Cologne madness

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Hopefully anyone reading this is aware of the incidents that happened in Cologne and other German cities at new year. Just in case you’re not it would seem that large crowds of me of “North African and Arab appearance” (as the BBC put it) gathered in Cologne’s main square and around the train station where they fired rockets at the crowd threw bottles and sexually assaulted (include at least 2 rapes) a large number of women. Now normally I wouldn’t write about this, there’d be no need I mean drunken men causing trouble and sexually assaulting women social media and the main stream press would be all over it wouldn’t they. I mean there you have it laddish rape culture writ large, how could the social justice warriors, the feminists, the progressive left not be all over it. Well apparently in this case there’s no need as it’s such a big event they don’t need to shout about how terrible it is, the press are more than adequately covering it – well a quick google search seems to rather disagree. Certainly from what’s drifted across my various social media and news feeds the response from the normal sources has been rather more like this:
tumbleweeds
Of course if they were just ignoring the attacks in Cologne that would be bad enough, but reports suggest that this new years sexual assaults were unusually high across many European cities. Surely this is proof that rape culture amongst men is alive and well and justifies everything the twitter warriors, student union activists and columnists have been saying for years? Time to bring the point home call for action? No not a peep. Well One peep – which quickly decides that it’s actually still the problem of all men:
“And why don’t we see this as a perfect moment for men, regardless of our ethnic backgrounds, to get genuinely angry about the treatment of women in public spaces”.
Of course as DoodlingData asks:
“It’s not the immigrants’ fault! It’s the fault of men in general! BTW don’t blame immigrants for the actions of a few!” Ok, so which is it?

The problem for our regressive friends does rather seem to be that, much like in Rotherham where they were also oddly silent, these attacks seem to be predominantly carried out by people who may be of that religion of peace which can never be associated with anything bad or nasty. In fact some regressives are claiming these attacks were right-wing false flag operations to stoke tensions, and that they couldn’t have been real Muslims as they were drinking. Yep yet again it’s nothing to do with Islam, and nothing to do with immigrants. The police report from Cologne makes terrifying reading, but it’s ok the Major of Cologne has a solution. No not to do something about the men who caused the problem, but instead a code of conduct for women to keep them safe. The code basically boils down to wear a burqa, don’t go out alone and stay away from men – especially if they look like they might be immigrants. A female mayor victim blaming surely this calls for protests? A Slut walk? Maybe at least a strongly worded article? This question was put to the usually strongly opinionated Laurie Penny and she did have a strong opinion on the matter.
Don't tell me to comment
Yep asking this staunch defender of women’s rights to comment on actual wide spread mass sexual assault on women by a certain group of men is being a “racist troll”. The media are now starting to pick up on the story as, as ever, it’s the cover up that is the story; and Germany is doing a sterling job at a cover up cutting a deal with social media firms to make sure no one mentions that the perpetrators of these crimes might just perhaps not be natives of Germany. In fact just to make sure that everyone knows not to suggest that perhaps some of the new arrivals might be the problem we have the German Interior minister stepping in to the fray to say:
“that conservatives who criticize the wave of migrants flooding into the country on Internet chat rooms are “just as awful” as the migrants who sexually molested dozens of women in Cologne on New Years Eve.”.
Some people are proposing to take action, unfortunately they are white men so are being condemned as vigilantes, for wanting to keep watch and to be there for people in trouble. Perhaps they’re just missing a colored ribbon and a suitable twitter hashtag? After all it would be far more acceptable to just tweet #Illprotectyou rather than actually going out there to walk with people.

