Belfast another appalling attack, we need to ask what is driving this.

Sago

I want to understand why.

Is it because they are disillusioned on arrival, were they sold a dream?
Is it a gang mentality, could they be mentally ill, are they escaping their own countries to avoid prison sentences?

Is there something we could be doing to prevent this behaviour?

It is that the reporting of incidents involving non British people as perpetrators are automatically headline news. If you type knife stabbing and the name of your nearest city, a frightening amount of incidents will appear, most of which involve teenagers, and don’t receive a great deal of publicity unless somebody is actually killed.
Here is the other side of the coin.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c5yej4m190po#:~:text=The%20pair%20attacked%20Kamran%20Aman,floor%20of%20a%20neighbour's%20house.

Sago

I want to understand why.

Is it because they are disillusioned on arrival, were they sold a dream?
Is it a gang mentality, could they be mentally ill, are they escaping their own countries to avoid prison sentences?

Is there something we could be doing to prevent this behaviour?

Possibly the same reason Alina Burns attempted to behead a Kurdish barber with an axe.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crmpejxlm7do

Granatlast007

If you look at the N Irish news there is a tad more detail, it appears that the attacker was Somali.

Somalia is a dangerous country that all Western nations warn their citizens not to visit. I remember hearing a Women's Hour programme once about trauma and how there is no mental health care for immigrants who may have suffered terrible things.

I only saw one mention of the background of the Stockport killer, his parents were from Rwanda which was the site of the terrible massacres of Tutsi people by Hutus in 1994 and I thought of what such a family/young boy must have seen.

Irish history itself is a story of colonial domination and the trouble it brings. There are never easy answers to these events and some answers are those that others would prefer not to consider. It's probably easier to do that if you've lived a life of relative comfort and safety.

The Stockport killer was born in Cardiff.

I thought England's first colony was Wales!

Yes, but it you just say it's an individual action, that's ok on one level, of course it's an individual but in an increasingly unequal country and world, violence and terrorism aren't going away.

Considering whatever community you like to focus on, people feel afraid, aren't getting their needs met and some of those people won't just accept or might not be able to and one day they break. There's none so blind as those who can't, or don't want, to see.

It's a shame that the fact that it's Northern Ireland which I saw labelled as England's first colony only the other day, will encourage people to ignore the poverty and misery in which so many live.

Sago

I want to understand why.

Is it because they are disillusioned on arrival, were they sold a dream?
Is it a gang mentality, could they be mentally ill, are they escaping their own countries to avoid prison sentences?

Is there something we could be doing to prevent this behaviour?

Surely it doesn’t take a vivid imagination to understand that people fleeing warn torn countries may have been subjected to horrific things, often from childhood?

JaxJacky 👍

The best comment I have read:
Northern Ireland knows well the danger of blaming an entire community for the deeds of an individual or small faction. In the hours, days and weeks ahead, we would ask people to bear that in mind."

I want to understand why.

Is it because they are disillusioned on arrival, were they sold a dream?
Is it a gang mentality, could they be mentally ill, are they escaping their own countries to avoid prison sentences?

Is there something we could be doing to prevent this behaviour?

It was an attempted beheading and the attacker was from Somalia.

Have just googled this, all msm are calling the attacker a Somalian

Unfortunately the video footage came up, despite immediately turning it off that image will remain with me

Silvershadow

It is very clear on the video that the attacker isn’t Irish. All newspapers are reporting the attacker as a Somali.

I wasn't suggesting that the attacker was Irish, though there are brown Irish people as others suggest, I was making a broader point about oppressed peoples and the difficult lives they and their parents/ancestors may have had. The existence of trauma handed down the generations and bringing poor mental health is now pretty accepted.
I'm not pro immigration but I don't think life is as easy as some of them have been led to believe and there is trouble in Ireland and the north about immigrant hostels. I can easily believe that this could lead to violence.

Basgetti

This man is reportedly Somali but there are brown Irish people you know, Silvershadow.

Just what I was going to say Basgetti.

This man is reportedly Somali but there are brown Irish people you know, Silvershadow.

It is very clear on the video that the attacker isn’t Irish. All newspapers are reporting the attacker as a Somali.

If you look at the N Irish news there is a tad more detail, it appears that the attacker was Somali.

Somalia is a dangerous country that all Western nations warn their citizens not to visit. I remember hearing a Women's Hour programme once about trauma and how there is no mental health care for immigrants who may have suffered terrible things.

I only saw one mention of the background of the Stockport killer, his parents were from Rwanda which was the site of the terrible massacres of Tutsi people by Hutus in 1994 and I thought of what such a family/young boy must have seen.

Irish history itself is a story of colonial domination and the trouble it brings. There are never easy answers to these events and some answers are those that others would prefer not to consider. It's probably easier to do that if you've lived a life of relative comfort and safety.

Very wise.

I read the BBC account of the attack which says very little apart from the 'believed' ethnicity of the attacker.

Unless there is another account to be found with more factual detail I would prefer not to comment until more is known about it.

Every population has its share of mentally ill or hate filled people.