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IDENTITY POLITICS IS A DANGEROUS GAME
Ever noticed that the establishment’s reaction to malevolence and suffering has more to do with the victim’s group identity than any other factor?
During Easter, Islamic state detonated bombs in Sri Lanka that were clearly intended to target Christians. The bomb blasted destroyed Churches and luxury hotels and left three-hundred dead.
The violence was clearly a targeted attack against Christians on the Holiest feast of the Christian calendar. However, where they were only too eager to talk about the Muslim identities of those targeted in the Christchurch shootings, those in the establishment were conspicuously silent about the Christian faith of those being attacked in Sri Lanka. Neither the former US President, Barack Obama, nor the Democrat candidate for the 2016 election, Hilary Clinton bothered to use the word “Christian” in their response to the attacks.
Barack Obama tweeted:
“The attacks on tourists and Easter worshippers in Sri Lanka are an attack on humanity. One a day devoted to love, redemption, and renewal, we pray for the victims and stand with the people of Sri Lanka.”
Likewise, Hilary Clinton tweeted:
“On this holy weekend for many faiths, we stand united against hatred and violence. I’m praying for everyone affected by today’s horrific attack on Easter worshippers and travellers to Sri Lanka.”
Following the New Zealand Mosque shooting, both Obama and Clinton were quick to assert their compassion, support, and solidarity with the “global Muslim community.” However, after the Sri Lankan bombings, they became rather reluctant to signal their support for Sri Lankan Christians or even to identify the victims as such.
Barack Obama referred to the attack as one perpetrated against “humanity” rather than one against Christians. Likewise, Hilary Clinton urged people to stand “united against hatred and violence”, but failed to specify who, in this case, was perpetrating the violence or the people they were perpetrating it against. More disturbing, perhaps, is the use of the term “Easter worshippers” as a euphemism for Christians. Easter isn’t holy for “many faiths”, it is Holy for Christians.
Contrast the responses to the Sri Lankan bombings to those of the Mosque massacres in Christchurch, New Zealand. After that attack, the Muslim identity of the victims were clearly and repeatedly stated. Marches in the street professed love over hatred and peace over violence. Political leaders like New Zealand’s Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, made symbolic, and rather shallow, gestures of solidarity and acceptance towards the Muslim community. And the public were forced to listen, ad nauseum, to left-wing pundits prattle on about the supposed Islamophobia of Western society.
As I pointed out before, the way the establishment responds to hatred and violence depends largely upon who is perpetrating it and who its target is. It is because of identity politics that our cultural standard-bearers ignore attacks on Christians but go out of their way to illustrate attacks on Muslims.
Identity politics blinds us to reality. It allows us to feel hatred and resentment towards others by reducing them to their group identity. As a consequence, the violence, prejudice, and discrimination Christians and Jews have faced in many parts of the world has largely gone unnoticed.
Identity politics blinds us to the fact that the Christian population in Africa and the Middle East has declined from twenty-percent to four-percent in just over a century (with much of the reduction occurring after 2000). It blinds us to the fact that Christians in the Middle East and Africa are the most persecuted minority in the world.
More alarmingly, Middle Eastern and African Christians are not even to be granted help from Western countries. Instead, they are to be sacrificed on the altar of racial and religious diversity. When the Pakistani Christian, Asia Bibi sought asylum in Great Britain, her request was refused because her presence risked “inflaming community tensions.” (Asia Bibi, of course, was imprisoned for several years after she was accused of blasphemy against Islam).
It would seem that no criticism may be levelled against Muslims or any other non-white, non-Christian group. And it would equally seem that it is perfectly acceptable to criticise Christians and white people for their group identities.
It all boils down to Islamophobia: just one out of a whole batch of ultimately meaningless accusations designed to silence critics and stifle debate. The English Labour Party and the Liberal Democrats refer to it is as a “type of racism that targets expressions of Muslimness and perceived Muslimness.” Gallup referred to it is as a “specific phobia” gripping Western society. Amnesty International refers to Islamophobes as “racists and bigots [who] believe that diverse societies don’t work.”
