Dismantling Woolwich: terrorism ‘pure and simple’?

Abstract

On 22 May 2013 a British soldier, Fusilier Lee Rigby, was brutally killed in Woolwich, London; the two men guilty of his murder are British born Michael Adebowale and Michael Adebolajo. The motives for this attack were purported as the involvement of the British Government in the wars in the Middle East since 2001. Uniquely video footage of the attack and its aftermath were captured by passers-by and broadcast extensively in the British media causing the binaries of this event to be presented as glaringly obvious: Fusilier Rigby was the victim of this brutal act, and Adebowale and Adebolajo are terrorists responsible for murder. Although the roles of the ‘criminal’ and ‘victim’ appear well defined in this incident, as ‘witnesses’ to such events criminologists are morally compelled – as Richard Quinney (1998) would suggest – to address who and what we consider to be both criminal and victimising.