Is Radical Islam Horrifying the West into Paralysis?

by Giulio Meotti  •  July 5, 2017 at 5:00 am

• German Chancellor Angela Merkel's refugee policy was not a masterpiece of humanitarian politics; it was dictated by the fear of television images spread all over the world.
• Even the suffering of our enemies disturbs us, in the humanitarian culture of the West. We are therefore increasingly amenable to policies of appeasement, censorship and retreat in order not to have to face the possibility of such horribleness and actually having to fight it. That is why radical Islam has been able to horrify the West into submission. We have paralyzed ourselves. We censor the cartoons, the graphic photos of the terrorists' victims and even the faces and names of the jihadists. The Islamic terrorists, on the other hand, are not publicity-seekers; they are soldiers ready to kill and die in the name of what they care about.
• Images, as in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib, are published only if they amplify the West's sense of guilt and turn the "war on terror" into something more even more dangerous than the jihad causing the war. The result is to erase our enemy from our imagination. This is how the "war on terror" has become synonymous with lawlessness throughout the West.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel's refugee policy was not a masterpiece of humanitarian politics; it was dictated by the fear of television images spread all over the world. In so many key moments, it is the photograph that dictates our behavior: the image that dishonors us, that makes us cringe in horror. (Photo by Adam Berry/Getty Images)

September 2015. Thousands of Syrian migrants crossing the Balkan route were heading toward Germany. Chancellor Angela Merkel was on the phone with Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière, talking about a number of measures to protect the borders, where thousands of policemen were secretly located along with buses and helicopters. De Maizière turned for advice to Dieter Romann, then head of the police. "Can we live with the images that will come out?" de Mazière asked. "What happens if 500 refugees with children in their arms run toward the border guards?"

De Maiziére was told that the appropriate use of the measures to be taken would have be decided by the police on the field. When de Maizière relayed Romann's response to the Chancellor, Merkel reversed her original commitment. And the borders were opened for 180 days.

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