The Raoul Moat Saga

Ever since the tragic events of the 3rd and 10th of July, newspapers, politicians and all entities that one could ascribe the "establishment" label to in any regard have been scathing in their vilification of Raoul Moat. In fairness, as far as anyone can be called a villian; he can. However, the lack of sympathy being shown and the lack of understanding of those who show sympathy is appalling.

To quote the most establishment figure one can find, the Rt. Hon. David Cameron

“I cannot understand any wave, however small, of public sympathy for this man. There should be sympathy for his victims and the havoc he wreaked in that community.” 

So, David, let me try to enlighten you why some people feel sympathy for a killer. There are a few reasons why people do this.

First of all, we must remember that Moat's life story covered miles of news pages and the story had twenty four hour coverage on television. It pervaded the everyday lives of people. Once people saw his background, his breakdown and his kids it became a whole lot easier to humanise him. The word "monster" is used too often by the media to label people, and people readily latch onto it for paedophiles. It's easy to call up images of trolls or other hideous beasts and put paedophiles in the same category as them. In fact it's easy to put any group of people in that category as long as you don't know them. That's basically where racism comes from. Knowing people doesn't necessarily lead to complete understanding, but it does lead to a little understanding and a little sympathy.

Secondly, people are conditioned to root for the underdog. Whether in sports or in life; when someone is facing nigh impossible odds, ninety-nice times out of a hundred the neutral spectator wants the underdog to win for it to be dramatic. Such conditioning has been achieved through years of Hollywood movies where the hero overcomes the forces of the entire universe to rescue the treasure and/or girl. There's a plethora of glorified convicts on the the run from the law in our collective psyche; Ned Kelly, Butch Cassidy, even Robin Hood for crying out loud. Regardless of his crimes, when the faceless state brings all of its draconian powers to bear on one individual, the natural inclination of people is to cheer for the little guy.

Thirdly, the manner of his death. It was a tragedy. Any death is. Worse than that, it was a tragedy which many see as have being preventable. The police had Moat surrounded for over five hours before he shot himself. I'm going to bet I'm not the only one thinking that some form of tranquillizer or something could have been used to bring him in peacefully. I'm sure the police officers did the best they could, but the feeling still remains.

Lastly, someone died. It is perfectly natural to feel sympathy when someone dies, regardless of whether you know the person or not. People should be celebrating the fact that we are able to feel sympathy for killers. Empathising and sympathising with other people is what gels society. A lack of empathy and sympathy is what makes it possible for people to commit violent crime. We feel sympathy, thus we have not turned into the animal during the hunt.

So rather than condemning the sympathy, we should try to understand it and focus it on the positives. The messages being sent out by the Prime Minister and the rest of the establishment only serves to divide the state further from people and hardly serves the purpose of building Mr. Cameron's "Big Society".