Let's say a fire breaks out at Notre Dame cathedral in Paris at the start of Holy Week, and just after two of the city's other most prominent houses of worship - St Sulpice and the Basilica of St Denis - have been attacked and vandalized.
Well, I think we can all confidently say as the first flames are beginning to lick the ceiling that it's undoubtedly an accident. Cigarette butt. Or maybe computer glitch. Probably just an overheated smart phone. We don't need to get in there and sift through the debris. We can just announce it.
On the other hand, when there are coordinated attacks on Easter services at several churches in Sri Lanka, it becomes a little more challenging to pass off multiple suicide-bombings killing nearly three hundred people as an electrical malfunction.
So, in contrast to the confident declarations of a week ago, on Sunday morning the media opted for a subtler narrative. Lead sentence from The Economist:
IT HAS BEEN nearly ten years since the guns fell silent in Sri Lanka's civil war. But bloodshed returned with a vengeance...
So it's something to do with the Tamil Tigers? Their guns fell silent, but now they've returned with a vengeance, eh?
Well, er, no, er, not, ah, precisely... But it's useful for "context", lots and lots of context. And, if you pile up enough context, you can bury the actual story. My old chums at The Age in Melbourne produced an especially fine example:
Colombo: More than 200 people were killed and hundreds more wounded in eight bomb blasts that rocked churches, luxury hotels and other sites in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday - the deadliest violence the South Asian island country has seen since a bloody civil war ended a decade ago.
Ah, there's that bloody civil war flaring up all over again, right?
Steady on. We're not quite saying that, but it's important to know the historical background and so forth...
The scale of the bloodshed recalled the worst days of Sri Lanka's 26-year civil war, in which the Tamil Tigers, a rebel group from the ethnic Tamil minority, sought independence from the Buddhist-majority country. The Tamils are Hindu, Muslim and Christian.
So it's a Hindu-Muslim-Christian attack on churches and hotels?
Er, not exactly. We're still doing ten paragraphs of general throat-clearing here...
Sri Lanka, situated off the southern tip of India, is about 70 per cent Buddhist. While there have been scattered incidents of anti-Christian harassment in recent years, there has been nothing on the scale of what happened on Sunday.
So it's part of a tradition of Buddhists' anti-Christian harassment?
Well, these Buddhists are notoriously "hard-line"...
There is also no history of violent Muslim militants in Sri Lanka. However, tensions have been running high more recently between hard-line Buddhist monks and Muslims.
So the hard-line Buddhists attacked the churches to get at the non-hard-line Muslims?
Whoops, did we give you the impression Muslims had something to do with this? Our mistake...
Two Muslim groups in Sri Lanka condemned the church attacks...
Let us turn to The New York Times:
Religious Minorities Across Asia Suffer Amid Surge in Sectarian Politics
Gotcha. This is all part of a general problem of various unspecified religions in unspecified countries suffering in a general sort of way. But could you be a little less general and more specific?
Okay. Opening paragraphs:
The deadly attacks in Sri Lanka on Sunday highlighted how easily religious coexistence can be ripped apart in a region where secularism is weakening amid the growing appeal of a politics based on ethnic and sectarian identity.
In India, the country's governing right-wing Hindu party is exploiting faith for votes, pushing an us-versus-them philosophy that has left Muslims fearing they will be lynched if they walk alone.
In Myanmar, the country's Buddhist generals have orchestrated a terrifying campaign of ethnic cleansing against the country's Rohingya Muslims.
And in Indonesia and Bangladesh, traditionally moderate Muslim politicians are adopting harder-line stances to appeal to more conservative electorates.
So Hindus are attacking Muslims, and Buddhists are attacking Muslims, and "hard-line" Muslims are attacking moderate Muslims. Thank God for some clarity on the situation. But what were all these Muslims doing in church on Easter morning?
Well, as we said, it's all very complex - not like "Edelweiss" being an obvious white-supremacist dog-whistle by a notorious Nazi Jew composer. Best not to think about it.
