It’s time to begin to keep track
of the victims of “Islamophobia.” Not the victims of anti-Muslim hate
crimes that all too often turn out to have been faked by Muslims
themselves, but the real victims of “Islamophobia.”
Every year during the Muslim month of Ramadan, the invaluable TheReligionofPeace.com site keeps a running tally of the number of jihad attacks and the number of casualties of those attacks, along with a tally of the attacks by people acting in the name of any other religion, and attacks by “Islamophobes.” Year after year, invariably, as the jihad death toll mounts into the hundreds and thousands, the other numbers all remain at zero (although this year there was one arguable “Islamophobic” attack and one casualty, outside the notorious Finsbury Park Mosque in London, although that one appears to have been motivated more by mental illness – as is so often falsely claimed of jihadis – than by “Islamophobia”).
But there are other victims of “Islamophobia” that neither TheReligionofPeace.com nor anyone else is tracking. The latest is Justine Ruszczyk Damond, the unarmed Australian woman in Minneapolis who called the police to report what she suspected was a rape and ended up being shot to death by a Muslim police officer, Mohamed Noor. Justine Damond would be alive today were it not for the Minneapolis Police Department’s determination to court the local Somali Muslim community and recruit police officers from it – police officers who are more important as symbols of city and police “diversity” than they are as protectors of the people.
Mohamed Noor was a symbol of everything that Minneapolis officials valued most. They could point to him and say: See? We are not “Islamophobic.” We celebrate diversity. We love our Somali Muslim community, and when they see how they are loved, they will end all jihad activity, because violent jihad is just a reaction to injustices that Infidels perpetrate.
And so it was very important to the Minneapolis Police Department, and to city officials, that Mohamed Noor succeed. And even if he didn’t, nothing would be done. The Minneapolis Police Department kept Mohamed Noor on the force not because he was a competent police officer. He obviously wasn’t. There were three complaints against him in two years. A neighbor reported that Noor was “nervous” and “jumpy” and had “little respect for women,” but Noor could have marched into Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges’ office and announced that she would henceforth be his infidel sex slave, and he would have remained on the force. To have removed him would have been “Islamophobic.”
Justine Damond is a casualty of that fear of “Islamophobia.” And she was not the first. On November 4, 2009, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, a U.S. Army psychiatrist, murdered thirteen people at Fort Hood while screaming “Allahu akbar.” Before that, he had alarmed his colleagues with his talk of jihad, and had even been in contact with the jihad mastermind Anwar al-Awlaki. But nothing was done; to have moved against him would have been “Islamophobic.” And so at Fort Hood there were thirteen more casualties of “Islamophobia.”
There was more. The Russian government informed the FBI that a man named Tamerlan Tsarnaev, a resident of the United States, was meeting with jihad groups in the Caucasus. Around that time, the Obama administration was scrubbing counterterror training materials of all mention of Islam and jihad, in accord with the prevailing politically correct fiction that jihad is primarily a spiritual struggle, and the jihad terror groups are twisting and hijacking the true message of the Religion of Peace. To have tracked someone who was frequenting jihad groups would have been a tacit acknowledgement that at least sometimes, jihad has to do with violence.
And so once again nothing was done. To have investigated Tsarnaev would have been “Islamophobic.” Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his brother Dzhokhar were free to set off two bombs in the name of Islam and in accord with its teachings at the Boston Marathon. There were three more casualties of “Islamophobia”; 16 others were maimed for life and hundreds were wounded.
How many more victims of “Islamophobia” must there be, before the concept itself is repudiated, and police officers are hired and kept on the force solely on the basis of their competence or lack thereof, and jihad terror threats are investigated as such no matter which pressure groups are offended?
No doubt many, many more.
Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and author of the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. His latest book is The Complete Infidel’s Guide to Free Speech (and Its Enemies). Follow him on Twitter here. Like him on Facebook here.
Every year during the Muslim month of Ramadan, the invaluable TheReligionofPeace.com site keeps a running tally of the number of jihad attacks and the number of casualties of those attacks, along with a tally of the attacks by people acting in the name of any other religion, and attacks by “Islamophobes.” Year after year, invariably, as the jihad death toll mounts into the hundreds and thousands, the other numbers all remain at zero (although this year there was one arguable “Islamophobic” attack and one casualty, outside the notorious Finsbury Park Mosque in London, although that one appears to have been motivated more by mental illness – as is so often falsely claimed of jihadis – than by “Islamophobia”).
But there are other victims of “Islamophobia” that neither TheReligionofPeace.com nor anyone else is tracking. The latest is Justine Ruszczyk Damond, the unarmed Australian woman in Minneapolis who called the police to report what she suspected was a rape and ended up being shot to death by a Muslim police officer, Mohamed Noor. Justine Damond would be alive today were it not for the Minneapolis Police Department’s determination to court the local Somali Muslim community and recruit police officers from it – police officers who are more important as symbols of city and police “diversity” than they are as protectors of the people.
Mohamed Noor was a symbol of everything that Minneapolis officials valued most. They could point to him and say: See? We are not “Islamophobic.” We celebrate diversity. We love our Somali Muslim community, and when they see how they are loved, they will end all jihad activity, because violent jihad is just a reaction to injustices that Infidels perpetrate.
And so it was very important to the Minneapolis Police Department, and to city officials, that Mohamed Noor succeed. And even if he didn’t, nothing would be done. The Minneapolis Police Department kept Mohamed Noor on the force not because he was a competent police officer. He obviously wasn’t. There were three complaints against him in two years. A neighbor reported that Noor was “nervous” and “jumpy” and had “little respect for women,” but Noor could have marched into Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges’ office and announced that she would henceforth be his infidel sex slave, and he would have remained on the force. To have removed him would have been “Islamophobic.”
Justine Damond is a casualty of that fear of “Islamophobia.” And she was not the first. On November 4, 2009, Major Nidal Malik Hasan, a U.S. Army psychiatrist, murdered thirteen people at Fort Hood while screaming “Allahu akbar.” Before that, he had alarmed his colleagues with his talk of jihad, and had even been in contact with the jihad mastermind Anwar al-Awlaki. But nothing was done; to have moved against him would have been “Islamophobic.” And so at Fort Hood there were thirteen more casualties of “Islamophobia.”
There was more. The Russian government informed the FBI that a man named Tamerlan Tsarnaev, a resident of the United States, was meeting with jihad groups in the Caucasus. Around that time, the Obama administration was scrubbing counterterror training materials of all mention of Islam and jihad, in accord with the prevailing politically correct fiction that jihad is primarily a spiritual struggle, and the jihad terror groups are twisting and hijacking the true message of the Religion of Peace. To have tracked someone who was frequenting jihad groups would have been a tacit acknowledgement that at least sometimes, jihad has to do with violence.
And so once again nothing was done. To have investigated Tsarnaev would have been “Islamophobic.” Tamerlan Tsarnaev and his brother Dzhokhar were free to set off two bombs in the name of Islam and in accord with its teachings at the Boston Marathon. There were three more casualties of “Islamophobia”; 16 others were maimed for life and hundreds were wounded.
How many more victims of “Islamophobia” must there be, before the concept itself is repudiated, and police officers are hired and kept on the force solely on the basis of their competence or lack thereof, and jihad terror threats are investigated as such no matter which pressure groups are offended?
No doubt many, many more.
Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and author of the New York Times bestsellers The Politically Incorrect Guide to Islam (and the Crusades) and The Truth About Muhammad. His latest book is The Complete Infidel’s Guide to Free Speech (and Its Enemies). Follow him on Twitter here. Like him on Facebook here.