A-Infos (en) wsm.ie: Cavan Murders: No Excuses for Domestic Violence

The story of the Cavan murders is one of male entitlement and violence, not mental 
illness. ---- We can all agree that the recent murders by a man in Co. Cavan, whereby he 
stabbed his wife and children to death before hanging himself, are horrific, disturbing, 
and tragic. But it's clear we can't all agree beyond that point. ---- At first I ignored 
this story because I didn't cop onto the political significance of it. I try to ignore 
what I see as senseless tragedies that don't have much broader significance, like plane 
crashes, regular oul' murders, natural disasters, because I see it as an unnecessary 
emotional burden. But when I saw people making excuses for this brutal attack, and others 
rightly pointing out what this all said about our society, I changed my tack.

It's about the power of framing a situation. There are people going around, in their 
homes, in the pub, in comment sections on the internet, humanising this murderer, and 
excusing his actions using the Mental Health magic wand we're used to having waved in 
front of our faces whenever a white man commits what in another instance (different 
melanin levels, country of origin, religion) would be denounced as the most clear-cut 
barbarism and terrorism.

But worse than that, some people, including a friend of the murderer quoted in the papers, 
are dispensing the same 'pillar of the community' platitudes we've seen applied to serial 
killers and rapists, abusive partners, and all sorts of disgusting transgressions, for 
what must be hundreds (or even thousands) of years, as if it was a meaningful thing to say.

I want to speak from personal experience, something that too many people will be able to 
relate to. If there's something I've learned from my time in this human society, it's that 
you can't trust whatever impression others have made on you, whether that's the perception 
that they're a good, decent, person, or that they're happy and not dying on the inside. We 
all trade on carefully constructed veneers, and people with something to hide are 
naturally more deliberate in constructing theirs.

The salient example of this for me is my own father - a sadistic abuser who emotionally 
tormented my nigh on saintly mother for nearly 3 decades. But as a master image-crafter he 
managed to create a situation where she was villified, and he got away with it, leveraging 
the same kind of 'pillar of the community' horseshit which most people (for understandable 
reasons) believe. Isn't he such a helpful neighbour, doesn't he have such lofty political 
opinions, isn't he so charming, isn't he such an involved father.

The same sick sexist story. For the record, these are all things that people thought about 
the serial killer Ted Bundy. The point being you have no idea what happens behind your 
back. Especially with the men that you know - that is a brutal fact of this society.

The mental health excuses are similarly hollow and demonstrative. The most spurious claim 
put forward by some is that the man murdered his wife and children because he had a 
psychotic episode.

This is presumably because these people cannot fathom the idea that a normal-seeming man 
(from the outside) could do such a thing. A man who is, of course, immediately assumed to 
be of good character, who isn't a black-clad ISIS militant screaming 'Allah hu akbar!' or 
a dirty sneering eye-patch wearing convicted criminal.

In any case, the murders were clearly very pre-meditated, the man having attached a note 
to the house's outside door warning visitors not to come in and to call 112. Another note 
was left inside, the contents of which have not been released. These are not the 
indicators of someone who suddenly snapped, lost their comprehension of ordinary reality, 
and succumbed to psychotic rage. (Again from personal experience, I was fortunate enough 
to have a psychotic episode, and I can't imagine doing things in the planned and 
structured way he obviously did).

These are the indicators of someone who relatively soberly planned the execution of his 
family. It says something worrying about our society that so many people find it hard to 
believe this, and instantly reach for what is essentially a deus ex machina / magic 
explanation.

But let's look more generally at the mental illness excuse. Why is this murderer's mental 
illness a mitigating factor to the point where people actually have sympathy for him?

We have heard that he was depressed, he was stressed, his mortgage got him bogged down, 
work was getting to him - regardless of the truth of these statements they are ways to 
personalise rather than politicise this story, treating it as a kind of once-off freak 
accident hinging on one man's personality rather than as an event which reflects our 
damaged society.

The fact is that even if you're depressed, you have a choice in life. Maybe that sounds 
harsh, but it's true. Do I have enough fingers to count the people I hold dear who have 
been majorly depressed, stressed to the point of collapse, or wanted to kill themselves 
(including myself)? I don't think so. But we managed not to murder our loved ones.

The key point here is that these murders are not the tragic outcome of an illness, but of 
an ideology and culture. That ideology and culture is patriarchy and toxic masculinity. 
The critical fact here was that this man thought he owned his wife and children to the 
point that he felt entitled to kill them for his own reasons. They were HIS. No amount of 
depression can necessarily make you think you can decide whether other people live or die. 
That took a deeply sexist paternalistic attitude in this case.

I have seen people (almost entirely men) on the internet scoffing, becoming outraged, at 
the mention of domestic violence in relation to this tragedy - despite it literally being 
a case of a woman and her children being murdered in her home by her partner.

When I was chatting about this with my mother she said he was probably abusive, to be so 
possessive as to take ownership of their lives. Maybe the wife threatened to leave him. 
She knew these were just speculations, and we don't know, but why would these suggestions 
seem to outlandish to some, considering the man murdered his family, considering we live 
in a society where women are plagued by emotional and physical violence left, right, and 
centre. But instead of talking about these issues, the media, and others, are discussing 
the fine points of his supposed mental illness.

There's a general point of the highest importance here. When people do bad things, things 
that hurt others, that ignore their interests, they feel justified. That often includes a 
sense of being hard done by, down on your luck, feeling weak, having something missing. 
This is how people who are not comic-book villains do great harm regardless.

If we as a society accept these excuses and let people off the hook for their abuse, 
neglect, predation, and exploitation, we will reap a field of poison. It is imperative 
that, with a complementary understanding of external factors, we each firmly place 
responsibility for our actions with ourselves.

To be crystal clear, my aim is not to screech at troubled people carrying a heavy mental 
burden. If anything, I'm an advocate for people with mental illness. But this kind of 
black-and-white thinking doesn't help mentally ill people either - we don't benefit from 
an analysis that treats us as spellbound vessels without agency. The reality is more complex.

Lastly, what does this hand-waving do for the potential victims of similar violence? For 
the women and children at risk of being beaten up, or raped, or emotionally scarified, or 
killed, how do they benefit from perpetuating the myth of the 'model citizen' who could 
only do harm if possessed suddenly by evil spirits? Surely their only salvation can come 
by shattering these myths and having an open and tough discussion of the ubiquitous 
dangers of sexism and power.

My thoughts go out to the family and everyone affected. Every word here was written out of 
love and concern for the victims and everyone like them.

WORDS: Eamon Feeney

http://www.wsm.ie/c/cavan-murders-no-excuses-domestic-violence
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S  N E W S  S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
Subscribe/Unsubscribe http://lists.ainfos.ca/mailman/listinfo/a-infos-en
Archive: http://ainfos.ca/en