Mass sexual assaults in Cologne and other European cities part III

[GeekLove]

link to part 2

Keeping this in the spotlight since the mainstream media isn't.

To all intents and purposes, those men that committed mass sexual assault in Cologne ARE the far right -- they are just the far right of other countries.

Open your eyes, Emily. Those men weren't bloody liberals, were they? All this debate about Middle Eastern and/or Muslim culture ignores one vitally important issue: that there are liberal and humanist modes of thought throughout the Middle East and within Islam, and there always have been. This is why many Middle-Easterners and/or Muslims would never behave in the manner seen in Cologne. Crikey, it would never even enter their heads to behave in such a fashion.

So why did these men? Because they subscribe to an authoritarian, patriarchal and racist dogma that sees fit to challenge police authority and violently target citizens who are not of their group nor whom adhere to their beliefs.

If you took away the supposed ethnic markers of these men, you would see the incident for what it actually is: a far-right attack upon liberal European women and liberal values.

You are using "challenging racism" to defend far right attitudes and beliefs, and you don't even realise it.

Having been inspired by Werk's brilliant post yesterday, I am now going to take the stance that these attacks against the women were, in fact, racist attacks.

It is what it is.

Those defending the men's position are defending racists who are every bit as bad as the far right.

The liberal fascists can put that in their pipe and smoke it.

The more I read the worse the assaults sounds, the same grouping around victim.

And the police chief seems remarkably political in a way we wouldn't expect here.

YES! People conveniently forget that fascists aren't friends of women's rights or their free movement, or of Gay people, and neither are these men. Just because they are brown doesn't make them any less fascist.

hidden, Of course there was a racial element. A group of men from one race assaulted women from another. It was a hate crime with both racist and misogynistic elements.

The locked thread is linked in the news list, not this current one.

They're still hiding it

There is an explanatory summary of this Swedish story on the FT website.

twisted I think you need to really think through what you have said and the implications of that.
By your argument, as I understand it, these men (the over 25s at least - so their brain has definitely stopped developing) did what they did on NYE because they are irreparably damaged - so damaged that their offspring will also be damaged.
(They have 'bad' genes....which has quite nasty historical implications - thinking of eugenics here.)

So do we think having lots of them in our societies is a good idea for long term peace, stability and security? Especially for the safety of women?

Or should we just not accept anyone who has come from a war zone/similar trauma - or if we do just in much smaller, more manageable numbers?

(Thankfully I don't think what you are saying is anywhere near as simple - to quote Wiki Due to the early stages of epigenetics as a science and to the sensationalism surrounding it, surgical oncologist David Gorski and geneticist Adam Rutherford caution against the drawing and proliferation of false and pseudoscientific conclusions )

Sarcasm alert:

They will be working on the navel gazing opinion piece at the Guardian for the next couple of days. Or more likely they will ignore.

To all intents and purposes, those men that committed mass sexual assault in Cologne ARE the far right -- they are just the far right of other countries.

That is an excellent and profound point that has expanded my perspective, thank you.

To all intents and purposes, those men that committed mass sexual assault in Cologne ARE the far right -- they are just the far right of other countries

Excellent point - but it does still leave the everyday, normalised, mundane, non-extreme aspects of behaviour or belief, which may still be unpalatable to a liberal democratic tradition, unchallenged.

Agree with Werks about the nature of violence, and the problems with Twisted's view that the most likely explanation for violent behaviour is that people are have been "brutalised" by adverse experiences. I just want to add that the information Twisted gave about psychopathy is also (typically) very one-sided: evidence shows that psychopathic traits are around 50% inherited genetically, not just due to disturbing events in childhood. Nor does this imply that environmental factors necessarily play a 50% role; we still do not know to what extent variations in personality are down to simple chance in how the growing brain wires itself in the womb and afterwards. Furthermore, the likelihood of disturbing events in childhood will obviously be increased by having parents with psychopathic traits (i.e. the people from whom the genetic inheritance came). And finally, most of our knowledge of these disturbing events is down to self-reporting from adult psychopaths in prison, which raises serious issues about credibility, given that manipulative behaviour and skillful lying are a key part of the profile of psychopathy.

Sorry about this digression, but this kind of misrepresentation really annoys me.

Excellent point - but it does still leave the everyday, normalised, mundane, non-extreme aspects of behaviour or belief, which may still be unpalatable to a liberal democratic tradition, unchallenged

I expect that these would have to be tolerated as long as they don't break the law.

