Munich Shootings Linked to CS:GO; TV Station Bans ELeague Coverage; But What’s Really Going on?

After a TV station in Germany cancels coverage of Turner Broadcast’s ELeague Counter-Strike: Global Offensive tournament after Bavarian investigators link the game to a murderous rampage in Munich, Lee Davy ponders if video games are to blame for such atrocities? Late Friday afternoon, a child walks into a McDonald’s bathroom in Munich, Germany. Anyone who has visited the loo in Ronald’s home knows it’s tight. There isn’t much wiggle room. And the child sees a teenager loading a Glock-17 pistol. He probably thought it was a Happy Meal toy. My name is Lee. I am half Chinese. My mother named me after Bruce Lee. When I was 10, I watched Enter the Dragon and then proceeded to batter my 8-year old sister with as many karate moves as I could muster. Later that year I watched the movie American Ninja, made a sword out of a branch, and would push the playground swings as high as I could and then dodge them as if I was a ninja. When my mates and I got into American wrestling, we created a ring made out of mattresses, recorded entrance music, made costumes, and beat the shit out of each other. It’s what kids do. We imitate what’s in front of us. I didn’t harm my sister, I didn’t use a real sword, and I never held onto my figure-fore leglock after my mate had tapped the mattress. I knew my limits. But it seems not everyone does. On Wednesday night I was in the audience at Agape Spiritual Church listening to Reverend Michael Bernard Beckwith give one of the most illuminating, thought-provoking, and inspirational speeches of my 41 years on this earth. “Imagine what would happen if we turned on the news and they only broadcast success stories?” Beckwith pondered. I am not religious. I am not even sure I understand what spirituality is. But I believe in logic. If all you see around you is good, then surely goodness will breed. And so what about evil? March 2009. Tim Kretschmer, a 17-year old from Winnenden in Germany, killed 16 people, and injured nine more in his former school and a car dealership, before turning the weapon on himself. July 2011, Anders Behring Breivik, a Norwegian far-right terrorist, killed over 70 people during a murderous rampage on the Norwegian island of Utøya. May 2016, a 27-year old man, known as Paul H, shouted ‘Allahu Akbar’ before stabbing people on a German train before police shot him dead. And there are currently 479,422 people playing Counter-Strike: Global Offensive (CS: GO) on Steam, a professional eSports game where teams of terrorists kill teams of counter-terrorists using a broad range of weapons such as guns and knives. On Friday, the teenager who was seen loading his weapon in McDonalds proceeded to kill ten people and injure 20 more before turning the gun on himself. According to Bavarian officials investigating the case an Iranian-born German teenager called David Sonboly was responsible or the attack. The mother of the young child who first saw Sonboly loading his weapon told reporters she heard him cry “Allahu Akbar” before commencing his murderous spree. Those same investigators believe Sonboly’s interest in the three massacres outlined above, and his love for Valve’s computer game, coupled with a history of mental illness, are the reasons behind the flipped switch. So, can a computer game be blamed for a murderous riot? It’s an interesting question. German TV channel ProSieben MAXX is taking no chances. They rather wisely cancelled their footage of Turner Broadcast’s ELeague CS:GO Tournament Semi-Finals. Matthias Remmert, CEO, said that it “was sad that such an event takes away the chance to show every non-eSports fan how awesome this sport can be.” A Reuters report quoted Robert Heimberger, president of the state crime office in Bavaria, as saying that the gunman was an avid player of CS:GO and that it’s ‘a game played by nearly every known rampage killer.’ Judging by the Facebook comments on ProSieben MAXX, there are plenty of CS:GO players who disagree with the decision. I don’t think they should worry. They won’t have to wait too long. Images of terrorists killing terrorists will soon be back on ProSieben MAXX, and if they can’t hold on, all they have to do is keep a keen eye on the major TV networks. There will be another killing spree soon enough. I recently attended a book launch for Freedom: The End of the Human Condition written by biologist Jeremy Griffith. Sir Bob Geldof was the keynote speaker, and this was his opening line: “I’ve never felt the world more threatening, more fractious, more fissiparous, more febrile, more fucked up than it is now.” He continued. “I’m 64. And there seems to be a compulsion amongst human beings that when things just get too much, too tense, then why not just engage in a bit of bloodletting.” He believes the answer lies within the minds of thinkers like Griffith: “We need to think, we need new ideas, we need proselytisers, we need obsessed people, which I think Jeremy is. We need him to be questioned. We need it [FREEDOM] to be argued, we need it to be read and talked about and understood. It may be right; it may be wrong. But you need someone as committed to trying to understand what gets us here time after time. We must be better than that. We have to be better than that.” Freedom is a book that unravels the mystery of the human condition. What makes Tim Kretschmer, Anders Behring Breivik, Paul H, and David Sonboly turn to the darker side of humanity? What makes them pick up arms and create acts of shocking violence when they were once compassionate, loving, and altruistic beings. What went wrong? There are some who believe it’s the saturation of mindless violence that invades our senses everywhere we look. There are others, like Griffith, who believe that the key to that answer lies 2 million years ago. It was about that time the human race developed consciousness and an internal struggle with our natural instincts led to denial and enough pent up frustration to start lobbing nuclear weapons at each other in a bid to ‘get it off your chest.’ Video games? Horror movies? The news? Symptoms of a wider problem that too few people understand, and who Sir Bob believes the answers lie inside the minds of thinkers, philosophers, and prophets like Griffith. A few weeks ago, I was in Las Vegas covering the World Series of Poker (WSOP) when a man, wearing an exposed gun on his hip, followed my wife into a Sushi restaurant. I looked at him, thought, ‘that’s strange’, and then got back to the article I was reading on my iPhone. The world is changing. And we can’t blame video games like CS:GO. When I talk to Americans about Sir Bob Geldof’s speech that day, they surprise me because they don’t know who he is. I explain that he is the man who saved millions of lives in Ethiopia when he created Live Aid. They look at me dumb. I explain that he was the lead singer of the Boomtown Rats. Still nothing. I remind them that the Boomtown Rats biggest hit was “I Don’t Like Monday’s.” Still nothing. And then I tell them a school shooting that took place on January 29, 1979, when a 16-year old called Brenda Spencer, opened fire at students, killing a principal and one of the custodians and injuring eight students, was the inspiration behind the lyrics. And they remember. Somehow, I don’t think we can blame Pong for that one. “I did it for the fun of it,” she later told police. “I don’t like Monday’s.” I’m not so sure we can blame Monday’s either.