When our leaders are more concerned about political correctness than protecting their citizens from crazed Islamic fundamentalists, you begin to realise how far removed from reality they are
The shortest day of the year. I am sat drinking a coffee watching as people go about their business, making their way through the pre-dawn gloom. Everything seems quite normal. You wouldn't think that in the last few days a Russian Ambassador has been assassinated in Turkey and that a lorry deliberately driven into a crowded Berlin Christmas Market. More terrorism in a year that has been peppered with atrocities. It seems like this is the new normal. I can't imagine next year will be any different. The atrocities will continue and on each occasion candles will be lit, vigils will be held, and leftist liberals will tell us Terrorism Has No Religion.
And meanwhile our politicians will just sit on their hands, doing nothing for fear of being branded Islamophobic. When our leaders are more concerned about political correctness than protecting their citizens from crazed Islamic fundamentalists, you begin to realise how far removed from reality they are. Is it any wonder the right wing nationalist groups are growing in popularity across Europe?
The atmosphere is growing toxic and I have previously wondered just how fractured society will become whichever way the vote goes
The murder of the Labour MP Jo Cox yesterday was sickening. A married mum with two kids, she was shot and stabbed as she walked through her Constituency.
I knew nothing about her before her murder. The tributes now being paid to her describe a strong and principled politician, someone who became an MP not for her own selfish ends, but in the hope of doing some good in the world. She only entered Parliament 13 months before the death, but it is evident she had made quite an impression.
According to a witness interviewed by the BBC the killer shouted something like “Britain First” as he attacked her. “Britain First” is a fascist group that wants the country out of the EU. Jo Cox was campaigning for Remain, and sections of the media are suggesting this was a politically motivated assassination. However, his neighbours seem to have known little about the killer, he kept himself to himself. There are also reports he has a history of mental health problems.
The Brexit campaign has become poisonous, with both sides using scare tactics and hurling abuse at one another. The atmosphere is growing toxic and I have previously wondered just how fractured society will become whichever way the vote goes. Is it possible that, as in Orlando, here is an individual sat alone at home soaking up the hatred being spewed out by the media, both online and off. Weak minded, mentally unstable and impressionable, he is radicalised to such an extent that he feels justified in killing the innocent? The only saving grace is he did not have access to an assault rifle.
This is another assault on Western Society. This was not just an attack on a minority group, it was an attack on liberal society.
And once again our screens are filled with the news that dozens of innocent people have been murdered. This time however the incident has quickly descended into an argument about minority rights, homophobia, Islamophobia, the right to bear arms, and the Liberal Left tying themselves up in knots.
Some are claiming this as a hate crime against the gay community. Yes, it was a gay club that was attacked, and yes the perpetrator was undoubtedly homophobic, but we should recognise what happened in Orlando for what it is. After Brussels, and the Bataclan, after Charlie Hebdo and the murder of Lee Rigby, this is another assault on Western Society. This was not just an attack on a minority group, it was an attack on humanity, it was an attack on liberal society.
The common theme linking each of these attacks is Radical Islam. The formulaic response to these attacks is adding flags to profile pictures, while others will attend vigils singing songs by candlelight, proclaiming that love will overcome. Sadly love is not enough. Nothing will change until the Government accepts there is a problem with Radical Islam and take action to deal with it effectively. Of course that won't happen. The fear of being accused of Islamophobia now seems to trump homophobia. Those in power will not call Muslims out on their anti-gay rhetoric. As one commentator noted, the gay community is now being sacrificed on the alter of political correctness.
Another important element of this attack is however one the Americans have brought on themselves. Gun control. The killer was wielding a semi-automatic rifle. This was a man suspected by the FBI as having links to ISIS and al-Qaeda. This was someone who his former wife says was mentally unstable. And yet he was able to buy a rifle that serves no purpose other than to kill people. Whatever motivates these killers the fact they can readily lay their hands on assault rifles leads inevitably to large numbers being killed and maimed. Making guns so readily accessible that anyone with murderous intent can obtain one is criminally irresponsible.
Sadly, there will always be mentally unstable individuals who will want to hurt and kill others. Identifying and dealing with such people will always be very difficult. However America can take action to control access to guns and thereby deprive these people of the means to commit acts of mass murder. Until they do so killings on the scale seen in Orlando will be repeated.
They use religion to justify their actions. One cannot divorce Isis from the beliefs that underpin those actions.
In the wake of the Paris atrocities, many people on social media were using the hashtag #terrorhasnoreligon, arguing that religion, and specifically Islam, had no bearing on the the actions of the terrorists. I don't agree.
I am not suggesting that all Muslim are terrorists. I am saying that all the terrorists, those that have attacked London, Madrid, Mumbai, Paris and Lebanon, are Muslim.
Isis and their adherents may not represent the mainstream Islamic world, but they proselytise a barbaric, medieval interpretation of Islam, which they use to justify the murder and beheading of non-believers, the rape of women, the selling of young girls into slavery, the throwing of gay men from roof tops and the destruction of pre-Muhammaden culture.
They use religion to justify their actions. One cannot divorce Isis from the beliefs that underpin those actions. Unless we acknowledge the nature of the beast we cannot possibly formulate a suitable response to the threat they pose.