My poor dad was traumatised by his house being blown up in the war. Hearing those bombs fall was the most terrifying thing in his life he confided in me. I cried for the boy in the report from Syria by Lyse Doucet a while back.

My dad was then sent as an evacuee to a children's home where sadistic abuse was so standard he ran away home to the blitz.

Gentlest man I ever had the privilege of knowing. I do get jumpy around loud noises so maybe there is something in the epigenetics.(slight ironic flippancy alert.)

Well we have had an entire weekend in Cologne of our streets being invaded by mass demos of all ilks, and it does not feel safe at all to go into town. Several young ethnic minority men were taken to hospital yesterday after clashes with the far right.

I have ordered pepper spray and rape alarms for my daughters and I. I had to buy online as every shop in Cologne is sold out.

I have also put up posters advertising the women's march on Saturday around where I work. I am hoping to drum up some support amongst my colleagues, who seem concerned but not outraged in the main.

I have also called the local police and asked them for some literature I can hand around at work on women's safety.

I feel better for having done something.

Another point is that women also have disturbed childhoods and traumatic experiences. Rape and abuse, as we know, abounds. But we don't turn violent with it. It wasn't the women refugees out there with knives that night. No it's always men who think they have the right to turn violent, and coincidentally, target the least violent group, women. These male immigrants we're importing have been encouraged in that belief since babyhood. And in bringing those ideas in they will spread among our own men, who already in many instances feel quite entitled enough.

"No one is born evil". No of course not. But we're not importing newborns. Does it mean that nothing anyone ever does in their lives is wrong? Would Emily and co have been equally supportive of women refugees knifing white men? What about the poor Nazis themselves, research has shown that many of them had disturbed childhoods, does that mean Emily would now condone their actions against other easily targeted groups?

I'm not entirely unsympathetic to left thinking, to building a more supportive society. But there has to be limits. I will not throw my daughter under the bus, force her to wear burkas, restrict her to the home, treat her as a stepping stone for the poor men everywhere in the whole bloody world. Tell her that its a shame if she gets raped, but oh the poor men. There has to be limits, checks, balances. And they need defending.

Over 130 similar attacks on women in Hamburg, but hardly any press coverage

I am just now reading more about yesterday's attacks. There was no demo - a group of 20 men set upon a group of half a dozen ethnic minority guys, and put them in hospital. Later on a Syrian man was attacked by another half dozen men and was badly injured.

Bungo I wondered exactly the same myself.

Is it sexist to be wondering why women aren't rampaging, assaulting, stealing and intimidating in gangs, having been portrayed as pitiable traumatised survivors of war and horror we cannot begin to imagine?

Still not seeing a single report of female gangs, or even individuals, on recent crime sprees in any major European city, in any of the media I look at.

Happy to be corrected if I've missed it.

It is sexist. It is back to a form of men just can't help themselves.

Ego, I agree, I don't want it swept under the carpet, I want politicians and the public to have an honest debate about this, immigration most people are scared to discuss it honestly. I agree some of the cultures of Arab and north African countries are mysigionistic

No, nothing about any of the attacks in other German cities on the BBC, just Cologne, and even that is being buried with all speed. Less, if that's possible, about other attacks in other countries. Not a thing about the possibility of them being linked.

I am absolutely digusted, and sickened, by how easily women get pushed down.

In fact I must draft a complaint to the BBC too, never mind the Guardian. Guardian at least has the luxury of pointing out that it's private. The BBC is supposed to be the public domain reporter. I know they've been underfunded, cut, and - ha ha - 'abused' by successive anti-publi-domain neoliberalists.But for god's sake this is your chance to fight back!

Yes women's rights are last again

Very quick reply.
I'm certainly not saying that brains stop developing- nor that genetics don't have a large part, nor that any of this is conclusive! And absolutely it is extremely hard to disentangle what's relationship based and what is genetic similarity when looking at how children develop in their families. The research is ask still in its infancy- it is not clear at all. But there is evidence for all of these things. It doesn't mean anyone who has a genetic vulnerability will will go on to behave in a certain way-nor that anyone with a particular environment will be the same. I don't actually think this is that controversial - if you think of yourselves and your dc- surely you think both your and their environment and innate selves interact to make them who they are? And you and they will also be impacted by those around them- schools, rules, laws, norms. They all interact.
With epigenetics it's interesting because it indicates that environment even impacts on genetics- and probably vice versa.