To the Slaughter British lions come up lambs in Woolwich.

[lostinblue 1,989]

To the Slaughter
British lions come up lambs in Woolwich.

By Mark Steyn

On Wednesday, Drummer Lee Rigby of the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers, a man who had served Queen and country honorably in the hell of Helmand Province in Afghanistan, emerged from his barracks on Wellington Street, named after the Duke thereof, in southeast London. Minutes later, he was hacked to death in broad daylight and in full view of onlookers by two men with machetes who crowed “Allahu akbar!” as they dumped his carcass in the middle of the street like so much road kill.

As grotesque as this act of savagery was, the aftermath was even more unsettling. The perpetrators did not, as the Tsarnaev brothers did in Boston, attempt to escape. Instead, they held court in the street gloating over their trophy, and flagged down a London bus to demand the passengers record their triumph on film. As the crowd of bystanders swelled, the remarkably urbane savages posed for photographs with the remains of their victim while discoursing on the iniquities of Britain toward the Muslim world. Having killed Drummer Rigby, they were killing time: It took 20 minutes for the somnolent British constabulary to show up. And so television viewers were treated to the spectacle of a young man, speaking in the vowels of south London, chatting calmly with his “fellow Britons” about his geopolitical grievances and apologizing to the ladies present for any discomfort his beheading of Drummer Rigby might have caused them, all while drenched in blood and still wielding his cleaver.

If you’re thinking of getting steamed over all that, don’t. Simon Jenkins, the former editor of the Times of London, cautioned against “mass hysteria” over “mundane acts of violence.”

That’s easy for him to say. Woolwich is an unfashionable part of town, and Sir Simon is unlikely to find himself there of an afternoon stroll. Drummer Rigby had less choice in the matter. Being jumped by barbarians with machetes is certainly “mundane” in Somalia and Sudan, but it’s the sort of thing that would once have been considered somewhat unusual on a sunny afternoon in south London — at least as unusual as, say, blowing up eight-year-old boys at the Boston Marathon. It was “mundane” only in the sense that, as at weddings and kindergarten concerts, the reflexive reaction of everybody present was to get out their cell phones and start filming.

Once, long ago, I was in an altercation where someone pulled a switchblade, and ever since have been mindful of Jimmy Hoffa’s observation that he’d rather jump a gun than a knife. Nevertheless, there is a disturbing passivity to this scene: a street full of able-bodied citizens being lectured to by blood-soaked murderers who have no fear that anyone will be minded to interrupt their diatribes. In fairness to the people of Boston, they were ordered to “shelter in place” by the governor of Massachusetts. In Woolwich, a large crowd of Londoners apparently volunteered to “shelter in place,” instinctively. Consider how that will play when these guys’ jihadist snuff video is being hawked around the bazaars of the Muslim world. Behold the infidels, content to be bystanders in their own fate.

This passivity set the tone for what followed. In London as in Boston, the politico-media class immediately lapsed into the pneumatic multiculti Tourette’s that seems to be a chronic side effect of excess diversity-celebrating: No Islam to see here, nothing to do with Islam, all these body parts in the street are a deplorable misinterpretation of Islam. The BBC’s Nick Robinson accidentally described the men as being “of Muslim appearance,” but quickly walked it back lest impressionable types get the idea that there’s anything “of Muslim appearance” about a guy waving a machete and saying “Allahu akbar.” A man is on TV dripping blood in front of a dead British soldier and swearing “by Almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you,” yet it’s the BBC reporter who’s apologizing for “causing offence.” To David Cameron, Drummer Rigby’s horrific end was “not just an attack on Britain and on the British way of life, it was also a betrayal of Islam. . . . There is nothing in Islam that justifies this truly dreadful act.”

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/349308/slaughter

A woman has to stand up against terrorist with guns knives and machetes, while men, a few feet away, do nothing and hide behind "health and safety" legislation, You saw the castration of the liberal British male...... cower in fear...This is what liberals desire American men to do also.Wait 20 minutes for the police to show up.

[Boiler 46,156]

The Police also stood by until armed Police arrived.

You could not make it up.

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Some Islamophobia by Mark "Eurabia" Steyn. Posted by the usual suspect. Yawn.

[Boiler 46,156]

Justified or unjustified?

