I was in France when a friend told me that a woman had been stabbed to death in Russell Square and five other people injured. He challenged me to guess the origins of the perpetrator. A little later, I looked at a report of the incident on the website of the Guardian newspaper. There was no mention in the article of the origin of the perpetrator, a Somalian of Norwegian nationality. Even the next day, the article devoted to the subject mentioned it only sotto voce, as it were, halfway through the article, which until then was mostly about how excellent a woman the victim had been.
Why the reticence, one might ask? Would there have been the same reticence had the perpetrator been, say, a shaven-headed, tattooed lout belonging to an English nationalist party? One rather suspects not.
The police have so far not found any evidence that the perpetrator had a link to any terrorist organisation, though one at least of the latter rejoiced on its website in the murder. I am perfectly prepared to believe that the crime was not terrorism: after all, such horrible incidents occurred before terrorism so preoccupied us, and will continue to occur after terrorism has ceased. The young man was said to have had ‘mental health issues,’ a loose phrase that encompasses everything from losing one’s temper to smoking cannabis – which, incidentally, might well have played an part in the events. Another possible contributor might have been the Somali national drug of abuse, khat, which might have caused a kind of madness.
I was impressed once again by the police’s ability to find just the wrong word to describe a high-profile crime. They did not think that this crime was linked to terrorism; rather, they said, they thought it was just a ‘random’ attack.
It seems to have escaped their notice that one tactic of terrorism is to attack at random, a random attack sowing terror in a population much more effectively than an attack on a target chosen for understandable, even if reprehensible, reasons.
As for the delicacy of the Guardian in the matter of the culprit’s origins, it could hardly be because it imagined that its readers would go out and lynch Somalis wherever they found them. Rather, it was a manifestation of what Freudians call reaction-formation, that is to say a response to its own deep-seated, and therefore much feared, racism, another manifestation of which is its obsession with race and racial politics.
The Salisbury Review is not just a web site; Subscribe.
irony on: most commenters here neglect the aspect of the perpetrator beeing Norwegian! After a well cushioned childhood in arcadian Somalia, he was violently transferred to Norway, the land of the Vikings, a notoriously thuggish tribe. So he was a victim too, like all muslims forced to live in the lands of miscreants.
One should as well consider the aspect of sexual deprivation in our northern countries, as opposed to the license custumary in the countries of origin.
The common denominator is the Religion of Peace and Community cohesion – which commands its adherents to slaughter infidels (that would be us) till all are converted – or in Dhimmitude – and the only law is Allah’s law. It really isn’t all that complex.
Fact: in the early centuries of Islamic history no non-Muslims were forced to convert to Islam under Muslim rule. Christians and Jews were permitted to follow their own faith unmolested, and lived under their own legal system.
‘Unmolested’ so long as they paid the Dhimmi tax and their laws didn’t conflict with Sharia. You might find that appealing, and relish the future the globalist elite is shaping for our children, but I don’t.
who are the globalist elite? do they live on wall street?
I lived in Sicily and can tell you the history books do not agree with your statement.
It has nothing to do with Islam which condemns murder and terrorism.
“It has nothing to do with Islam which condemns murder and terrorism”
Judging by daily events in the world, it seems you are talking bollocks
And just where are all the muslim people who are supposed to be condemning this barbarity? The silence is deafening.
Countless Islamic scholars and leaders have condemned terrorism and continue to do so. For instance:
http://edition.cnn.com/2016/06/14/living/orlando-muslims-statement/
Careful , the mealy mouthed comment brigade are out to get you.
But surely Islam is the ideology of the Muslim prophet Mohammed? If Mohammed was a peaceful man, then you might have a point. But he was not. Mohammed was a warlord, a slaver, a sex-slaver and a firm believer in terrorism. Indeed one of his more infamous utterances was “I have been made victorious through terror.” – Hadith, Bukhari (4.52.220)
Mohammed is considered to be the perfect man by Muslims. Many seek to emulate him or merely obey his violent and supremacist commands. Which rather explains Islamic violence all around the globe today.
How can you live in monumental ignorance or pathological denial when the subject matter is of such supreme importance? Does the threat to Western liberal democracy mean nothing to you at all?
Paul
Muhammad has been deeply misunderstood in the West, for centuries now. Your grotesque caricatures of him bear little resemblance to the historical facts.
I recommend the balanced life of the prophet Muhammad by bestselling religious writer Karen Armstrong:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Muhammad-Biography-Prophet-Karen-Armstrong/dp/1842126083
“…this is the sort of talk that led to the concentration camps in Europe. This is the kind of thing people were saying about Jews in the 1930s and ’40s in Europe.” Karen Armstrong on Bill Maher having the gall to point out [the undeniable fact] that where Islam has a foothold in the world, savagery and barbarism reigns supreme.
Unfortunately for Karen Armstrong, along with leftwing fascism of the pity-me-Palestine lets-torch-a-synagogue variety, Muslims are the main reason Jews are fleeing Europe.
Also, if you want the BBC to broadcast your Mo documentary, or the Guardian to publish your Islam articles, you have to be careful to only include the stuff that chimes with the Religion of Peace mantra. You might call that ‘balanced’ – but actually it’s no less than the dangerous sanitation of uncomfortable truths to uphold a lie that (to quote Dr Dalrymple) is designed to humiliate.