The Banality of Terror

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anti-islamism, antijihad, banal, BBC, blogging, Christianity and Islam, Civilisation, Coffee, Defend the modern world, Demographics of Europe, DTMW, dtmw dtmw, Facebook, facebook twitter, france attack, france terrorism, hashtags, hollande, Internet, ISIS, ISIS France, Islamism, Jihad, Multiculturalism, nice, nice attack, nice france, No to Turkey in the EU, online, politics, radio, Television, Terror, Terrorism, Twitter, United States, War

The attack in Nice, France – which resulted in the death by crushing of over 80 innocent civilians – has hardly caused a ripple on social media.

After the news had come through the place-name ‘Nice’ trended on Facebook for little more than an hour or so, after which it rapidly tumbled out of the ranking, replaced by such stories relating to the appointment of Boris Johnson as Foreign Secretary to the UK government, speculation over Donald Trump’s VP choice, and the latest gossip relating to the Palin family.

There have been no diaphanous tricolours draped over the profile pictures of my friends this time around. Few have chosen to mention the incident in a status update, or even to share a relevant news story. And I have been no different.

I just can’t quite bring myself to be angry over this latest atrocity. I am not shocked, frightened, or agitated by it. The news of the attack has hit me rather like a report of sleet in Scotland, or wind in Wales. Terrorism, especially terrorism in France, now seems ordinary, banal, unremarkable.

This attitude (which is largely involuntary) is especially disturbing when one contemplates the gruesome manner in which the victims of the Nice attack perished. Unlike the more professional attack of last November, the victims this time were not put out of their happiness by a painless bullet to the head. They were crushed by several tonnes of metal and rubber; flattened, deformed under wheels. As banal as the observation might be, this must have been a hellish way to die.

But still, I’m not outraged – only bitter and depressed. I want all this to stop, but I really don’t think it will. And if an anti-Islamist blogger is becoming desensitised to terrorism, how on Earth can we expect the average Joe to maintain the required level of interest?

The man suspected of carrying out the Nice truck attack: French-Tunisian – Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel

The official response to Nice has been just as lacklustre as the public reaction. Boris Johnson, (whose appointment as Foreign Secretary must rank as the worst national embarrassment in years), has expressed little more than sadness at the news. In America, Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton offered only cheap, hollow solidarity on her personal Facebook page. Even Donald Trump has been more muted than usual.

The only exception to this icy disregard has been (or seemed at one point to be) former US house speaker Newt Gingrich, who used the aftermath of the attack to suggest a very sensible policy by which the US would quiz individual Muslims upon entry to America on their views of Sharia Law.

Unfortunately, if also inevitably, when this commonsensical notion received the usual abuse from the usual abusers, Gingrich promptly drained the idea of its force, over-clarifying the concept to the point of retraction. How pathetic; how telling.

The reaction of the Western media (or at least the UK/US media) was to dampen out any loose sparks of anger that might have escaped the general apathy described. The ever-reliable ‘don’t panic’ libertarian Simon Jenkins, for example, hot-footed it into the Guardian offices to inform us that: “A Nice truck driver does not remotely threaten the security of the French state, any more than such acts do the security of America or Britain. The identification of the nation state with random killings of innocent people has become a political aberration….The implication that leaders can somehow prevent such attacks by armed response is a total distraction from the intelligence and police work that might at least diminish their prevalence. It nationalises and institutionalises public alarm. It leads governments into madcap adventurism abroad and “securitises” the private lives of citizens at home…What has happened in France is tragic and calls for human sympathy. Beyond that, there is nothing we can usefully do – other than make matters worse.”

Though this argument has the flavour of reasonableness, the implication of it is surely that we should do absolutely nothing in response to terrorism; indeed, that we should actively prevent our governments from doing anything about it – on libertarian grounds.

Someone should really inform Mr Jenkins that Western states in fact need little encouragement to under-react to terrorist atrocities. Doing nothing has been standard operating procedure ever since the twilight years of the Bush administration.

I personally have no doubt that Francois Hollande’s bungled security measures (including his declaration of an extended state of emergency) will end up doing more harm than good. Nevertheless, the general preference of the public must surely be for the state to do more to address this threat, not less. Jenkins and his ilk appear obsessed with getting the masses to calm down and to put things in a rational, non-emotional, context. We have been doing that for over a decade. A bit of non-rational rage really wouldn’t go amiss at this point.

French President Francois Hollande

All things considered, Nice has been an unmitigated triumph for ISIS. Not only have the swinish degenerates managed to send dozens of unbelievers to perpetual hellfire, they have also further diminished the life-force and rage-reflex of the continent on which they resided.