[mota bhai 2,675]

... there is a disturbing passivity to this scene: a street full of able-bodied citizens being lectured to by blood-soaked murderers who have no fear that anyone will be minded to interrupt their diatribes. In fairness to the people of Boston, they were ordered to shelter in place by the governor of Massachusetts. In Woolwich, a large crowd of Londoners apparently volunteered to shelter in place, instinctively. Consider how that will play when these guys jihadist snuff video is being hawked around the bazaars of the Muslim world. Behold the infidels, content to be bystanders in their own fate.

Very well put.

[lostinblue 1,989]

A French soldier was stabbed in the throat in Paris on Saturday, and France's president said authorities are investigating any possible links with the recent slaying of a British soldier.http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/05/25/french-soldier-stabbed-in-throat-outside-paris/2360719/

And so it begins. Around the world it is said "We can do what ever we want when ever we want. "

[The Nature Boy 4,224]

The Police also stood by until armed Police arrived.

You could not make it up.

GuN control saved them NOT

[GandD 5,966]

GuN control saved them NOT

A lot less victims though neigh?

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

Justified or unjustified?

Are you asking whether Islamophobia is justiied? I don't think it is. How about you?

[OnMyWayID 1,489]

Are you asking whether Islamophobia is justiied? I don't think it is. How about you?

The word has no power and is only used by those without an argument.. It has all the power of saying naziphobia or KKKphobia. the word means NOTHING because those using it never have a point other than to stifle discussion. You are at number 2 in this thread. Surprise.

--

As far as the people just standing by and watching... This is a new type of shock, similar to 9/11 - the first three planes went to their targets with no opposition and all the men had were box cutters. The word went out quickly and on the fourth plane they acted. People always have a period of disorientation before adjusting and reacting. If this same type of thing continues to happen in Britain the people will react differently. This is why tactics are always adjusting.

Notice I did not mention religion or use harsh terms to define the attackers... Just commenting on general human nature so please at least keep the needless labels accurate..

Edited May 26, 2013 by OnMyWayID

[Boiler 46,156]

Are you asking whether Islamophobia is justiied? I don't think it is. How about you?

I guess it might be impacted on whether you had your head cut off?

[Sarah Elle-Même 660]

Thankfully there are people with an actual understanding of the problem of Islamist supremacy and extremism and how to go about effectively addressing it.

'I watched a man stabbed in a London street - and felt nothing'

By MAAJID NAWAZ, CHAIRMAN OF COUNTER EXTREMISM THINK-TANK, QUILLIAM

Most people find it hard to imagine stabbing another human being, let alone almost decapitating someone with a meat cleaver. To do so in broad daylight and in the middle of the road, while asking passers-by to take pictures, simply beggars belief.

Few can understand how the British jihadists Michael Adebolajo and Michael Adebowale could be filled with such hate. I’m ashamed to say I can. For I was similar to them once.

I spent 13 years inside Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT), the global Islamist organisation that first spawned al-Muhajiroun, the banned Islamist terrorist organisation founded by Omar Bakri Mohammed and Anjem Choudary.

Bakri and Choudary both knew Adebolajo, a 28-year-old who was raised as a Christian. Like Adebolajo, I was raised in Essex in an educated, middle-class and well integrated family.

Again, like Adebolajo, I went on to further education, although he dropped out while I gained a law and Arabic degree from The School of African and Oriental Studies and a Masters in political theory from the London School of Economics.

(The belief that all radicalised young Muslims must lack jobs or are socially awkward loners is a dangerous misconception. I did not lack career opportunities, nor did I lack friends or girlfriends.)

And I, too, was caught up in the aftermath of a Jihadist street murder in which a man was killed with a machete. It was 1995 and I was president of the Student Union at Newham College in East Ham. The union was nothing but a front for HT. We syphoned off money to our cause, giving lectures and preaching anywhere and everywhere – the street, the yard, the canteen where I would stand on the tables and spout hate.

We were encouraged by Omar Bakri to operate like street gangs and we did, prowling London, fighting Indian Sikhs in the west and African Christians in the east. We intimidated Muslim women until they wore the hijab and we thought we were invincible.