Sri Lanka is a popular tourist destination, so there were many western victims of yesterday's attack, including young ones: from an eleven-year-old English boy and a ten-year-old Australian girl to three of the four children of Denmark's wealthiest man, retail billionaire Anders Holch Povlsen. Yet throughout Sunday the UK, Aussie, Danish and the rest of the world's media saw their job as thorough obfuscation of the truth. I heard about yesterday's attack from the BBC, which had extensive rolling coverage with correspondents on the ground - and yet seemed mainly to be trying to tell us as little as possible. A lady think-tanker from Chatham House was keen to focus on the brutality with which the Sri Lankan government had ended the Tamil insurgency a decade ago: a fascinating topic no doubt, but utterly irrelevant to the mound of Christian corpses in Colombo that morning. In the entire hour, hers was the only mention of Islam - when she cautioned that it would be grossly irresponsible and "Islam-phobic" even to bring up the subject.
She didn't really need to spell that out, did she? It used to be said that ninety per cent of news is announcing Lord Jones is dead to people who were entirely unaware that Lord Jones was ever alive. Now the trick is to announce Lord Jones is dead and ensure that people remain entirely unaware of why he is no longer alive. One senses that a line was crossed in yesterday's coverage. As one of our Oz Steyn Club members, Kate Smyth, put it, the media have advanced from dhimmitude to full-blown taqiyya.
The lights are going out on the most basic of journalistic instincts: Who, what, when, where, why. All are subordinate to the Narrative - or Official Lie. All day yesterday and into today, if you had glanced at the telly, switched on the radio or surfed the big news sites of the Internet, you would have thought the Tamil Tigers were back "with a vengeance", as The Economist put it - even though with one exception (the 1990 police massacre) the death toll was higher than any individual attack the Tigers had ever pulled off.
Meanwhile, back in that fast shrinking space known as the real world, from the very first hours the headline of this story was completely straightforward:
Islamic Suicide Bombers Slaughter Three Hundred on Easter Morning
But apparently that can no longer be said.
~Notwithstanding the atrocities in Sri Lanka, we had a very busy Easter weekend at SteynOnline, starting on Good Friday with a particularly timely Tale for Our Time in light of recent events - Mark's reading of pertinent passages from Victor Hugo's Notre-Dame de Paris. Our Saturday movie date offered Mel Gibson's take on The Passion of the Christ, and we went On the Town with an audio exploration of Easter parades, rotogravures, and the dearth of sonnets about bonnets. Steyn's Weekend Notebook presented a pop-culture scorecard if you're having difficulty keeping up with the Great Purges: Kate Smith's a racist, Rodgers & Hammerstein are Nazis, and Dame Edna's done. Our Sunday song selection mourned the passing of Les Reed with his first Number One hit: "It's Not Unusual." If you were busy over the weekend with Easter or Passover observances, we hope you'll want to check out one or three of the foregoing as a new week begins.
This evening Mark will be keeping his Monday date on "Tucker Carlson Tonight", across America at 8pm Eastern/5pm Pacific. Our latest Clubland Q&A will air live around the planet on Wednesday - and later this week we'll be launching a brand new audio adventure in Tales for Our Time.
Tales for Our Time and Clubland Q&A are made with the support of members of The Mark Steyn Club, now approaching its second birthday. You can find more details about the Steyn Club here.
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I have asked our diocesan foundation to send a check to the Archdiocese of Colombo. Everyone else can do the same.
It is clear that the US and European news companies have learned the lesson of the attacks by angry Muslims on the Danish cartoonists and the cartoonists at Charlie Hebdo, that any perceived criticism of Islam will be answered with murder of the journalists. I suggest that people who want to report the truth create a non de plume so their own true name and address cannot be easily targeted. And avoid going into the office. What we have now is a mass of people who want to be famous for their reporting but know that there is a conspiracy ready to kill them if they become too irritating to the killers. It is the same mental captivity that CNN finally confessed to after Saddam Hussein was toppled. While he was being a murderous despot, CNN made a deal with the devil that they would never report on his murders and tortures so long as he allowed them to maintain a bureau in Baghdad that made the pretense to the world of being a superior source of truth. Jihad-phobic journalists have revived the CNN-Hussein treaty of silence.
One thing I noticed about the murders of Christian's and Europeans in Sri Lanka is that they were committed without "assault rifles". This robbed the government of the opportunity for virtue signaling through disarming the innocent, that was taken advantage of by New Zealand's government. Anyone intent on a planned murdering of masses of people can use jet planes, trucks, bombs, molotov cocktails and arson, industrial gasses like chlorine and ammonia that are shipped all over the place in convenient tanker trucks, and disease organisms. A ban on firearms among law abiding citizens does nothing to prevent mass murders. What it does accomplish is to deprive the law abiding of the only weapon they could have ready to hand against an unforeseen attack.