I can only conclude that being an immigrant and possibly of an Islamic persuasion puts you higher up on the social justice score chart than being merely a white female. So as a white female you have to respect their culture whilst they assault you, lay back and think of Islam. Someone suggested that Stockholm Syndrome be renamed Cologne Syndrome, I disagree but “Cologne Syndrome” seems the perfect name to describe the “nothing to do with…” excuses that pour from the keyboards of the regressive types that can’t stand to utter even a single unequivocal word of support of the women victims of these terrible events. I shall leave the last word to Lara Prendergast of the Spectator, as there is now a rape culture in Europe and it needs to be dealt with:
“I do not wish to get into a debate about migration, but it seems fair to suggest we face facts: many North African and Arab countries are not famed for their exemplary treatment of women. And many of the people entering Europe are young men from these countries, who may well have never come across the concept that women are equal to men, and do not deserve to be threatened, molested or raped. If we are too scared to say this, for fear that it might look uncharitable towards migrants, then we land ourselves in all kinds of trouble. Eventually we will have to say it though, so we might as well start now.”

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A year since the Charlie Hebdo attack

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Copertina anniversario Charlie Hebdo Today is a year since the attack on the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris and the murder of some of the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists, as well as related attacks on a kosher supermarket. A year down the line it seems to me impossible to conclude anything but that the attack was a roaring success and that the terrorists have, by any metric you choose, won. I’m not going to really say anything which other people haven’t already said better, but the claim of “Je Suis Charlie” was weak from the start with few people or publications actually prepared to show pictures from the magazine, lest it cause offense choosing instead the far safer option symbol of a pencil. Not exactly standing shoulder to shoulder. There where of course also at the time all the cries from the usual suspects that this had nothing to do with Islam, that the terrorists shouldn’t have been provoked, that the west deserved it and that unless action was taken the masses would fall under the spell of terrible racists and start attacking Muslims left right and center. Really we’d lost before the fight had even started.

Since then, we’ve seen ever-increasing numbers of calls for things to be banned in case they cause offense to someone. From comedians, to politicians to clapping all have faced calls to be banned, that they were beyond the limits of free speech as they might in some way upset someone. Just like the initial attack on the Kosher supermarket the increasing violence against Jews in Europe goes unreported, whilst the media and out leaders continue to fret about the risk of an increase in violence against Muslims. We’ve not been exactly free from terrorist attacks over the last year either, though of course we are assured that our security forces have stopped many, many many attacks which they can’t tell us about but which utterly justify giving up our freedoms of speech, thought, association and privacy. This fear of offense, this refusal to fight for free speech without any restriction cedes the battle to the terrorists and other that would ultimately take our freedoms away and by and large we collaborate with them. Outside of the insanity of the regressive types walking the halls of our universities, twitter is policed by relentless hoards of social justice warriors hunting out the slight hint of offense (from the wrong types of people), political debate is shut down by threats of violence resulting in “shy Tories”. If we don’t curtail our speech from fear of causing offense, then we may well do so from the fear of being accused of causing offense (which can swiftly end a career) as there are legions of people out there ready to signal their virtue by hunting out offense speech in others. Like a modern-day witch hunt the best way to avoid suspicion is by denouncement of others. so slowly and surely the values and achievements of the enlightenment will be dismantled and cast aside.

Anyway here are some links to people who have better things to say than I do:
Charlie Hebdo editor: No one questions when Jews are killed
A year of fighting for the right to offend
Charlie Hebdo: ‘Protecting the right to blaspheme protects everyone’
We know they’re not Charlie now
The Ghosts of Charlie Hebdo
Charlie Hebdo one year on

Finally to ask the question Who is Charlie Hebdo?
” if you’re Not drawing Mohammad, then you’re not Charlie Hebdo, and you can’t say “Je Suis Charlie”. As a friend of mine put it, maybe a slogan for the anti-jihad movement can be “Je dessine Mohamad” (I draw Mohammad)”

So I shall this year strive to not worry about offending, to exercise my free speech and damn the consequences and defend those whose speech is threatened, no matter how foolish, trite or disagreeable it is. After all if we don’t let the idiots and those we disgaree with talk how can we laugh at them and consign their arguments to the spoil heap?

Je Suis Charlie

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