The West’s blindness to Islamic threat
In January of 2016, a 24- year- old woman in Mannheim, Germany, was reportedly raped by three migrants. At first she identified them to police as German nationals, later explaining her lie as reluctance to “help fuel aggressive racism.” Then, astonishingly, she wrote a letter of apology to her attackers in which she blamed her society for their crime, saying “I wanted an open Europe, a friendly one ... You, you aren’t safe here, because we live in a racist society. ... You are not the problem. You are not a problem at all.”
British political commentator Douglas Murray recounts this anecdote in his brilliant new book, The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam. The victim, beset by a reflexive, socially entrenched fear of appearing Islamophobic so powerful that she willingly sacrificed justice to virtue- signalling represents in microcosm the bottomless white guilt that is crippling Europe.
We haven’t experienced the same migrant- related stressors as Europe, but that victim’s spasmodic recoil from perceived Islamophobia looks mighty familiar. Case in point: a fascinatingly logic- tortured June 9 Toronto Star column devoted to Islamism exculpation, “Terrorists are misogynists first.” In it pundit Heather Mallick informs us that “religion isn’t terribly relevant” in recent European attacks. No, the real problem is male misogyny. Mallick knows this because “it is my job to see patterns in events. We women see different patterns than men do.” ( Sigh. Mallick never speaks for me. I wish she’d drop that “we women” shtick.)
What is the “pattern in events” Mallick sees? That all the killers are young males, with a narrow “world vi e w” who s uff er f r om “status anxiety.” The wanton spilling of blood is simply the way they “display maleness.” This is a simplistic theory cut from whole cloth, completely i gnoring t he role of ideology and an entire world’s massive control group of peaceful men with “status” concerns.
From the assertion that misogyny is universal, Mallick makes an irrational leap to terrorism knowing no particular race or culture. Look, she says, at “the hateful men we have come to know”: here she names four Islamist terrorists followed by five North American nonMuslim massacrists ( only two motivated by misogyny), implying a general numerical equivalence. But her nonMuslim North American massacrists were not associated with organized terror movements or with a specific ideology. And her non- Muslim North American massacrists and their victims are statistically nugatory beside the vast human wreckage testifying to Islamists’ apocalyptic vision.
In a further attempt at moral equivalence, Mallick writes, “It’s of no interest to us whether we’re attacked by a men’s rights advocate, the ‘ alt- right,’ a Muslim terrorist or an Irish one.” But these are shamelessly misleading comparisons. IRA terrorism (with no gender bias) was territorially and temporally constrained by political ends attainable through negotiation. Islamist terrorism is global and not open to negotiation. “Men’s rights advocate?” A dreadful slur on a civilized movement. No massacrist ever cited encouragement to violence from any men’s rights association.
In France, Muslims and Islamists have been responsible for all the anti- Semitic attacks committed for more than two decades, according to the National Bureau for Vigilance Against Antisemitism. Misogyny doesn’t cut it as an explanation for that. So what “pattern” does the soi-disant seer Mallick see in specifically Jewish targets of Islamist terrorism? This inconvenient Islamism-related habit is apparently not even on her radar.
What’s her solution? First, Mallick thinks we ought “to discard Muslim or Islamic as an adjective.” (Obama and many other politicians have tried that, Heather. It didn’t work.) Because “why single out Islam,” when “the misogyny of the Roman Catholic church is one of its pillars.” Even if that were true (I don’t think it is), where is the organized terrorism — or any terror — perpetrated in Christ’s name that Mallick’s reckless equivalency implies?
The column is a sad read, but emblematic of the desperation progressives feel when objective evidence contradicts their beloved multicultural theories, and the intellectual corruption they are prey to in their stubborn refusal to acknowledge reality. Mallick’s jejune finale only plunges deeper into polemic bathos: “Let’s tackle misogyny at its source and find a way to raise boys to be more like the studious, gentle girls many of them have been told to despise.” “Let’s”, as in “let us”? As in Canada? Been there, done that, Heather. Any other brilliant suggestions for ending Isla- er, status-anxiety terrorism?
All that’s missing in Mallick’s column is a sincere letter of apology to ISIL for the bad rap they are getting from people less enlightened than she. Regrettably, many Canadians think as Mallick does, or think they should. They need to read Murray’s book and get woke.
IRA TERRORISM WAS TERRITORIALLY AND TEMPORALLY CONSTRAINED. — KAY