Jesús M. Pérez has a thought-provoking post, inviting us to go beyond the ‘burkini’ debate:
The burkini debate is irrelevant and a symptom of the weakness of Europe because it avoids facing the real issues posed by Muslim communities that do not want to adopt Western values, and furthermore, they want to force the rest to live according to their own. Refusing to address this problem and many others by the traditional political parties in Europe has allowed the rise of xenophobic parties. And it is a social ticking bomb that could explode with unpredictable consequences. But I will talk about that later.
Today I just want to offer a preview. Since early this year I have been collecting news, after the issue of mass sexual abuse on New Year’s Eve celebrations. And recently I found a story that did not have much echo beyond Islamophobic and xenophobic outlets, but in my head it sounded like something I had seen before. For the third time I found news that the UK authorities had failed to investigate a matter in which Muslims were involved for fear of being labeled racist.
Peter Dominiczak said last August 22nd in The Telegraph that hotbeds of radicalization in British prisons had flourished while prison officials avoided addressing “behavior and extremist views” of prisoners to avoid accusations of racism. For example, controlling the movement of radical literature in prisons. Thus, Muslim inmates press to not be cached with the argument that their clothing is a religious symbol.
Earlier, I read another chronicle by Peter Dominiczak dated August 12th, also in The Telegraph, which was about how a government report had detected electoral fraud in districts with Muslim population but had failed to investigate thoroughly due to the “over-sensitivities about ethnicity and religion”. The report points to the existence of electoral fraud in municipalities with Pakistani and Bangladeshi population. The report makes proposals that in Spain are striking, such as from now on that identification is required when voting or having police presence at polling stations. The latter is now recommended in the UK to avoid intimidation. The article mentions the case of Lutfur Rahman, former mayor of Tower Hamlets and dismissed from his post after uncovering his re-election in 2014 had been plagued with irregularities. For years, various British media investigated corruption and waste in his town hall, where public money was used to finance Islamist organizations and a local tv station in exchange for political support. The Metropolitan Police is reproached for not investigating thoroughly.
In both cases the headlines speak of “political correctness” as the cause of the neglect and inaction of British politicians. But a while ago I read something similar in a case that, surprisingly, has not attracted more attention. 1,400 minors (at least) were sexually abused between 1997 and 2013 in the city of Rotherham at the hands of gangs of men of Pakistani origin, and authorities did not investigate thoroughly to not “promote racism”. In 2014, the current Prime Minister, Theresa May, blamed the “institutionalized political correctness“. All children were victims of kidnapping, gang rape and sex trafficking, with cases of gang rape. Many of those who dared to denounce were not believed or received the recommendation not to include the ethnicity of the perpetrators in their account of facts. The victims were also intimidated, and their families were harassed to prevent them from testifying. 300 suspects had been identified in 2015 and in February 2016 five men were convicted of “systematic sexual exploitation of 15 girls”.
The Rotherham case is the most important. But via Wikipedia I find out that it isn’t the only one. In the town of Rochdale, a band of eight Pakistanis and one Afghan who abused 47 minors —all white and of British origin— operated between 2008 and 2010. The police did not investigate for fear of accusations of racism, neither did they pay special attention to the pattern of the victims. The nine were sentenced to prison in 2012. They turned out to be parents and “respected members” of their communities. It wasn’t the only case in Rochdale, where another band operated between 2005 and 2013. Ten men were convicted this year for rape and child abuse of victims between 13 and 23 years. The pattern is repeated across the country. Groups of Muslim men, mostly of Pakistani origin, dedicated to abusing and raping British girls in cases that were not thoroughly investigated by the police for fear of being accused of racism. See the cases of Bristol, Telford, Oxford, Banbury, Peterborough and Aylesbury.
Turns out believing Islam is a race is not only factually wrong, but it also enables a rape culture —the kind that actually exists outside post-modernist minds!—.
(image: Eric Hossinger)