Most of Australia’s media – save perhaps for a few conservative newspapers and some talkback radio – is left-leaning. News and current affairs shows have left-wing biases, panel discussions are strongly tilted to favour left-wing views, and the ABC, Australia’s national broadcaster, is so resolutely left-wing it almost beggars’ belief.
Such a configuration naturally creates biases. It is a commonly accepted fact of psychology that when a person associates only with those who agree with them the result is groupthink and confirmation bias. Australian media has become an echo chamber for left-wing beliefs.
As the author and podcast host, Andrew Klavan pointed out: it is a rule of mainstream media to treat events that confirm left-wing biases as representative but to regard events that contradict them as isolated. Therefore, the attacks in Christchurch are indicative of the racism and Islamophobia that has supposedly infected western society. However, a terrorist attack committed by a Muslim is treated as an isolated incident which does not reflect a trend in which countless terrorist attacks and attacks on Jews and Christians – both in the West and outside of it – have been committed by Muslims every year.
The dichotomy between the reactions towards the attacks on Muslim’s in Christchurch and those against Sri Lanka is telling. Identity politics is a curse upon our society. It divides us by manipulating us into seeing everyone we see as members of their social, economics, or racial group rather than as individuals. Such a game can only lead to disaster.
Hypocrisy and Double Standards: Reflections on the Massacre in New Zealand
Just over a month ago, a crazed gunman entered the Al Noor Mosque in Christchurch. Armed with an arsenal of weapons which included semi-automatic firearms, he began to shoot worshippers engaged in Friday prayers.
Fifteen minutes later, the gunman repeated his dastardly deed at the Linwood Islamic Centre. In the end, fifty people lay dead and thirty-six lay injured. The entire incident was broadcast live on Facebook.
Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand’s Prime Minister, denounced the massacre as a ‘terrorist attack.’ She echoed the sentiments of the general public. In response to the attacks, three thousand people participated in a “march for life” in Christchurch carrying signs that read “Muslims welcome, racists not”, “he wanted to divide us, he only made us stronger”, and “Kia Kaha”, which means “stay strong” in Maori.
The Muslim call to prayer was broadcast on television and radio with twenty-thousand-people attending prayer services in the park across from the Al Noor Mosque. And two New Zealand rugby teams – the Chiefs and the Hurricanes – paused for a moment’s silence before the Super Rugby game in Hamilton.
New Zealanders have been praised for their unity and compassion in response to the attacks. But what would happen if the roles were reversed? When it is not a Westerner killing Muslims, but rather a Muslim killing Westerners? Then the response, or lack of response, is rather telling.
At this stage, I should point out that what happened in New Zealand was an act of evil. The massacre of any group of people for any reason whatsoever is an act of evil. I am not trying to condone attacks against Muslims, I am merely trying to expose to the hypocrisy of our so-called betters.
The point I am trying to make is not that the Christchurch massacre was somehow a form of justified retribution. It clearly was not. The point I am trying to make is that our leaders say one thing when an attack is perpetrated by Muslims and another when the attack is perpetrated against Muslims.
To put it bluntly, whenever a terrorist attack occurs involving a Muslim or a group of Muslims, politicians and the media are quick to downplay the Islamic elements. But if it is a Westerner targeting Muslims, or any other minority group, accusations of racism and xenophobia are repeated ad nauseum.
Whenever a Muslim, whether affiliated with a terrorist organisation or not, commits an act of terror, his actions are typically met by that all-too-common disclaimer: “it had nothing to do with Islam.” Even when the perpetrator expressly states that he is committing his heinous deed in the name of Islam it still has “nothing to do with Islam.”
The British journalist, Douglas Murray made similar observations when he appeared on Fox and Friends. “We’ve had a different response when it comes to Islamic terror”, he stated. “Consistently we find out there are people [after a terrorist attack] who knew about the extremism [and] didn’t report it, members of the community who say they don’t want to go the British police, and we find out Mosques people attended are being run by radicals.”
Murray has accused the West of resorting to the “John Lennon” response to terrorism. “They blow us up, we sing Imagine”, he says. “Our politicians still refuse to accurately identify the sources of the problem and polite society remains silent.”