I sometimes wonder about this informal alliance that exists between Islam and the Left. Clearly they drink from the same cup of malevolent totalitarianism but they also must realize that they can't, in the end, co-exist in the same space. Even Nazis and communists realized that they weren't going to be able share the same pie. I am quite sure Muslims have no illusions about any of this. So why the alliance? The only answer seems to be that leftism is, first and foremost, a suicide cult. Any aspect of their ideology extrapolated to its logical conclusion always leads to death. This actually seems to delight them.
With apologies to Irving Berlin--and to everyone here--this is what comes of reading and listening to too many Steyn posts too closely together:
If it's Easter, bomb it; leave a crater like a comet.
You'll take no blame from media in the Easter charade.
Victims under lilies, but guilt gives Libs the willies,
Some people did something--but who?--it's the Easter charade.
I scanned the BBC. Only mention of Muslims was about past attacks against them. One word only - jihadists - was used to describe the attackers. So, jihadists attacked "Easter worshippers". Distancing language. Can't mention Muslims 'cause we like them; won't mention Christians because we don't.
Has anyone heard from the Washington Post? Wait--this just in!
"Analysis: Sri Lanka church bombings stoke far-right anger in the West"
Muslims no longer need to worry about the anti-Muslim "backlash"; the liberal media is worrying about it for them. I don't know if that qualifies AS analysis--but it certainly qualifies FOR analysis. It betrays such self-loathing and all-consuming guilt: are your mornings free? All of them?
Who wouldn't be "angry" if innocent worshipers of their faith were butchered in observance of its holiest day? This time it was Christians (as it often is), but Israelis who suffered during the Yom Kippur War and the Passover (Netanya) Massacre and countless shabbat shellings, shootings, and stabbings can also relate. "Anger" at sectarian slaughter is news? Democracy dies in dhimmitude. (According to Google, you read that here first.)
Embedded in that headline is an observation even more worthy of analysis. So, the Sri Lanka church bombings stoked "far-right" anger. How about everyone else, are they not angry? As I recall the Christchurch massacre elicited anger (both real and pretended) from just about every corner of the political spectrum, which was widely and breathlessly reported. But when it comes to Christians being slaughtered by Muslims, well then that only qualifies for "far-right" anger, at least when it comes to reportage.
One of my retirement gigs is substitute teacher at several suburban school districts near Minneapolis. Although part of Minneapolis is called "Little Mogadishu," there are few Somali or other Muslim students in schools where I teach. Nevertheless, we teachers are not allowed to ascribe responsibility for America's 9/11, Spain's Madrid train bombings (3/11/04), England's London tube attack (7/7/05), the Paris attack on Charlie Hebdo (1/7/15), or France's horror at Bataclan Theatre and elsewhere (11/13/15), lest we "offend" a member of a precious protected class. In other words, the "feelings" of Muslim students and families take precedence over truth. And now, Colombo, Sri Lanka (4/22/19) adds to a long list of attacks by Mohammedans on values we supposedly espouse, for which we must pull our punches and button our lips.
I believe it was George Orwell who wrote: "In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act." He also said, "Freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."
Of course, for the revolutionary act of telling the truth, I will be fired, eventually. In school, it's political correctness ĂĽber alles. "Critical thinking" means being critical of Western Civilization. Full stop.
It is said that the first casualty of war is Truth. It has been interred for many a long year.
"Freedom is the right to tell people what they do not want to hear."
Great point, Larry. And the flip side is a point equally valid - especially in today's anti-free speech culture - but less often made (paraphrasing Steyn, Hitchens, O'Neill et al):
"Freedom is the right of the people to hear what you are telling them." The audience has a right too, which is being denied by both Islam and the Left.
That was really very funny, and very piquant. Thanks. What a bunch of dolts we must seem to those who lead us by the nose. I'll not lightly excuse Trump's habitual discourtesy, but I can certainly forgive cellar-dwellers (me included) who are glad that he expresses publicly what they must express privately - when he does. Happily the author never lets his readers down in any of those matters, and never has nothing to say.
The reaction of many Democrats and and Leftists referring to the attack on "Easter worshippers" is possibly the slimiest bit of political cowardice I've seen this year. Given who they are, it's likely they will work at outdoing even that bit of shameful rhetoric.
