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And it works every time. My faith in the batshit insanity of certain sectors of the British public is restored, I realize I'm actually a fairly good writer when I want to be (current postings are evidence to the contrary, I admit, but I have been busy with finals) and I get a laugh in with the deal.
It's a bad past time, really. Habit forming, almost. But now and again I hit the jackpot, like with Sarah Maid of Albion. Talking of course about my favourite subject....terrorism. In particular, the case of Nicky Reilly, the allegedly failed suicide bomber (I say allegedly for the legal reasons, of course). And its a slow Saturday night, and I have nothing planned, so why not?
Ever since the identity of the man accused of attempting to set off a bomb in an Exeter restaurant was revealed, certain sections of the press have been announcing breathlessly that the suspect, Nicky Reilly, is a white convert to Islam.
Certain sections of the press? Come on, name names! If you've got the goods, don't play coy. As it happens, I did a search on this and found out which media outlets she meant: the BBC, Guardian, Independent and Mirror.
Oh dear gosh, its lining up to be a fiendish left wing conspiracy already. Only, not really. Going by the BBC report, they were reporting a description of Reilly given by the police, which was repeated in the Independent. The Guardian bought up his race in the terms of wider counter-terrorism issues (like Al-Qaeda recruiting white converts to Islam in order to avoid racial profiling measures) and the Mirror didn't even mention it themselves - instead publishing a quote by a member of the public saying he standed out at meetings with a suspicious group of people on a street corner due to his colour.
I hardly think this counts as announcing breathlessly - especially since almost all comments on his race or appearance are well down the pages on all the media outlets that I found reporting it.
The media always get overexcited when they can pretend that white Europeans are as likely to be terrorists as Asians, even if they have to bend the truth into impossible contortions to do so.
So presumably Baader-Meinhof, the Provisional IRA, ETA, Nivelles gang, OAS, Action Directe, National Front for the Liberation of Corsica, The June 2nd Movement, November 17th, Antikratiki Dikaiosini, Hawks of Thrace, Revolutionary Struggle, October 22 Group, the Red Brigades, Nuclei Armati Rivoluzionari, Aginter Press, the (admittedly laughable) Canary Islands Independence Movement, the Ordine Nuovo (founded by the odious Stefano Delle Chiaie), Meibion Glyndŵ, the Irish National Liberation Army, Loyalist Volunteer Force, Ulster Defence Association, Ulster Volunteer Force, White Aryan Resistance, Continuity IRA and many other groups I can't be bothered to name had or have no white members whatsoever. You know, despite many of them being neo-fascist in orientation, or else ethno-nationalist and thus "real" Europeans.
And if we include ethnically European Americans into the mix...well, where to start? We could go all the way back to the Klan, or right up to the modern day 'Patriot Movement' members, who intermingle with militia organizations such as the Montana Freemen, but who also had links to individuals like Timothy McVeigh, Army of God, Aryan Nations, The Order and other fun loving neo-fascist/Christian groups, many of whom have very clear ideas on what race it is best to be.
But that was unfair of me, using history like that against you. On the other hand, we could always be thankful I didn't decide to start digging into the Russian anarchist terrorists...that stuff goes on forever. We still count Russians as white Europeans, don't we? Don't we? But yes, terribly unfair using history like that, it's a shame we don't have some examples of more modern terrorism carried out by 'white Europeans'.
Readers may recall how hard they tried to present Andrew Ibrahim, the young terror suspect arrested in Bristol in April as “white”, even after it was revealed that his father wa an Asian doctor called Nassif.
I hate to break this to you, but he look's white. I'll link to a picture, and feel free to dispute it, I know you will anyway, but he doesn't really look very foreign, does he? Or is this one of those things where he'd have to be one-sixteenth "Muslim foreigner" to fifteen-sixteenth's "white European" to count?
Whatever the truth may be in this instance, I don't really know why the press get so excited on the rare occasion that a white convert gets involved in attempted atrocities, it proves nothing other than that radical Islam is a dangerously infectious condition.
Well, apart from the fact no-one was getting excited over the fact that he was a white convert, GREAT POINT! The Guardian mentioned MI5 were considering if this was a change in tactics and recruiting by Al-Qaeda, which some might consider to be a legitimate concern. You know, if you want to catch terrorists and all that. I think you'll find more people were worried that someone attempted to partake in a suicide bomb attack, full stop, to note his colour and go "OH MY GOD, AND HE WAS WHITE TOO!" Just because BNP members have this funny fascination with race does not mean everyone else does. Stop projecting.
Dengue fever does not cease to be a tropical disease if an Englishman catches it, and and neither does the fact that a few vulnerable or weak minded individuals have been seduced into embracing its deadly doctrine make Islam a European faith.
Uh-huh. So what makes, for example, Christianity 'European'? Or Judaism (feel free to ask Nick Griffin if Jews are a European faith or not) for that matter. Or indeed anything that is not laughable NeoPagan Reconstructionism. Are they 'European' by virtue of ethnicity of genesis, geographical location, or practice? Because Jesus sure as hell wasn't white, or located in Europe (depending on whether one considers the Levant Europe, of course. I do, but many do not). Can we expect to see the BNP picketing Christmas celebrations soon? They too, have spread like a virus, after all.
The few small Muslim enclaves in the Balkans and Chechnya are the residue left from earlier attempts by Islam to colonise Europe, not to any European tradition.
Oh? And what European traditions are these? When I last checked, Islamic and Christian thought were both heavily based on Greek Classical thinking - especially the works of Plato and Aristotle, though a few Roman's slipped the barrier too. Given the Greco-Roman culture is the bedrock of modern Western civilization, I would find the exclusion of Islam...intellectually dishonest, shall we say? And of course, St Thomas Aquinas and (arguably) René Descartes owe an influence to Islamic philosophers such as Al-Ghazali. There was a lot of intellectual traffic flowing along Asia Minor back then, let me tell you.
Or this the European tradition of being a white European? I just want to cover all my bases here, you understand.
Islam is an alien philosophy, with its origins in a set of beliefs so different to those at the root of our own culture that most can either not comprehend it or refuse to acknowledge it.
OK, I'll take that as an "I'm an idiot with little or no knowledge of the history of philosophy".
There is no European tradition within Islam, it is a force from outside, which we have let in and the fact that it has captured or beguiled some of our children does not make it native to our land.
It's kinda like the Mysterons, when you think about it...those strange, alien, outside forces....
Like all infectious conditions, some will fall victim to it, as Nicky Reilly appears to have done, but all that tells us is that we need to take preventative measures before more succumb.
Unfortunately, the spread of idiocy will go on unchecked...
