Opinion
No doubt like its New Zealand counterpart, the taxpayer-funded left-wing propaganda unit ABC’s Q+A is a dreary leftist circle-jerk. Its idea of “balance” is to set up a single “conservative” panellist to be repeatedly shouted over by a chorus of screeching leftists, and cut off mid-sentence by the host as soon as he opens his mouth.
When that token “conservative”, though, is Christopher Hitchens, good luck trying to shut him up. One of the most glorious moments in Q+A‘s sorry history was when apologist mid-wit Waleed Aly got well and truly hitch-slapped, for trying to dodge the issue of Islamic homophobia. Wally was a mental pea-shooter in an intellectual gunfight.
Unfortunately, Hitchens has long shuffled off this mortal coil, but Wally is still on tap whenever the left media need an apologist for Islamic terror.
Two stabbings that make you shudder. One in a shopping centre in Bondi Junction, and one in a church in the Sydney suburb of Wakeley. One causing mass fatalities, and one causing serious injuries. One police have designated an act of terrorism, and one not.
For the simple reason that one was a terrorist attack, while the other was not.
True to his jejune form, Wally tries to dance around this simple fact, with his trademark waffle, which back in the day prompted Hitchens to call out his “dodging”.
That differential treatment has caused much consternation in two main circles, each of which sees double standards at play. First, among domestic violence campaigners enraged that an attack of the Bondi Junction stabbings’ brutality, which police acknowledge was specifically targeting women, is not declared terrorism. And second, among some Muslim community groups who suspect that a Muslim perpetrator will be deemed a terrorist, and a non-Muslim one won’t even if they’re doing the same thing.
Here we get to the standard Aly baffle-with-bullshit gambit.
First off, he actually admits that it is true that one was a terrorist attack and the other was not.
There’s good reason to raise such objections. At the same time, I think they are straightforwardly incorrect. That’s because they tend to work backwards. They don’t start with a definition of terrorism and then consider whether the facts of each case fit within it […]
The Port Arthur massacre was an act of mass violence, but it was not terrorism because it lacked a political cause. A racist who comes across a black man in a park and proceeds to assault him is almost certainly guilty of a hate crime. But his crime is unlikely to be deemed terrorism if the violence isn’t intended for an audience. However, the Ku Klux Klan is a terrorist group because it launched violent campaigns of racial intimidation seeking particular political outcomes.
Then the dodging bullshit starts.
These distinctions work especially well for what we might call classical terrorism: groups and networks with clear political aims carrying out targeted, organised plots. It even works for most “lone wolves” who carry out attacks more or less alone. But these sorts of terrorists – like the Unabomber or the Christchurch terrorist – often make their political motives very clear by writing letters or publishing manifestos.
The problem is that terrorism is now evolving – perhaps even devolving – into something that is increasingly difficult to distinguish from ordinary crime. Increasingly, the spectacular and theatrical is giving way to the small-scale and crude. Motives are not clear in manifestos, but have to be gleaned.
No, they don’t, you woeful apologist. The church stabber’s motives were clear as a bell — because he said so. He stabbed Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel for “swearing at my prophet”. He also yelled the Islamic terrorist’s catchphrase, “Allahu Akbar”.
Who could deny, then, that it was an Islamic terror attack? Leave it to Wally to give it the good old madrassah try: “It’s possible this attack was entirely personal”.
Then comes the standard glass-jawed Islamic, “We’re the real victims here” whining.
Muslims have spent this century enduring flatly incorrect canards from politicians and pundits such as “not every Muslim is a terrorist, but every terrorist is a Muslim”.
“Flatly incorrect”? Bollocks. It might not be entirely correct, but it’s not far wrong. Globally, some 85-90% of terror attacks are Islamic. So, maybe not every terrorist, but nearly all of them.
But Wally is far from done trying to distract attention from Islamic terror.
Terrorism is an atrocity, but it is not the only one.
And who says that it is? No one makes that argument. Wally is tilting at straw men: “dodging”, as Hitchens bluntly told him.
Because, as Wally knows perfectly well — because he said so, at the very start of his propaganda piece — terrorism has a purpose far beyond merely killing.
Russian anarchists […] set modern terrorism in motion when they killed Tsar Alexander II by bombing in 1881. By calling it terrorism, they wanted to convey that their violence was strategic and served a grand cause.
Political assassinations were not new, but this was different because the point wasn’t to kill Alexander personally. The aim wasn’t to replace a bad tsar with a better one. It was to abolish tsars altogether, to start a revolution. It was to use terror as a political tool by performing this violence for everyone to see.
The Age
And here’s the important point Wally spends the rest of his article trying to dodge. The Bondi stabber wasn’t out to send a message to all women: the church stabber was sending a message to non-Muslims. The message was as clear and sharp as his knife: upset Muslims and you’ll be the next target.
That message, as Waleed Aly knows, is dreadfully effective. How many people have been cowed into silence, or worse, abject pandering, by the threat of Islamic violence? Even idiotic Guardian cartoonist Andrew Marlton admits that he is too afraid to do cartoons about Muslims.
So, Wally, “Why don’t you say what you actually think? How about that?” as Hitchens once challenged you.