I think it is self-evident that there would have been an entirely different response had it been a Muslim perpetrator attacking Westerners. There would not have been the protests, the moment’s silence, the religious and cultural messages broadcast on television and radio. Politicians and media identities would not have condemned the attacks as viscerally or as quickly as they did. There simply would not have been the same level of outrage. Instead, the Islamic elements would have been dismissed and the incident largely would have been ignored.
It is hard to believe that this kind of willful ignorance boils down to mere incompetence. To acknowledge that Islam has been responsible for a great deal of misery in the world is to go against the narrative that anyone who is not a straight, white, male, Christian is a member of a victim group. To acknowledge Islam’s role in a great deal of the misery in the world is to acknowledge that Muslims can be, and frequently are, the villains.
The left and the media, but I repeat myself, reacted to the Christchurch massacre in the way that they did because they want to elevate Muslims to the category of victim. It is a blatant attempt to sell black and white and white as black. And if you dare suggest the advertisement is misleading, you’re a bigot.
It really boils down to virtue signalling. That self-centred and cowardly habit of making vacuous comments in an attempt to make yourself look good. Public figures will now say anything that makes themselves appear more virtuous than everybody else. They resort to making statements that appear say something intelligent without really saying anything at all.
MASS SHOOTING IN LAS VEGAS
Fifty-nine people are dead and around five hundred are dead after a mass shooting in Las Vegas on Sunday. It is the deadliest shooting in US history.
The gunman opened fire from his thirty-second-floor hotel room during a performance by country music star, Jason Aldean, at the three-day Route 91 Harvest Festival – an event attended by twenty-five thousand people. Witness reports suggest that the gunman used at least one automatic weapon in the attack. Fifty-four-year-old Steve Smith of Phoenix commented that the gunfire “just kept going on.”
It took an hour for Las Vegas police to break into the gunman’s hotel room after being alerted to the attack. There they found an arsenal of weapons, including ten rifles, and the gunman dead from a suspected self-inflicted gunshot wound.
The gunman responsible has been identified as sixty-four-year-old Stephen Paddock of Mesquite, Nevada. While police are yet to finalise a background check on Mr. Paddock, it is known that he was a wealthy property owner who resided in the local retirement community. A regular at Las Vegas casinos, Mr. Paddock possessed no significant criminal record and was not known to have links to any militant group.
Mr. Paddock’s brother, Eric, told the Daily Mail that his family was “shocked” by the action’s of his brother and there had been “absolutely no indication” of what he was capable of. “Something happened, he snapped or something”, Eric Paddock commented.
Reactions to the mass shooting have been quick and immense. Jason Aldean stated on Instagram:
“Tonight has been beyond horrific. I still dont [sic] know what to say but wanted to let everyone know that Me and my Crew are safe. My Thoughts and prayers go out to everyone involved tonight. It hurts my heart that this would happen to anyone who was just coming out to enjoy what should have been a fun night. #heartbroken #stopthehate.”
President Trump stated in the Diplomatic Room of the White House that the shooting “was an act of pure evil.” The President also released a memorandum calling for flags to be flown at half-mast.
MILLENNIALS LOVE SOCIALISM, HAVE NO IDEA WHAT IT IS
Fifty-three percent of Americans under the age of thirty-five believe socialism is a good idea, with a further forty-five percent admitting they’d support an openly-socialist Presidential candidate, a 2016 report from the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation has found.
The report, entitled Generation Perceptions, concluded that many millennials lacked a basic understanding of socialism and were completely unaware of its impact on history. Many of those surveyed failed to identify key socialist figures, including Joseph Stalin (18%), Karl Marx (32%), and Mao Zedong (42%).
The implementation of socialism has led to the imposition of crime, terror, torture, famine, mass deportations, and massacres. Despite this, only twenty-percent of millennials, and only twelve-percent of Gen X, was able to correctly identify the number of people killed by communism (around ninety-four million).
Much of this unawareness stems from an education system which fails to educate students on the realities of history. Those who wish to educate themselves on this subject should read the Black Book of Communism and Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn’s Gulag Archipelago.
King Alfred Press 