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October 20, 2024 - 1:00pm
In 2018 Alek Minassian rammed a truck into a group of pedestrians on a sidewalk in Toronto, killing 11. Minassian, who had initially justified his atrocity as part of an “incel rebellion”, had autism and at his trial his defence tried to argue that this played a role in his decision-making and lack of empathy. Is there a relationship between terrorism and autism?
A recent investigative report in The Financial Times tackles this very question, answering broadly in the affirmative: yes, there does seem to be a relationship between the two and we should all be alarmed about this. The report’s author, Helen Warrell, writes that according to estimates from psychiatrists working with UK counter-terrorism police, “people with autism account for about 13% of their casework, against a population base-rate of 1%”.
She also cites alarming data from the Home Office about Prevent, the UK’s de-radicalisation programme. Of those who are referred to this programme and whose cases are deemed serious enough to warrant an intervention, one-quarter have autism. “It seems that a high number of minors with neurodiversity are being swept up in a programme designed to reduce the threat of violent extremism,” she writes, alluding to the nub of the issue. Which, roughly, is this: are autistic people a threat to national security in the UK or is the national security state creating a threat where none really exists? The report largely dodges this question.
Warrel correctly notes that the “vast majority of people with autism pose no terrorist risk or danger to society”, but “they may be more vulnerable to grooming and radicalisation”. She further explains that extremists even have an expression for the process by which autistic people can be manipulated to join their causes: “weaponised autism”. This, I must confess, was news to me.
What is the evidence to show that terrorist groups are deliberately targeting autistic people for recruitment? And when did terrorist groups decide that recruiting autistic people was a good idea? And if indeed autistic people are especially vulnerable to terrorist recruitment, which is questionable, why do so few go on to commit actual terrorist attacks? Warrel says little about this and concedes that the available evidence is thin, noting the “relative infancy of research into autism and extremism”.
What she does instead is relay an anecdote from Alistair Barfield, who was diagnosed with autism as a boy and who now works as a consultant for Prevent. Here’s the anecdote. At university, Barfield discovered a game called “Warhammer”, which led him to 4chan and gaming sites and then it happens. “Before long,” she notes, “he was wearing a Maga cap and had become a disciple of the American far-right conspiracist Alex Jones. Barfield wore a T-shirt that read “facts don’t care about your feelings” to lectures and sought out arguments with “the Libs”. He’d started down the path to extremism but, at the last moment, pulled back.
It’s a revealing tale, not just because of its faux coherence, but because it tells you something about the biases of the journalist who thinks it’s worth relaying: that wearing a Maga cap is a sign of extremism and that the journey towards politically motivated mass murder starts with owning the Libs. A more sceptical observer might have shown more curiosity about the performative logic of Barfield’s origin story, which serves to establish his credentials as an extremism consultant, “providing training to schools, colleges and community groups about combating extremism”.
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SubscribeSo we can link terrorism and autism, but we can’t link terrorism and Islam. Got it.
Prevent now invite suspects to psychiatric evaluation sessions to evaluate if they are autistic or not?
Or are they accessing confidential medical records?
When an individual is referred to Prevent there is an interview with counter-terrorism police or social workers. They will ask referees about their health among other things. Thus Prevent’s information about “neurodiversity” of referrals is provided solely by the individuals referred and is not vetted.
Where it gets interesting is there is a whole array of websites dedicated to helping those referred to Prevent. Many of these websites are organised by groups who are at the fringes of the very groups who do radicalise. They understand that playing the victim card is a smart way to deflect and even delay a Prevent referral being escalated to a Channel programme.
Knowing this, it doesn’t take a genius to see Prevent’s numbers on the neurodiversity of referees might be a tad suspect. However, it suits the Prevent programme because it helps them persuade themselves that the problem isn’t you know what. This is just one weakness amongst many in a programme that cannot adequately deal with the Lebanonisation of the UK.
In order to buy the argument that, whilst young people with autism might be more vulnerable to being recruited into a terrorist network but aren’t an actual danger to the public at large, the author would need to evidence the relative ratios of those with autism recruited into a network against the overall numbers of those recruited. I say this on the basis that anyone recruited into a terrorist network (i.e. one that carries out actual acts of terrorism, rather than supporting a particular political creed) should be viewed as being a threat.
He uses this same argument to show the relative numbers with autism within networks compared with the overall population, but fails to follow through with the equally relevant stats; or, if they’re not yet available, at least make that point instead of relying on ‘intuition’, which then looks very much like a case of trying to plead for autism not to be stigmatised on this basis – an argument which in general i’d be very much in agreement.
Simon raises a very good point. Is this a case of overreaction by the authorities?
Remember the autistic girl in Leeds last year, who got into hot water over alleged homophobia? All that happened, is that she said a police officer looked like a lesbian.
Tactlessness is an autistic trait. It is not the same thing as extremism.
I wonder if all those who self diagnosed as autistic are now wondering if they might be potential terrorist risks?
The phrase “weaponized autism” is not new, but its etymology comes from the world of edgy memes rather than serious counterterrorism efforts: https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/weaponized-autism .
Perhaps the claim says more about the prejudices of those pushing these dubious hypotheses than about the terms used by actual terrorist groups.
Clinicians at the Tavistock clinic, England’s gender clinic for children, estimated that upwards of 35 percent (both male and female) of the children they transitioned were autistic. Most of them had been diagnosed, and some they believed were autistic, although they had not been professionally diagnosed. So, if autistic children can be groomed to believe that they can literally change their sex, they can certainly be groomed by terrorists.
I object.
Where is the person that does transgender rights? Just because a person is autistic and feels like changing gender does not then mean they are capable terrorists.
Terrorists want to kill people. I don’t think people that change gender have murderous terrorist impulses. Do you?
I don’t think autistic people have murderous terrorist impulses either.
Think about what you are conflating.
How many transgender terrorists do you know?
I’m not sure the transgender rights people would agree they are ‘grooming’ people either.
This is the most ridiculous f*cking article and comment I’ve read all day.
N*zi police state.
‘The bigger story that is obfuscated in Warrell’s report is how the involvement of young and autistic people in UK counter-terrorism casework reflects not a new reality of terrorism but the changing reality of UK counter-terrorism, where the definition of terrorism is stretched to include watching extremist content on the internet. It also reveals just how many extremism experts and consultants think that extremism is wearing a Maga hat and that being “recruited” to a terrorist group is “liking” an inflammatory post.’
How many attacks have there been on British soil by an autistic terrorist?
None.
One case study in America, an enormous country with millions of people, throws up one or two people that have got lost on the Internet that are also autistic, so we must persecute all autistic people? Because some kid wore a maga hat? Are you not allowed to like a post without having the government shoved up your arse? Are they then going to say that autistic people are more capable of being terrorists? What are they going to do, turn all the autistic people in the country into a bunch of Winstons from 1984, and watch them more closely than others?
Another excuse for government to intrude on your life, simply for being autistic, you could be referred to anti terrorist unit over a ‘normal’ person?
Is anyone aware that belongs in 1930s Germany?
Where is this going to end.
Weimar.
“How dare you” I can believe it somewhat, though there are likely a lot of other factors that need to be present.