How do they all parrot the same line at the same time?
Is Twitter centrally managing all DNC accounts? Does John Podesta create and issue a standard talking point to the Twitter manager, who create a Tweet storm on "on-message" Tweets? No way are Hillary or Obama capable of actually co-ordinating like this.
Just consider the screen name I use, if you want to put two and two together. In the UK, Alastair Campbell and his wing-man Tom Baldwin seem to be major actors. An early victim was Howard Flight.
Remember when ISIS beheaded 21 Coptic Christians on a beach in Libya, and Obama referred to them as "Egyptian citizens"?
Slimy political cowardice sounds about right.
Mark, you need to add 'the authorities' to the list of whom to blame. Most of the reports I saw on TV last night suggested that blood was on the hands of the authorities for not warning everyone to stay away from churches and hotels.
I just received this email blast from the "prestigious" ATLANTIC Magazine at 7:45 pm Monday (EST), long after Islamic provenance was proven. They, too, are agnostic & fuzzy on whodunit:
"Bombings at churches and hotels in Sri Lanka killed nearly 300 people on Easter Sunday. The attacks were a grisly reminder that the religious tensions that fueled the country's civil war are still lingering—and a sign that the relative peace in the decade since the war ended has been tenuous."
Can't expect the magazine that sees evil in every Capitalist or Christian concept to see any evil in Islam.
The massacre of Christians etc. in Sri Lanka is appalling - very sad to see. Likewise the various massacres in NE Africa. What I also find horrific is the brutal imposition of Sharia law in Indonesia.
I was already thinking that I'm not buying the 'computer glitch' story. With Steyn's skepticism here, I feel like my own skepticism is well founded.
Comment on the ever-soggier DT Online, from Maggie's erstwhile Political ToyBoy, William Hague:
"The time for denial is over.
(I am thinking he is going to address Islamic "pacification" of Christendom)
Conservatives have to take the
(Ah. No. He is talking about firing May and getting out of the EU)
climate crisis seriously"
(How wet? Sopping. Dripping.)
The Saturday and Sunday people will continue to be slaughtered by the Friday people until such time as the Saturday and Sunday people and "leaders" are no longer afraid to actually recognize the religious and therefore insoluble nature of this war. My very best wishes to all Christians (not "Easter worshippers") for the most joyful Easter season possible under the circumstances.
Laura, I hope you had a very joyful Passover, along with other Saturday peeps.
It's been a while... miss your chutzpah!!
Hi Kate, things have been busy but I hope to be back in the groove this week!
Glad to hear it... in time for MSC birthday celebrations!
I wish some Indian politician whould explain to those Muslim victims of hard-line Buddhist and Hindu attacks that it's all just a part of living in a vibrant diverse society. It certainly makes me feel good when they tell Christians that.
To expand on Mark's comments - The Associated Press dispatch today that reached ten of millions of newspaper readers reads virtually word for word with the report he cited from the 'The Age" and used the identical line Mark also cited from the Economist. There must be some secret central source all reporters check in with to insure coverage of these events shields Islam to the fullest extent possible. Tucker has had some fun recently showing how the hosts on CNN & MSNBC parrot back the exact same talking points on the 'hate Trump' issues of the day. The AP in particular now functions as the media outlet for the democratic party, but then again so does the rest of the national media to a great extent.
I wonder if the members of this cabal have explicitly granted copyright privileges to their comrades? The Clinton financed "Russian Collusion" hoax provides an inside look on how multiple entities, ranging from the DoJ, to the FBI, to several prominent news organizations, were more than willing to repackage the original fiction with little more than a change in the byline. Wasn't it remarkable how "multiple sources" all served to collaborate the request for the FISA warrant that allowed the FBI to bug Trump's campaign? And the timing was just right to influence the FISA judge. We now know out that they all trace back to the same individual and probably the same documents. All paid for by Hillary. The only question remaining is how did they coordinate the campaign so perfectly?
As for today's AP, I wonder if they have an algorithm that rotates the "reporting" duty between the various "journalists" who copy and paste the material. The larger the number of apparently independent "sources" for this news, the greater the perceived reliability. This is the sort of perversion of logic that appeals to true believers. Joseph Goebbels would have been delighted with such a project.
