‘The perceived plight of Muslims in 2019 trumps the sufferings of all other groups. And like gay men, Jews have been relegated to the bottom of the victim pyramid’
As I started writing this piece a shooting attack took place in the Dutch city of Utrecht that left several people injured, and is now being investigated as a possible case of terrorism.
Trauma helicopters have been sent to the scene, the Utrecht police said on Twitter, and trams in the city have been shut down while the authorities investigate the attack. A Dutch university teacher – specialised in jihadism, radicalism en political philosophy – wrote on Twitter: ‘I wouldn’t be surprised if the shooting in Utrecht was a response to #Christchurch. It is stil too early to draw any conclusions but attacks like in Christchurch are a celebration voor jihadists. It gives them a reason, legitimacy and a media platform’.
Het zou niets verbazen als de schietpartij in #utrecht een reactie zou zijn op #Christchurch. Het is nu nog te vroeg om die conclusie te trekken maar aanslagen zoals Christchurch zijn vooral een feest voor jihadisten. Het geeft hen aanleiding, legitimiteit en een media platform. https://t.co/Aml4sT051v
— David Suurland (@dsuurland) 18 maart 2019
I think it is fair to say that we are now in a situation where this incident – alongside the horrific murder of 120 Christians by a Nigerian muslim militant last week – is considered a ‘justified killing’ by large parts of the (Dutch) media establishment and our political leadership. The barbaric killings in Christchurch were widely proclaimed to be the fault of – let’s paint with the same broad brush they’ve been using: heretics that don’t comply to the left wing progressive ideology. (Also known as ‘the right’). The consequence is that we are picking sides in a conflict that is predicated on making institutionalised victims ‘always right’ and institutionalised predators ‘always wrong’. Independent of the question who is inciting or even using violence.
Subsequently Christchurch was called ‘an attack on all of us’ by the media, while simultaneously ignoring the religiously motivated attack on 120 Christians, by which in my opinion it became ‘an assault by all of us’. Suddenly immune to bodycounts and the extreme hatred behind the massacre of innocent people, it made me wonder if we really have lost all sense of humanity. Not because we shouldn’t mourn the dead in Christchurch – we should, and we should condemn the violence – but because we actively choose not to mourn the people who we’d apparently rather abuse and make complicit in the narrative that only recognises violence against muslims as a shared threat.
For one, Christchurch was not an attack on me, or us, it was an attack against those victims en we should deal with those responsible. My point is, I want no part in facilitating these victim olympics, where skin colour, background, heritage and religion determine wether ‘we’ are all with you or not. It’s mostly the devil who loves this evil game, so why are we playing along?
From a humanist perspective, where all people are alike and should be judged on their character and not their skin colour or religion, these attacks should be treated with equal outrage. It is from this perspective that many are pointing out the hypocrisy. But it is just the top layer of the issue. And humanisme, I hate to say, is not the default setting of our civilisation anymore.
As we have clearly seen, the left has hijacked the attack in Christchurch and (within hours) teamed up with even the most radical islamic, anti-semitic and intolerant forces in society to go after ‘the right’ who have ‘their names written all over these horrific killings’. Even though the Christchurch killers manifest is a messy compilation of right- ánd left wing extremism: the victims were muslim so cherry picking our choice of grief is aloud while also using them for political gain.
So the truth underneath the hypocrisy is much simpler, which is that there exists, in the progressive universe, a victim hierarchy. It used to be quite fashionable to root for the gays, but that was back in the 1980s when they were dying of AIDS and Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan were arrayed against them.
In the more optimised game of ‘Race, Gender, Sexuality,’ black now beats white, woman beats man, trans beats cisgender, and Muslim beats non-Muslim. The perceived plight of Muslims in 2019 trumps the sufferings of all other groups. And like gay men, Jews have been relegated to the bottom of the progressive victim pyramid.
No wonder hatred for (white) Christians, Jews and any other victim group who is either unsuitable or refuses to take on a role as oppressed minority, is surging. This practice has been further shaped by high level US-government en EU-policy. For example, the hypersensitive concern about ‘islamophobia’ is just one of many measures the progressive speech police has taken to stir up the flames of identity politics. A game that has no logical end to it, but more likely a very bloody one – for all sides.