Douglas Murray

We're closing 2015 by republishing our ten most-read articles of the year. Here's No10: Douglas Murray's piece about Islam and violence, first written in the wake of the Charlie Hebdo attacks but read most (and shared most widely) after the Bataclan atrocity.  The West’s movement towards the truth is remarkably slow. We drag ourselves towards it painfully, inch by inch, after each bloody Islamist assault. In France, Britain, Germany, America and nearly every other country in the world it remains government policy to say that any and all attacks carried out in the name of Mohammed have ‘nothing to do with Islam’. It was said by George W. Bush after 9/11, Tony Blair after 7/7 and Tony Abbott after the Sydney attack last month.

A few weeks ago I recorded a podcast with the American author and neuroscientist Sam Harris. He is one of the few people on the political left in Europe or America who recognises the problem of Islamic extremism and doesn’t mind talking about it.  For this he gets – I think it is safe to say – more trouble than the average liberal left-wing west coast American might wish to expect.  But his role on the left, along with Bill Maher, Dave Rubin and a very few others, is incredibly important not least because it should remind people that the great problem of our time does not have to be a partisan issue. But the political left has a problem at the moment.

Various readers have been asking if I am doing Question Time, This Week or Any Questions this week. It's not the BBC's fault but I'm not able to be in the country at the moment. I am particularly sorry not to be able to do Question Time now that I learn that the line-up includes Mehdi Hasan and Anna Soubry. So could someone else on the panel or in the audience please point out that Mehdi Hasan has expressed similar contempt for us infidels as Isis have?

A huge number of nonsense goes around after atrocities like those in Paris. The media and social media are full of them. I thought it might be helpful to list the worst. 'This attack has nothing to do with Islam’: obviously not true. See here. ‘Islam means peace’: Very obviously not true. Incidentally the word actually means ‘submission’. Again see here. 'This attack was an attack on Islam’: No. It was an attack on the people of Paris who were going to watch a football match or a concert or eating in a restaurant. ‘MuslimsAreNotTerrorists’: Today’s leading hashtag on Twitter. Again, clearly wrong. While nobody thinks all Muslims are terrorists all the terrorists detonating at the moment are Muslims.

The West’s movement towards the truth is remarkably slow. We drag ourselves towards it painfully, inch by inch, after each bloody Islamist assault. In France, Britain, Germany, America and nearly every other country in the world it remains government policy to say that any and all attacks carried out in the name of Mohammed have ‘nothing to do with Islam’. It was said by George W. Bush after 9/11, Tony Blair after 7/7 and Tony Abbott after the Sydney attack last month.

A wave of terror attacks has rocked Paris tonight with a restaurant, a stadium and a concert hall amongst the targets. Gunmen fired into Bataclan concert hall shouting “Allahu akbar," according to France24, and then proceeded to hold hostages; French police then went in hard and some reports have suggested that up to 100 may have been killed during the operation with 40 others killed across the city. Two suicide attacks have also been reported outside the Stade de France stadium, and explosions were heard while the France vs Germany football match was underway:- https://twitter.

The 'Stop the War coalition' is no such thing. It is a meeting point for hardline Stalinists and Islamists to pursue their own imperial policies. Anyone in any doubt of this need merely consider the organisation's leadership and history. Currently their membership's views on Syria seem to range from those supporting Russian intervention in Syria to those unbothered by it. But they are campaigning against any Western involvement, of course. It seems that a 'Stop the War coalition' meeting in Parliament last night (chaired by Diane Abbott) managed to pull off the Stalinist trick of discussing Syria while refusing to hear from any Syrians.