We get the government we deserve. Fifty years into the Great Society and the wonders of the welfare state, politicians of both parties have learned that the path to reelection is to tack close to the Narrative, especially as the head winds blow stronger, and the lee shore draws ever closer. In 1935, well before Hitler's first overt aggression, he held a Rally in Nuremburg that featured a vast panorama of uniformed troops, all obedient to the Fuhrer's will. This should have been a warning, but Hitler understood the welfare politicians in Great Britain and France only too well. The Rhineland, Austria and Czechoslovakia were all sacrificed in a futile attempt at appeasement.
Today, the challenge is simultaneously less overt but equally deadly. The Netherlands, in 2006, encouraged Ayaan HIrsi Ali to resign her position as an MP in hopes that would satisfy the butchers who killed Theo van Gogh. This served only to confirm the contempt with which the welfare state elites were viewed by muslim radicals. The bloodshed increased by orders of magnitude in the following decade.
Adhering to the dogma of the Narrative, the sellers of our false prosperity continue to be reelected, despite the violence, and so we have doubled down on government by delusion. In virtually every aspect of government policy, we see the consequences of this retreat from reality. The governor of California declared an era of permanent drought based on nothing more than computer models run by acolytes of "Climate Change". As a consequence, repairs to the spillway at Oroville Dam were neglected, nearly resulting in a massive failure of the dam three years ago. Now California's "Bullet Train" is being expunged from the official Narrative, and only the unfinished pylons will serve to remind us that there is a reality beyond the false promises of our leaders. Regrettably few will see these monuments to stupidity as the roads lying along the eastern boundaries of California's Central Valley are allowed to settle into a state of disrepair and obsolescence. This region of California is not favored by the coastal elites, and thus is largely powerless. The same is true in virtually all Democrat controlled states. Politics by mass delusions, imposed on deplorables who actually work for a living, supported by elites who hide behind gated and walled estates, all reinforced by a false Narrative. As Victor Davis Hanson and Mark have so eloquently written, reality beckons,
As I virtually worship Ayaan Hirsi Ali thanks so much for mentioning this courageous woman's unforgivable treatment by Europeans. The Netherlands went a bit further than just 'asking' her to resign. The underlying message was clear - you are no longer welcome here. One other point, back then I was still somewhat naive about the left. When film maker/journalist Theo van Gogh was brutally murdered in broad daylight by a Muslim I expected a firestorm of protest from Hollywood. Instead there was absolutely dead silence. The press largely passed off van Gogh's killer as a deranged lunatic. You certainly have taken the pulse of todays Democratic party. Outstanding piece Robert.
A government modest enough to try to do its proper tasks well—good roads, national defense (including border control), postal services, maintenance of the rule of law—is considered by leftists as "doing nothing," even though such work is difficult. As government devotes ever more taxpayer dollars to leftist causes—like theft (falsely called wealth redistribution) it becomes worse and worse at its basic functions.
Our modern governments are really quite effective if they detect a threat. As a case in point, the FBI moved in quickly to arrest the 69 year old leader of the band of brigands who took it upon themselves to enforce our border with Mexico. The Attorney General of New Mexico forcefully stated that this was a job for trained professional law enforcement and would create problems for everyone. Of course, there was no "trained LEO's" assigned to do this job and there will be no officer's assigned to do that work in the future.
When the citizens bypass the government to take needed action they are called vigilantes and the available government agents first priority is to make sure the authority of the state is not challenged. That is the real threat to the government of the elites.
As a side note, I wish I could travel ahead in time to hear the archaeologists theories about the bullet train pylons. What did those primitive people believe? If I told them the truth they would dismiss me as a crackpot. I would remain silent except for laughing once I had returned to the present.
"The governor of California declared an era of permanent drought based on nothing more than computer models run by acolytes of "Climate Change". Then the rains came and the drought was over. Damn computer models, wrong again! Look at the data, folks. The rains, the winds, the temps are all cyclical. The variations in temps are not as great as they model. Ride the cycles, dudes! Check the data, don't change the data to
fit your narrative. (Everyone else: Hang onto your wallets. They're coming for us).
I'm certainly not the first to notice this but please bear with me as I register my ongoing irritation with the term 'Islamophobia'.
'Phobia' defined primarily as 'exaggerated fear of' and, secondarily, 'intolerance or aversion for'. In light of the ever-increasing mounds of corpses, having a fear of and aversion towards Islam seems a sane & rational thing.
