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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To feel sorry for the mother of the Tunisian gunman

144 replies

namechange4this123 · 05/07/2015 14:27

www.itv.com/news/2015-07-05/mother-of-tunisian-beach-gunman-says-he-refused-to-kill-a-mouse-because-he-couldnt-kill-anything/

I don't think her upset can even remotely compere to the grief of those whose loved ones were murdered in Tunisia.

However I can't imagine how awful it must feel to find out that your child has done such a terrible thing, and have to live with the guilt of this for the rest of your life.

OP posts:
DameDoom · 05/07/2015 15:30

I have a very dear elderly friend who has 2 wonderful children and a brood of gorgeous grandchildren, she is also mother to another child who has committed several heinous crimes. There is not a day goes by without her questioning her parenting and everything she stands for. I do believe she would have topped herself if it weren't for her other children and grandkids. She blames herself for his actions. I have known this lovely family all my life. They are normal in every way apart from the son who was a nasty child and is now an abhorrent adult.
I feel terrible for this Tunisian lady.

AliceInSandwichLand · 05/07/2015 15:37

Those of you who say you don't feel any sympathy for her: how do you think you would react if - God forbid - you had a child who grew up and did something awful? Or if your best friend, or your brother or sister, had a child who grew up and did something awful? Would you try to excuse it? Take the blame yourself? Disown them? Every evil-doer has parents at some stage: are their dreadful actions always the result of their upbringing? Sometimes, of course; but always?

slightlyconfused85 · 05/07/2015 15:43

Yanbu. She has lost her child. He has done an awful thing which she also has to live with for the rest of her days. She has lost her son, and who she thought he was.

Signlake · 05/07/2015 15:50

I'd feel more sorry for her if she didn't speak of him as a victim. He was not a victim, he was a very evil man who murdered innocent people

Ambarholder · 05/07/2015 15:59

Her son is a terrorist, she does not deserve a single second of Greif.

drudgetrudy · 05/07/2015 16:04

Chwatfeatures very,very unkind.
If one of my adult children joined some kind of religious cult and did something like this I would wish that I had never been born and that they had never been born. My distress and shame would be overwhelming.

Parents are not completely responsible for the acts of adult children-they can come under other influences. It is usually young adults with misplaced ideologies that do these things. They are often manipulated by older people with an agenda.
Although they do have moral agency and are not victims in the way the people killed are I can understand that his family would think he was the victim of brainwashing.

I feel very sorry for his mother and feel even more sorry for his victims.
Those two things are not mutually exclusive.

FreudiansSlipper · 05/07/2015 16:17

yanbu

I feel terribly sorry for her how can she possibly make sense of this she must feel terrible confusion and loss. maybe he has been brainwashed, those behind isis are targeting young men many from deprived areas for a reason they are easy to manipulate.

years ago I heard a radio play based on a true story from a parents perspective of a murderer. a young man ( I think he was 21) had raped and murdered a young woman in his town. had never shown signs of aggression before. when his mother heard this on the radio the next day she said she knew, her son had acted strangely that morning and as she was trying to piece things together and dismiss this awful thought the police arrived to question him. he confessed. his father was adamant he didn't want anything to do with him as he was no longer his son and he needed to tell him face to face, the mother just felt utterly bewildered. when the father saw his son he broke down, all he saw in front of him was his little boy, scared and confused he felt all he could do was stand by him. it is a terribly terribly sad situation

my sympathy does not have to be one sided many many people have suffered from the actions of those connected to isis

kali110 · 05/07/2015 16:22

I feel sorry for her. She has lost her son, no matter what he did, to her that was her son.
I feel bad for her in the fact that people will be questioning how she raised him. You can be the best parent in the world and they can still commit these terrible acts.
I have no sympathy for her son he bought it on himself. Her yes i do, she has done nothing wrong except be his mother it seems.

wannaBe · 05/07/2015 16:26

What an astounding lack of empathy on this thread. Sad so if someone commits a crime all of those around them should be found guilty as well? denied the opportunity to grieve for the person they thought they knew? be made to pay the price for the wrongdoings of that person? how very narrow-minded.

This woman has lost her child. Perhaps she lost him last Friday during the shootings, or perhaps she lost him at the point he became radicalised, who knows. There are plenty of people who find it unbelievable that a friend, family member, son, brother, sister can become radicalised in such a way, even the friends of some of the latest family who have gone to Syria believe that they were tricked into going.

Anyone has the capacity to do wrong, be that to commit a horrific crime such as shooting a group of innocent people or even having one too many on a Friday night and then getting behind the wheel of a car and killing an innocent person on the roads. And every time someone commits an act which goes beyond our own moral compass that is someone's son, daughter, brother, sister, and then they too become victims.

We bring up our children to be decent citizens, to do right by those around us, and we hope that they will continue doing so into adulthood. But as our children grow, so their influences expand to beyond just that which we provide. Our children are not carbon copies of ourselves, and any one of them can fall under the wrong influence. And while as individuals we are all responsible for our own actions, we are not responsible for the actions of others.

