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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

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:
lougle · 05/07/2015 21:05

I feel sorry for her. Truly I do. I feel sorry for anyone whose loved one does something atrocious.

kali110 · 05/07/2015 21:09

The question was should we feel sympathy for thismother and yes some people have judged this poor woman on how she has raised her son.

Mrsd completely agree with your post.

downgraded · 05/07/2015 21:11

No but by beginning to blame his family (well, I don't see anyone except the mother mentioned here so far) you are taking some of the heat off him as a free agent and master of his own decisions. Whether or not that decision happened at the beginning of the radicalisation or whether you take it as happening as he stood on the beach in Tunisia.

If you start to blame the family, does that mean we should be looking at the families of those young girls and other young people in the UK who have taken off to Syria? Should we be placing blame on families there? What about schools? (Non radicalising) Religious leaders? Where does it end?

Should we be blaming the families of the boys who took the artefacts from Auschwitz? Or the girl who took her top off on Mount Kinabalu? Is her mother to blame for not teaching her decency and respect?

I can't imagine what the Tunisian terrorist's mother is going through. I think it's actually a hell of a lot harder for her than for the victims' families. They can grieve. She isn't allowed to be seen to be grieving her son. The other families will always be seen as victims. She will be seen as somehow responsible. Hell, she'll feel somehow responsible even if the act is as abhorrent to her as it is to any of us.

That's how it goes as a mother.

FreudiansSlipper · 05/07/2015 21:19

Great post MrsD

I am sure most of us have seen footage of his families home (or rather outside) and the town he grew up in. Hardly a life of privilege I am sure most people are just doing their best to get by and bring their families up the best they can with sadly not much hope for a better future

MistressDeeCee · 05/07/2015 21:22

Threads like this do my head in at times. The Tunisia atrocity is new, fresh and still shocking it is TOO SOON to be asking people to think about whether the mother is a victim, the son was a victim, the whole debate with some saying yes, some saying no, the whys & wherefores

It seems nowadays before there has been any healing, time to take in shocking events in this world, before the murdered have even been laid to rest, there's an unseemly haste to want people to look at the murderer and his relatives' side of the story.

Whilst I do think its a conversation to be had sorry, I think its insensitive right now

downgraded · 05/07/2015 21:26

Mistress I respectfully disagree.

This is the conversation that everyone has in the pub directly after anything newsworthy has happened. It just so happens that in 2015 that hat happens online.

It's part of processing it - discussing, trying to understand. I don't think there's anything wrong in it (sensitively discussed of course).

PHANTOMnamechanger · 05/07/2015 21:41

excellent posts from MrsDV and Wannabe earlier on.

OP, YANBU, I feel for this poor woman. her life can never be the same, her son is dead, she has to live with what he did, peoples opinions of her, and constantly questioning could she have prevented this, could anything she said or did in the days leading up to the attack have changed the course of history. All her memories of her sons childhood, all her photos of family events, all ruined forever. Poor poor woman, I have nothing but sympathy for her.

Bakeoffcake · 05/07/2015 21:45

I agree with you Mistress.

Andro · 05/07/2015 22:13

That mother became a victim of terrorism the day her son was radicalised, she is her own child's final victim - her son chose this for her.

Any parent who loses a child, whether through illness, accident, suicide, murder or even the death penalty should have their pain acknowledged. Condemn the the crime this man committed, but don't devalue another human because of them.

duplodon · 05/07/2015 22:24

What a nasty soulless thread. There but for the grace of God and all of that. It could happen to any of us. We do not control our children.

Ridiculous to say her grief doesn't compare. Why not? Her son is dead. All stories of right and wrong fade fast when you have that to face. Her child is dead. Feel the weight of that for a second before you point the finger.

thenightsky · 05/07/2015 22:30

I don't think the thread is nasty or soul-less. The majority of posters have sympathy with that mother as far as I can see, and rightly so. We are all mothers, the majority (I hope) who can only imagine the despair and pain that poor woman is going through.