Islamorealist
Or Islamoawareness.
No doubt that it's a misnomer but it has worked beautifully in the west. Robert Spencer and Pam Geller used to appear on a regular basis on Fox News prime time explaining what the qua'an really teaches. Today they and other sharp critics of the religion have been mostly driven out of mass media into the relative obscurity of a few web-sites. Shameful!!
Islamophobia:
1. A fear of Islam which causes people (especially western political leaders and journalists), to lie about it. Also known as the taqiyya/ dissimulation of the unbelievers.
2. An accusation with which to silence opponents of Islamic ideology, Islamisation, soft jihad, stealth Sharia, Islamic immigration - and anti-Semitism.
A good place for a cut-and-paste quote from a decade ago. Similar to Mark's message in his book, "Lights Out: Islam, Free Speech and the Twilight of the West" are the words of Christopher Hitchens in 2009:
"This is very urgent business, ladies and gentlemen, I beseech you: Resist it while you still can, and before the right to complain is taken away from you which will be the next thing. You will be told you can't complain, because you are Islamophobic. The term is already being introduced into the culture, as if it was an accusation of race hatred or bigotry, when it is only the objection to the preachings of a very extreme and absolutist religion. Watch out for these symptoms... these are the ones who hold open the gates to the barbarians." (YouTube 1 minute video.)
The Official Lie is the new Truth. It's pretty obvious that even the Murdoch press - as Roy Crocker has said of FNC - was suppressing well established facts as late as 24hrs after the event: The 10 day advance warning of church attacks by jihadists; the rapid identification of several suicide bombers such as Mohamed Azzam Mohamed; youtube recordings of the death-to-the-infidel preaching of suicide bomber Zahran Hashim; and multiple arrests involving the killing of 3 policemen. Indian media reliably reported all the detail within a few hours as events unfolded, while (Murdoch) papers like The Australian were busy rejecting reader comments by those who dared to repeat the facts. Yet no shortage of recycled "reports" from The Economist etc.
And now - right on cue - 36 hours later we have "Pitiless suicide bombers shatter a promising peace", in which Tamils and Tigers and variations thereof are mentioned 7 times. Context is everything! Just over a month ago we were told that "Now we are all Muslims": apparently that applies to everyone except the suicide bombers in Sri Lanka and their ilk. "We still don't know for sure who is responsible", though it's possibly revenge for Christchurch, compounded by an intelligence failure - ergo it's the fault of everyone except the perpetrators, whoever they are. Blah blah blah until the news cycle passes by.
In addition to required work reading, I spent some time with the Gospels on Holiday Saturday after finishing Iman Mohamad Tawhidi's book, The Tragedy of Islam. The history of Islam, as recounted, is filled with atrocity after atrocity. And then I picked up Raymond Ibrahim's book, Sword and Scimitar. Bracing stuff, to say the least, and both of them make interwar Fascism and/or Shintoism seem like a walk in the park. David Goldman has proposed the time proven 30% solution, Not sure if the West has the stones for this anymore.
Tawhidi is a brave soul.
On Sunday morning, I had not heard who was behind the bombings although the suicide angle was something of a clue. So, here in the Northern Dominion, I switched on CTV (slightly preferred over the subsidized bunch at CBC) and there was Bob Ray going on and on (and on) about the need to focus on all religious fanatics and terrorists and not to stoop to blaming one group or another which is SO divisive. The actions of a small minority, yadda, yadda, yadda. That basically told me: aha it was Mohamed's boys. Mr Ray continued on with this stuff for quite a while before even mentioning the victims. I am totally befuddled by this willful blindness. Then I sat down to Easter ham. By the way, for those non-Canucks here, Bob Ray is a progressive and world class victimologist who was the second worst Premier Ontario ever had and was then Boy Trudeau's seat warmer as Interim Leader of the Liberal Party of Canada.
The Wall Street Journal followed a similar pattern—not mentioning Islamic terrorists until paragraph three, and even then it was a mere hint of possibility.
The WSJ news coverage has become increasingly subordinate to left/liberal/progressive politics & polices.
The WSJ is still one of the few remaining newspapers worth reading in America or Europe. But you have a point here - when it comes to Islam they tend to tread very lightly to put it mildly. I have the same opinion of Fox News when it comes to Islamic issues.
May I suggest the English editions of Israel National News and Israel Today to you? Both from Israel, no lefty pablum.
