Individual acts of this type happen all the time, I know, but we have here a rather different phenomenon – a huge number of attackers of one non-German ethnic/cultural/religious group (young male North African Muslim Arabs) appearing to work in concert. No doubt some of my friends will attempt to explain the attacks by pointing to the poor conditions in which asylum seekers are obliged to live and look for all sorts of other explanations that deny the attackers any agency – that portrays them as having no capacity for individual choice about the way they behave.
I reject that view. It is obvious, is it not, that the young men involved consider that Western women are fair game for sexual harassment, assault and robbery. I say Western advisedly because we are assured, are we not, that Muslims revere women and respect their inviolability outside of marriage. I think it is a fair conclusion to think that for these young men, a huge number, Western women can be treated differently from Muslim women and girls – as objects for amusement and exploitation by men. We have, fortunately not experienced this type of event in the UK though we have had numerous Pakistani Muslim grooming cases that clearly echo the same attitudes.
A common factor is patriarchal Islam. It can be argued that after large influxes of people with views so different from our mainstream culture in the UK (of equal rights for women, of human rights and respect for others’ autonomy) there will be a lengthy period of cultural adjustment, of integration and to some extent assimilation. To the extent that this is true it is clear that several factors matter hugely. One is numbers, another is concentration of settlement (separate self-sufficient communities are far less susceptible to change), another is to what extent governments, national and local, make focussed efforts to break down separatism and promote the unifying culture that a secular human rights agenda faciltitates.
One thing is clear to me – that we, the host community, has no obligation to accept manifestations of the misogynistic side of Muslim, or any other third world patriarchal culture for a number of years as adjustments are made. Intelligent and robust steps need to be taken to prevent any such manifestations and to deal with them without fear of political correctness. Merkel has talked of changing the laws to make it easier to deport offenders – but this fails to recognise the Achille’s Heel of international law that forbids the deportation of people back to places where their lives might be in danger – i.e. the very reasons many have fled to Europe in the first place! So that will have a negligible impact. Numbers, gender, concentration and cultural assimilation are key – and action needs to be taken on all these fronts. Reduce the numbers of single young men coming in to Europe, require attendance at cultural education and language classes, abolish faith schools (of all types) and speed up processing of asylum claims (so that jobs become accessible).
Harry Perry
