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Flat White

Condemning – – – – –

18 June 2016

8:00 AM

18 June 2016

8:00 AM

Littering our beautiful countryside is both unsightly and potentially prejudicial to the environment. So we run expensive campaigns to condemn those that litter and invite people to dob in litterbugs.

As someone who helped set up a women’s shelter and served on its inaugural committee as its honorary legal adviser for a number of years, I know domestic violence is an hideous scourge. We now thankfully run campaigns condemning the perpetrators of this often hidden but nevertheless criminal behaviour. We invite men in particular to be white ribbon ambassadors.

As a community we rightly condemn those that abuse children. Those institutions who turned a blind-eye or engaged in cover-ups and denials are now being confronted and offenders brought to justice in a very public manner. Reporting is mandatory.

And so the list goes on.

These campaigns are designed to dissuade people tempted to engage in anti-social and criminal behaviour to desist and bring to justice those that so engage.

If we wish to maintain our environment, protect vulnerable people from violence and protect children, we are obliged to take decisive action. We need to name and shame. We need to prosecute. We need to create a culture where littering, domestic violence and child abuse is shunned. And the best way to achieve that cultural mindset is through public condemnation. The potential of social shame and ostracism is a powerful motivator to change actual behaviours and help people not to yield to such behaviour in the first place.

Yet when it comes to – – – – – we aren’t allowed to condemn it, or call on the relevant organisation to purge itself of the evil element. We aren’t even allowed to whisper its name for fear of affected outrage from the left-wing commentariat.

So, officialdom regales us with logic defying and truth denying assertions that the New South Wales police accountant Curtis Cheng’s heinous murder was ‘politically’ motivated and not ‘religiously’ motivated.

The fact the perpetrator visited a certain religious institution immediately before committing his crime, shouted religious slogans during and after his cowardly abhorrent and depraved crime and the police shortly thereafter visited the said religious institution to ‘help them with their enquiries’ is airbrushed in an audacious Orwellian flourish. Such is the current impact of the commentariat acting as today’s thought police.


The proffered reason? To do so might be counter-productive and help them recruit and grow! ‘We can’t stereotype, it’s only a minority’, we are told.

Condemning those that litter does not stereotype every Australian as a litterbug. Thankfully they are a minority.

Exposing domestic violence does not stereotype every man as violent. Thankfully they are a minority.

Exposing those that abuse children does not stereotype every teacher or clergyman. Thankfully they are a minority.

Exposing radical – – – – – does not stereotype every – – – – -. Thankfully they are a minority.

The fact that anti-social or criminal behaviour is only exhibited by a minority is surely not the point. To have recourse to such an argument shows the paucity of the logic and rationale.

Let’s reflect on some heinous aspects of world history. We can all agree that the majority of Japanese, German, Russian and Chinese people were peace-loving fellow human beings. Yet a minority in those nations were responsible for horrendous crimes against humanity. The ‘majority’ argument is of no comfort to the victims and hardly relevant, when the majority’s failure to act led to untold atrocities.

That’s why the majority need to be vocal. A failure to be vocal actually makes one complicit. Peace loving – – – – -s have been made sadly immaterial by their silence.

And let’s be absolutely clear. We are talking about a death cult which has been responsible for the rape and murder of hundreds and thousands of women and children in the Middle East. A death cult which has pillaged entire villages destroying thousands of years of history and the lives and livelihoods of the people. But this isn’t just isolated to that blighted region. This death cult has inspired attacks around the world, including recently in Paris, Indonesia, Africa and Australia. And now Orlando.

Their mission in life is to tear down our way of life and to strike fear into the hearts of all people in the Western World. We cannot and should never sit by and pretend that this is some misunderstood group. There is no doubt that the Western world, including Australia, is under attack from – – – – -s. We can and should be calling them out.

To stop littering, domestic violence and child abuse we confront it. We say zero tolerance.

The perpetrators are exposed as perpetrators and not presented as victims of some imagined injustice. If the leaders of men’s groups for example were in the business of excusing and side-stepping domestic violence by saying ‘If spouses behaved better they would have nothing to fear’ one would expect a justified volcano of condemnation from all quarters.

So, why this silence and denial on Muslim radicalism? (There I’ve mentioned it.)

Just as men wearing white ribbons and being white ribbon ambassadors sends a powerful message to men engaged, or tempted to engage, in domestic violence how powerful would it be if Muslims were to wear a symbol condemning Muslim radicalisation? The grand mufti would be a great start.

Not all men engage in domestic violence. Indeed, thankfully, only a minority do. And sometimes, albeit very rarely, there is a female perpetrator. But does the white ribbon campaign encourage more domestic violence or help recruit more perpetrators or unfairly stereotype males?

We all know the answer – an emphatic ‘No’ on all counts.

Condemning Muslim extremism needs to be equally as emphatic.

The post Condemning – – – – – appeared first on The Spectator.

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