All jihad is local, but all "Islamophobia" is global.
So, if a Muslim of Afghan origin shoots up a gay nightclub in Florida and kills 49 people, that's just one crazed loner and no broader lessons can be discerned from his act.
On the other hand, if a white guy shoots up two mosques in New Zealand and kills 50 people, that indicts us all, and
we need to impose worldwide restraints on free speech to make sure it doesn't happen again.
I'm ecumenical enough to mourn the dead in both gay clubs and mosques, but I wonder why we are so conditioned to accept Islamic terror as (in the famous words of London mayor Sadiq Khan) "part and parcel of living in a big city" that it is only the exceptions to the rule that prompt industrial-scale moral preening from politicians and media.
The Christchurch killer published the usual bonkers manifesto before livestreaming his mass murder on Facebook. Brenton Tarrant purports to be an environmentalist - indeed, a self-described "eco-fascist" - who admires Communist China (notwithstanding, presumably, its indifference to environmentalism). He wants to massacre Muslims in order to save the planet:
No matter. For the the politicians stampeding to the nearest camera to dust off their tropes, what counts is that, if you're American, Donald Trump pulled the trigger; and, if you're British or European and you're not prepared to say that Google-Twitter-Facebook should silence anybody to the right of Trevor Noah, then you're part of the problem.
Here's the rather less homicidal environmentalist Catherine McKenna, Canada's Climate Change Minister, getting it pitch-perfect in two steps. First, visit a mosque (although obviously not to kill everyone to "save the environment", like Mr Tarrant); second, blame those whose exhibitionism isn't as gung ho as yours:I spoke to parents at Ottawa Main Mosque today whose kids are too scared to pray & go to school.
In Canada.Meanwhile Andrew Scheer has to be called out before he can call out Islamophobia.
For non-Canadians, Mr Scheer is the Conservative Opposition Leader. But the point is you can call him out and, as Maxime Bernier noted of his former colleague, like many jelly-spined Tories he will instantly squeal, "No, wait, hold that last seat on the bandwagon for me."
Even more disturbingly, the broadcaster Charles Adler denounced the Governor General for not "calling out" Islamophobia.
