The Faithless Men
21st February 2015
Hundreds of people attended the funeral of Omar Abdel Hamid El-Hussein, the man who attacked a cafe and a synagogue in Copenhagen. Estimates put the crowd attending who attended his funeral at from 600-700 — this, in Denmark. Many were masked and flashed the ISIS salute. “Up to half of the attendees, who were all men, had masked their faces with jackets or scarves. More directed their index fingers toward the sky, while others beat their chests with a clenched fist.”
It is hard to square the sight of that funeral, with its open defiance, symbolisms and militancy, with the media narrative — a line which the president has sought to advance – that people like the Denmark shooter are crazy. That they are “Lone Wolves”; disturbed individuals and marginalized persons who belong to no larger community of belief.
They cannot bring themselves to admit that Omar Abdel Hamid El-Hussein was in his own way a sincere adherent of a cause because they would have to admit the cause. Instead the public is encouraged to denigrate him and those like him as lunatics. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Denmark shooter fought against overwhelming odds and tied up a European capital city for hours.