(On a side note  – It is worth noting that Westerners have not become incapable of getting angry about anything. We are still liable to go ape over the unlawful killing of gorillas and lions. It is only the value of human beings, and of Western culture, that is collapsing. One might justly speculate that if a dog or a cat had been caught under the wheels in Nice the reaction would have been rather more vigorous.)

Europe seems ever more like a wounded animal, yelping and moaning, bleeding and weakening. The old spark, the energy behind colonisation and empire, has been all but exhausted. The deathly prefix ‘post’ is now attached to every formerly noble concept: post-modern, post-national, post-racial, post-Christian etc… Everything is watered down and submissive enough that even the most barbaric challenger can overcome it.

I have nothing original to say about Nice. I will simply close by reiterating that Islam does not belong in Europe and never will. It is backward, violent, boring and false down to the letter. It must be resisted with everything with we have.

If indeed we still have anything at all.

D, LDN

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07/01/2015

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Al-Qaeda in France, BNI, Charlie Hebdo, Civilisation, Controversy, Counter-Jihad, Dead cartoonists, Defend the modern world, France, Freedom of speech, Holidays, ISIS, ISIS France, Islamic state killing, Jyllands, Massacre, Posten, South of France

“France today is like the fucking Weimar republic.”

So wrote a user of the internet message-board 4chan last month. The thread concerned the rise of anti-immigrant rhetoric across Europe as a whole, and the sentiment quoted met with broad agreement.

The comparison used is certainly an apt one. Modern France, just like Germany in the 1920s, buckles under the weight of a failing economy. Unemployment (though slowly improving) remains a complication to the lives of young people in cities and towns alike. And extremism, on both the left and right, rises rapidly at the expense of a tired-out centre-ground.

One can hope, as one should, that the solution chosen for this malaise won’t resemble the thugs of the NSDAP, but that is far from decided. Marine Le Pen (a very suspicious character indeed) and her party appear likely to reap the political benefit from it. As to whether Le Pen’s newly professed moderation has any link with reality can and will only be revealed by time.

This radicalisation of French politics was thus already underway when an innocent seeming Wednesday became a bloodstain on the national calendar.

In Paris, two Islamist gunmen stormed the office of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and murdered 12 people, many of them noted cartoonists (pictured below). The magazine had been a target for many years, owing to its repeated lampooning of the Islamic prophet and its occupational solidarity with the Danish magazine Jylland Posten.

The aftermath to the massacre proved almost as bloody as the crime itself. Prior to their deaths, the two fugitive gunmen (both Algerian) held up a convenience store and petrol station. After this, they hijacked a car and engaged in a Hollywood-like moving gun-battle with Parisian police. Elsewhere in the city, A third Islamist, connected to the original attackers, took hostages in a Kosher deli. Four innocent French Jews would perish there before the captor could be disposed of.

Although both incidents are equally cruel and equally senseless, the Charlie Hebdo massacre has hit the global imagination hardest. An attack on Jews by Muslims is lamentably predictable and as such breaks no new ground. However, there is something fresh and pathetic about attacking people for drawing pictures. Even the Christians of the dark ages never stooped so low. It goes to show how girlish the Islamic constitution has become that it can now be bruised by the point of a crayon.

The reaction to the attacks internationally has been at once heartening and heart-sinking. While most Brits and Americans have offered their warmest condolences to the French people, others have (disgracefully) opted to bring up myths about Gallic passivity and cowardice. Let’s be quite clear about this: If anyone should ever doubt the patriotism or fighting abilities of the French, let him say so after reading a biography of Napoleon.

Much has been made of the fact that a French Muslim was a victim of this wave of violence. The police officer shot in cold blood outside the Hebdo offices was called Ahmed (thus allowing for the damage-limitation hashtag JeSuisAhmed on twitter). There is no solid proof Ahmed was a devout believer, but even if he was, what can this teach us other than senseless violence produces senseless results?

Though we may never know for sure one way or the other, I strongly suspect ISIS had a hand in this atrocity. The mysterious tweets sent from the (potentially hacked) Charlie Hebdo twitter account reference Caliph Baghdadi, and the professionalism of the massacre itself would suggest training from a quasi-military force.

Whether that is the case or not, there is certainly a bigger picture here. Just as those charity adverts urge of humanitarians, Islamists act locally but think globally. This nasty little attack –  though it was aimed at closing a specific vendetta – was really meant for all of us. The Muslims have made a giant sign for the whole of Europe to see, its huge words scrawled in innocent blood: “Be careful what you say. Be careful what you do. We know you where you live.”

And though Le Pen – with all her vague promises to go easy on the Jews and gays – is really not the answer we are looking for, an answer must still be provided. We cannot seriously be expected to lie back and see our hard-won freedoms smashed into fragments.

D, LDN.