Thanks Laura - I'll check it out.
Have Muslim leaders across come out and decried the atrocious murders? Seriously......I'm not making a point. Somebody tell me if they have.
Btw. I can't believe how the story seems to be receding from the headlines.
They are being interviewed on BBC News, asked about their fears of a backlash..
"Muslims Fear Backlash from Tomorrow's Terror Attack"
Ah. As is the norm. Are they sharing the grief?
It's pretty hopeless trying to understand the local politics of who hates who. It's like the Pilgrims and their "friend" Squanto. His translations were laced with venom as he sought to make his enemies the enemies of the Pilgrims. If you ask a local translator about the situation in Sri Lanka you will get a biased view depending on who the translator is and in this case a confused view of history as well. From your description that 3 of the 4 children of the Dane were killed we are probably supposed to think this was some sort of Viking family dispute. I would bet this is brought up in one of the local (or Indian) papers as these guys love conspiracies, no matter how absurd.
In my opinion it is better to have an imperfect knowledge of the language and culture and just observe them as an anthropologist would within the framework of your own culture. You cannot separate the parties into good guys and bad guys you should be able to see which are clear and present dangers.
One can almost expect Nancy Pelosi to dial down the truth of this massacre, with no mention of the word Christian whatsoever, just a last mention of the fact that this occurred on Easter Sunday. But there was the wimpy Pope Francis, denouncing the "cruel violence", and providing not a shred of comfort to the Christian world. Not a shred of anger either. And after he had knelt and kissed the feet of a group of assorted imams. I sometimes wonder where we would be today if Pope Benedict, who knew terrorism when he saw it, had remained at his post.
So true, Barbara.
Ratzinger knew Islam when he saw it. His essays along with those of Marcelo Pera - published in "Without Roots: The West, Relativism, Christianity, Islam" - were prescient.
She could at least say that they are all children of God, just some come with a predilection for killing Jews and Christians, but we welcome them all because they are all children of God and just because some come with a predilection for killing, and so it's all good because this is what America is about.
I would add to that headline, "Islamic Suicide Bombers Slaughter Three Hundred Christians on Easter Morning."
Barack Obama
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The attacks on tourists and Easter worshippers in Sri Lanka are an attack on humanity. On a day devoted to love, redemption, and renewal, we pray for the victims and stand with the people of Sri Lanka.
__________________________
This Fool can't say the "C" word. CHRISTIANS were killed by MOSLIMS. And Christians do not WORSHIP EASTER. They worship a Triune GOD. Obama-thug is as nasty and insulting as can be, even when good innocent people die.
Perhaps it's my general disdain for the man but his professions of faith always seemed as insubstantial as his resume.
He is involved in the Religion of Obama.
Gee - I guess you never bought the party line that the 'Messiah' converted to Christianity at some unspecified time in the past. The great majority of the world's Muslims didn't buy it either. The press was all in on it from day one and anyone questioning it received a savage beat down from the media and the democrats and more than a few spineless republicans as well. It is perfectly OK of course to question Trump's somewhat questionable claim about his faith. No double standard here.
Except when he described the most beautiful sound in the world. That seemed to me completely honest and heartfelt.
We have lived through 8 years of his strong-man tactics and lies. He has torn this country apart. He is still in the wings and is a dangerous entity .
Raised in Indonesia by his communist mother, educated in Muslim schools, attended Jeremiah Wright's anti-American church for 20 years, directed NASA to push Muslim scientific achievements (wha...?) but we aren't allowed to point any of this out, or we are called haters.
"The future must not belong to those who slander the Prophet of Islam."
Said like a devout Muslim POTUS. Will Ilhan Omar follow in his footsteps?
I do think that was the one time I believed the words he was uttering.
Oh yes! I have many Christian friends and several atheist as well and I've asked most of them a very simple question. Have you ever heard anyone from your faith or one of your fellow free thinkers ever - in your entire life describe the Muslim morning call to prayer as one of the most beautiful sounds in the world. I completely agree that Obama was honest and the comment was heartfelt - just what one would expect from a Muslim.
I was shocked to my core, not so much by the ugly comment - I always assumed he was a secularized Muslim - but by the total lack of reaction in the west. How few even remember it these days. You and Laura still do which provides a bit of solace. I'd hate to think I'm all alone here. Thanks so much Kate.