And when an acquaintance of mine, Saeed Nur, slashed a Nigerian student, Ayotunde Obanubi, shouting the same battle cry as the Woolwich attackers, ‘Allahu Akbar’ – God is Great – I watched him die and felt nothing. I did not incite the murder but I did nothing to stop it.

So how did it reach that point? And what turns a tiny minority of ordinary, young, Muslim men into fanatical, cold-blooded killers?

For my own part, once I became a teenager I experienced severe and violent racism. The neo-Nazi para-military group Combat 18 began to target me and my friends. On a few occasions I was forced to watch as white friends were stabbed merely for being associated with me.

At 15, I was falsely arrested at gunpoint for playing with a plastic gun. This was the early 1990s, genocide was unfolding in Bosnia, while the international community failed to act. Add this to my own internal identity crisis – I didn’t know if I was British or Pakistani, Muslim or agnostic – and my disenfranchisement from mainstream society was complete.

However, it’s what happened next that sealed my fate. I needed someone who could guide a broken and confused 16-year-old. Instead, I came across a charismatic recruiter espousing HT’s cause who sold me the ideology of Islamism in the name of Islam.

But Islamism is not Islam. Islamism is the politicisation of Islam, the desire to impose a version of this ancient faith over society. To achieve this, Islamism uses political grievances, such as mine, to alienate and then provide an alternative sense of belonging to vulnerable young Muslims.Preying on the grievances of disaffected young men is the bedrock of Islamism.

Like all bigoted ideologies, it plays on the identity politics game, creating a ‘them and us’, in order to provide a home for the ‘us’ against the alien ‘other’ and control the community by acting as the sole ‘representative’ of Muslims.

One of the Woolwich Jihaidsts ranted to onlookers, ‘you’ have occupied ‘our’ lands. Spreading this sense of exclusive Muslim victimhood is crucial to the radicalisation process. I continued to spread hate for many years after Obanubi’s murder, co-founding branches in Denmark and Pakistan where we targeted army officers in order to incite military coups.

I was aiming to do the same thing in Egypt in 2001, when I was arrested and tortured. Eventually I was convicted of ‘membership of a banned organisation’ and sentenced to serve five years in Mazra Tora prison where deposed dictator Hosni Mubarak is now held.

It was then I began to sift through my layers of hatred and ignorance. I also encountered the kindness of strangers, especially Amnesty International whose campaign to win my release was led by an octogenarian in England I’d never met.

After much soul searching I was able to renounce my past Islamist ideology, challenging everything I was once prepared to die for.

De-radicalisation begins by breaking down the logic which once seemed unassailable and rethinking what you are fighting for and why. That is hard to do when Islamists and Islamophobes feed off each other’s hateful cliches.

We must not blame the security services for what happened. As long as a man can pick up a knife, these murders will be impossible to predict. The only way to try and prevent it happening again is to give those angry young Muslims another outlet. I have founded Khudi, in Pakistan, a youth movement which tries to counter extremist ideology through healthy discussion and debate.

I believe we need a similar grassroots movement in Britain. The only way we can challenge Islamism is to engage with one another. We need to make it as abhorrent as racism has become today. Only then will we stem the tide of angry young Muslims who turn to hate.

Only then will they stop listening to people like Omar Bakri Mohammed and Anjem Choudary.

Maajid Nawaz is author of Radical: My Journey From Islamist Extremism To A Democratic Awakening.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2331021/I-watched-man-stabbed-London-street--felt-nothing.html

[Mr. Big Dog 10,747]

I guess it might be impacted on whether you had your head cut off?

I would suggest that nobody with their head cut off is suffering from Islamophobia.

[Boiler 46,156]

Suffering no, suffered, probably.

[ready4ONE 5,400]

Thankfully there are people with an actual understanding of the problem of Islamist supremacy and extremism and how to go about effectively addressing it.

Radical Islam, Islamism if that is somehow a better term, is a political corruption of Islam. I hope guys like the writer of your article are successful but even his story indicates that the phenomenon exists. Mainstream Muslims should not be lumped in with such groups, but concerns about Radical Islamism, and the fact Islamism more often than not arises from people who initially start out engaged in Mainstream Islam, should not be summarily dismissed as the religious equivalent of racism.

The situation is greatly complicated and not well served by total denial the problem exists on one hand vs unfair use of the problem to smear every Muslim.