There but by the grace of God go any of us.

Signlake · 05/07/2015 16:28

maybe he has been brainwashed

Like the three Muslim girls who left Britain to join ISIS? Lots of people were accused as being 'heartless' when they were unsympathetic and others insisted they had been groomed. The parents (one of which held extreme views himself) blamed the police. Here's an article which shows one of the girls laughing at the Tunisian deaths

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3149629/Laugh-loud-UK-schoolgirl-jihadi-s-sick-reaction-Tunisian-massacre-series-extraordinary-online-messages-undercover-MOS-reporter.html#comments

Yes it's The Daily Mail. I don't believe these individuals are brainwashed. I think they're evil

drudgetrudy · 05/07/2015 16:32

I know of someone whose son murdered a child-she was distraught and seeing Mental Health services as a suicide risk.
She was hounded out of her home by people shouting abuse and throwing rocks and rubbish.
Some people I know shocked me by saying they had no sympathy for her as she brought him up. Its strange that people think mothers are so powerful that they are responsible for their children's actions for ever.

sebsmummy1 · 05/07/2015 16:32

I don't think that interview painted the Mother in the best light, perhaps her sympathy for the victims were lost in translation. It seemed as though her primary concern was for herself and her dead terrorist son.

TealFanClub · 05/07/2015 16:33

What about the father?

Oh its the MOTHERS FAULT

Aermingers · 05/07/2015 16:33

I think it's good she's said this. She is not treating him as a hero or a martyr. She is treating him as a stupid boy who was manipulated into doing something evil.

If there are other boys out there considering jihadi attacks I think hat she's said will be a deterrentt.

Gemauve · 05/07/2015 16:35

wannaBe, all of what you say is true.

Right up until the point where the killer's mother claims that he is a victim the same as the people he shot. Not she, which is at least arguable, but he. Unless you're claiming he had no moral agency, he had choices which led up to pulling the trigger. Unless you're arguing that tourists who go to Tunisia should expect to be killed, his victims had no choice and no moral agency in being killed.

She is a victim. Her son is not.

Hot news: the 7/7 bombers aren't victims, either.

ArmySal · 05/07/2015 16:36

So if it emerges she somehow fuelled his hatred, or turned a blind eye to his extremism, will you still pity her then?

so if someone commits a crime all of those around them should be found guilty as well?

Who on earth has said that? Confused

I'll reserve my sympathy for the innocent victims. It can't be proven or disproven if his mother is 'innocent' or not, so no, I don't feel sorry for her either.

crapfatbanana · 05/07/2015 16:36

YANBU.

Her grief also matters.

4EverScottish · 05/07/2015 16:36

I have every sympathy for all of the families involved. The parents of the gunman can't be held responsible for what he chose to do.

Guilt by association isn't legal in this country thank goodness, it is in others I believe, it's totally wrong. Looking on this thread many would seem to support it :(

Gemauve · 05/07/2015 16:37

She is treating him as a stupid boy who was manipulated into doing something evil.

No, she's claiming it wasn't his fault, and he had no agency in the matter.

SantanaLopez · 05/07/2015 16:40

I feel for her. She must have been so proud of him going to university. Dreadful.

wannaBe · 05/07/2015 16:50

'It can't be proven or disproven if his mother is 'innocent' or not, so no, I don't feel sorry for her either." wow. Perhaps we should always take this line then when someone is found guilty of a crime? If the family's involvement can't be disproved then they have no right to sympathy. Let's hope your children never commit a crime then eh, or your dh. If you're associated with them then you'd better be able to prove you weren't involved otherwise why should you get any sympathy?

Perhaps Kay Burley was right to have asked Steve wright's partner whether he would have murdered those women if only she'd had sex with him more often. The woman should clearly have slept with him more often and given she didn't clearly she is responsible for the deaths of those women as well. No? Thought not........

Gemauve · 05/07/2015 16:54

She must have been so proud of him going to university

Engineering, again.

www.theguardian.com/world/2010/jan/05/brain-food-terrorists-engineering

ribbitTheFrog · 05/07/2015 16:55

Yabu. To be honest I'm ambivalent towards the murderers family's feelings, I'm only bothered about the victims.

FreudiansSlipper · 05/07/2015 16:57

yes I do think many young people are being brainwashed

I do not think they are evil, I do not believe people are evil some commit evil acts

like I said before there is a reason why those in power of such groups target young men and women

Gemauve · 05/07/2015 17:03

yes I do think many young people are being brainwashed

Third world terrorists in constant danger of air attack are able to pull off a trick that the entire scientific and medical establishment of the cold war countries never managed to pull off?

If it's so easy to brainwash people in sheds in third world countries, why did all the American and Russian projects to do it fail so miserably? You get that "The Bourne Identity" and "The Manchurian Candidate" and "The Ipcress File" aren't documentaries, yes?