You're not alone, Roy! Something to remind you (in case you missed it) is this Q&A audio where Islam, free speech and that particular quote were vigorously discussed at some length:
https://www.steynonline.com/8918/how-now-pow-wow-chow
Also, Brendan O'Neill is someone who often writes and talks about "Islamophobia" and free speech; several excellent articles at Spiked Online and interesting interviews/ audio on YouTube.
PS. A Muslim POTUS and now a Muslim pope. Next, we'll have a Muslim king. What is it with these "world leaders"?
I am still disconcerted by the photo of a white guy, amidst the wreckage, on the phone. It was in Breitbart.
He was in military camo with a green beret - I was wondering how he got there so fast. Perhaps he is on secondment.
The Dems have everything co-ordinated, don't they? Not just between themselves, but with the media. Easter Worshippers, unknown since pagan times, were slaughtered whilst worshipping bunnies and eggs and fertility, according to the massed twitter ranks of the DNC.
All it takes is 50 years of dumbed-down education and an iron grip on the register with which we communicate. Journalists know not to write Christian unless it is associated with oppressor.
Christians are being written out of the script, the Eloi on their knees, led to extinction by their Marxist Pope and unbelieving Archbishops, bishops, vicars, padres, cleric and vergers.
Islam Delenda Est.
To which the leadership of the West would reply like Inspector Clouseau: 'Not now, Cato!'
I'm with you on this, Mark. I kept waiting to see who would point out it was Muslims attacking Christians. I also noticed how fast the reports on Notre Dame were calling it an "accident" while it was still burning. A computer glitch caused the fire? Give me a break. As my sister once told me (in all seriousness) Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance. My sister was an English major and never took a history course, as she continues to illustrate whenever we speak. I once asked her if she'd ever heard of the hoax "The Protocols of the Elders of Jerusalem (?)" Nope. Not a clue. I've become estranged from my family because of my political views. I feel at home here in the MSC.
"I've become estranged from my family because of my political views."
It's close to that for me, too. I have three younger sisters (now all older than 60). A 2015 conversation I had with the oldest of them with regard to Israel's doings and experience in Gaza, circa 2005, was revelatory for me. Ever since, my working hypothesis with liberals is that, to first approximation, they know **nothing**.
You are so lucky your sisters know nothing. Mine are just crazy! To be fair, I may be the crazy one who is happy chatting with fellow inmates in the asylum.
Protocols of The Elders of Zion.
Jews for Jihad?
We're half Jewish, entirely on the "Nachman" side.
At some point previously -- probably when Netanyahu had been invited to address Congress and "progressives" were, accordingly, hyperventilating over the disrespect to Pres. Pants-on-Fire -- this sister made a disparaging remark about Netanyahu.
I had that remark in mind in 2015 when it occurred to me to ask her, "What did Israel do with respect to Gaza in 2005?" That drew a blank from her, so I told her that Israel had totally removed its presence from Gaza (forcibly when it came to some Israeli settlers in Gaza -- 'land for peace' and all that). That was news to her.
"And then what happened regarding Israel and Gaza?" I asked her. The fact that thousands of rockets were launched from "liberated" Gaza into Israel was also news to her.
Ever since, my working hypothesis is "liberals know nothing." We've seen this in action for the last two years with all the hysteria over Russian impact on the 2016 election. If you ask them how such impact actually manifested itself, you should also draw a deer-in-the-headlights reaction.
What, did some people do something again?
I'm afraid so, Josh.
Yes, undoubtedly motivated by the effects of climate change.
No doubt the leaders of Muslim majority countries everywhere will be sporting crucifix's next week and the bells calling all to mass will be heard throughout the Islamic world.
Don't forget the call for a widespread ban on bombs, and the immediate criminalisation of owning and/or distributing copies of the documents explaining the attacks.
Wouldn't it be good if we could ban that manifesto? The whole thing (minus the abrogated bits) is blood-lust death cultism from cover to cover. Yet when jihadists cite the immutable words, ad nauseum, it's somehow a misinterpretion. We know better!!
Despite the tragedy in Sri Lanka, I'd like to wish a happy Easter to all you Easter Worshipers on the site, and many more.
And a very Happy Easter to you, Hari, and to you, Mark.
Boy you have a name I haven't seen in years!
It's a pleasure to make your re-acquaintance, then!
We need an R. Daneel Olivaw!