Happfeet2911 · 05/07/2015 22:59

Sorry, her grief is the least of my worries. My sympathy goes out to the poor bastards murdered by her deranged offspring!

maggieryan · 05/07/2015 23:01

All I can say is God love that poor woman "those that are rearing should be sparing"..

MrsDeVere · 05/07/2015 23:05

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Imustgodowntotheseaagain · 05/07/2015 23:07

YANBU, OP. Of course we can feel sympathy for her without condoning or excusing what her son has done. Everyone asking what she did to 'encourage' him - did you ask the same about the mother of the boy who stabbed Ann Maguire in Leeds?

seagreengirl · 05/07/2015 23:22

MistressDeeCee

I agree. Of course she is suffering, it goes without saying. Of course she is to be pitied. But she should not have spoken out at such a time. I'm sorry but she should have had respect for her son's victims. I'm afraid her place is now to keep out of the papers, and I would say that of all parents of people that commit atrocious crimes.

Buttercupsandaisies · 05/07/2015 23:31

My understanding is they've arrested many of his friends and girlfriend etc already. There's no way I'd be feeling sympathy at all until proven they weren't involved.

Sky news interviewed his flat mate the other day who said they all knew he was with Isis and that he knew he'd been training in Libia etc earlier this year. if they knew (and it was apparently open knowledge at the college for the six months previously) what's to say she didn't? so no I'm not convinced yet that she didn't know.

downgraded · 06/07/2015 05:58

Actually I think as a mother you're quite often the last to know what's really going on.

PHANTOMnamechanger · 06/07/2015 07:17

I'm afraid her place is now to keep out of the papers

Hmm maybe she never read that page of the 'how to be a mother' manual?
Hmm maybe she is just reeling with total shock and misery and not able to think straight?

FWIW, I have known victims of IRA bombings, families who have lost children or parents, and bourne no hatred towards the parents of the attackers AT ALL, even going as far as forgiving those who committed the atrocities. I also know someone whose 7 yo son was killed by a drunk driver. They too managed to forgive, despite their huge pain, and NEVER judged and condemned the poor parents of the young driver- recognising that they were hurt and forever changed by the incident too.

lougle · 06/07/2015 07:54

Compassion isn't a bowl of sugar that runs out. We don't have to choose to have compassion either for the victims or the mother. We can have both.

The whole nature of radicalisation is that the extreme becomes the normal. It's insidious. Nobody starts the journey to radicalisation thinking 'yeah I want to be a murderer!' They are targeted for their vulnerability. It's no surprise that he grew up in less than ideal circumstances. He was groomed - they all are.

Why is it that we accept that young people can be groomed to form sexual relationships that they otherwise wouldn't consider, we can accept that some vulnerable women can be groomed to perform awful acts against their children by a paedophile, we can accept that some women can be groomed to accept terrible DV as if it is just what they deserve in life, but we can't accept that some young people can be groomed to perform acts that they would otherwise have found to be abhorrent?

This is evil in action and I don't believe that, by the time they actually do the attack, many of these radicalised young people are 'free agents'. They are ensnared both physically and mentally. Yes, they may have had some choices in the very early days and they may have made some mistakes, but they were never free agents. They were chosen because they fit a profile. They were chosen for their vulnerability and exploited.

MrsDeVere · 06/07/2015 07:57

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Flowerfae · 06/07/2015 08:06

don't know her personally so couldn't tell if she knew or not ... if she knew what he was like and raised him to be like that, no I don't feel sorry for her, but if she didn't I do feel very sorry for her.

MrsDeVere · 06/07/2015 08:33

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

blueshoes · 06/07/2015 08:40

Out of respect for the true victims of this massacre, she should just shut her mouth. I doubt if I care to get to the bottom of whether her son was a victim and whether she raised him to do this.

blueshoes · 06/07/2015 08:44

Bear in mind that if she did indeed play a part in radicalising him (that is a big IF because I have not a clue), this is the ONLY thing she can say to save her own skin.