referrals to the Prevent programme in England and Wales in 2019 – adults and children who had caused concern to teachers, social workers and family members because of a possible vulnerability to radicalisation (V2R). The results of what came to be called Project Starlight have not yet been published, but I have been given access to them – and they are stunning.

Almost 40% of adult referrals had a history of domestic abuse either as perpetrators, witnesses or victims – or a combination of all three. This is likely to be an underestimate, given that domestic violence is one of the most under-reported crimes, but it provides some idea of prevalence for the first time. The comparable figure for children is 30%, another likely underestimate because under-16s were not routinely questioned about domestic abuse in the home.

There were many more men than women among the sample and the research showed another significant difference between the sexes: male referrals were more likely to be perpetrators of domestic abuse, while the women were more likely to be victims. But what is really shocking is the extent and seriousness of the violence disclosed in family histories. “Incidents recorded ranged from children witnessing domestic abuse in their households to people being convicted of the attempted murder of their partner.”

As I expected, the link is visible across ideologies, from Islamists and rightwing extremists to the fifth of the sample where no known ideology was identified. This confirms my theory that terrorism is at least as much about male violence as ideology, suggesting that angry young men are attracted to extremist ideas that appear to “justify” their grievances. The route from victim to perpetrator is not inevitable but it is well known, and the research reveals that almost 16% of adult V2R referrals had been victims of domestic abuse, nearly three times higher than the estimated national figure….

Another reason why extremist organisations appeal to aggrieved men is, I’m afraid, their misogyny. When the Project Starlight researchers looked for a link between V2R referrals and hate crime, they did not find it – but they did find one with woman-hating. Indeed so-called incels – bitter young men who blame women for their inability to get sex – have carried out fatal attacks in the US and Canada….

Worth reading in full.