Sydney Siege, Muslim Immigrants and Male Privilege

As I write this the news is coming through that the Australian services have put an end to the hostage taking in a Sydney cafe. It seems, from press reports (caution), that the hostage-taker is dead as are at least two of the hostages. Seen from here, the Australian authorities played it right. When it became obvious the hostage-taker was not going to be talked out, they sent in the special units who handled the matter as Aussies generally do, i.e., with skill and courage.

A few thoughts come to mind.

Again, we must note that the hostage-taker was a Muslim, an Iranian Sunni refugee. He benefitted from the generosity of Australia, and proved himself--according to the press--a perennial and serious trouble-maker during his 15 or so years in Australia. He finally paid back his adopted country with violence and murder. He undertook his actions in Sydney in response to the political dictates of his totalitarian and intolerant creed.

I thought it odd to hear journalists wondering about the gunman's motivations when he was forcing hostages to hold up a banner that read, "There is no God but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet," and demanding that the cops deliver to him a proper ISIS flag. Wonder what was his inspiration? Only a journalist or some other member of the progressive clan could and would pretend not to know.

It gets worse. The situation had not yet been resolved, we did not know if any hostages would get out alive, and the progressives began their mau-mauing with stories about how this situation made Muslims in Australia feel uneasy: they worried about how they would be treated--you know the always present "blacklash." I guess they feel "uneasy" because, well, you know there was that famous anti-Muslim pogrom that took place in Australia back in, uh, well, uh . . . what utter nonsense.

Some more thoughts, and any reader, especially Australian, who thinks I am off my meds, please chime in and let me know.

A general observation. As I noted before, a couple of months back, the Australians announced that their intel and law enforcement agencies had broken up a plot to attack Parliament in Canberra. The usual experts chimed in, pooh-poohing the whole thing, doubting that ISIS or AQ could carry out such operations around the world. As we saw, however, a few days after the break-up of the Australian-based plot, there was one with eerie similarities that took place in Canada, where a Muslim gunman did attack the Canadian Parliament. I have noted before that groups such as ISIS or AQ or whatever they call themselves on any given day, do not need a vast logistical network slipping supplies and instructions to agents. They have something much better. They have the globalized media--both traditional and "social"--that transmit messages and images, and a bunch of Western countries with insane immigration policies that allow these murdering terrorists to live and thrive in the midst of tolerance. How does Australia--or Canada, or the UK, or the USA--benefit from taking in thousands and thousands of Muslim immigrants? Would we have knowingly taken in thousands and thousands of Nazis into our countries in the midst of WWII, or Communists during the Cold War? Is the war against the jihadis less lethal?

Speculation. I have never been--alas!--to Sydney. Judging, however, from the photos and video of the hostage situation, it seems that the Lindt cafe sits in a pretty nice part of town as would befit a Swiss chocalatier. The cleintele appear to be upper-middle class, primarily female, many non-white, and apparently all very professional. I am pretty sure that these are folk of a progressive bent, who probably find much of the popular culture of Australia or America embarrassing, are, nevertheless, remarkably tolerant of other cultures, are strong supporters of immigration, and are probably not the kind who voted for Tony Abbott. If the Lindt cafe is anything like Starbucks or some of the other upscale cafes we have in the USA near universities or other centers of progressive "thought," I am sure you could overhear conversations about "white male privilege," or the "patriarchy," etc.

Just want to note that the folks who had to risk their lives by breaking into the cafe and killing the gunman were white working class males exercising the privilege to protect their fellow citizens.