Extremes

Cologne railway station

Kaiser at Biased BBC linked to two reports of the same event (a violent hostage-taking incident in Cologne) and observed that "one of these days does not seem to agree with the other". 

One came from Breitbart London, the other from the BBC. 

The Breitbart report sharply amplifies the 'radical Islamic terrorism' angle while the BBC report suppresses it.

They are the two extremes. If you then turn, say, to Deutsche Welle you'll find a report which sits somewhere between them.

So in the Breitbart report we get the headline Cologne: ‘Islamic State Sympathiser’ Takes Hostage, Sets Fires, plus "The suspect is reported to have spoken in Arabic about the Islamic State" and "German magazine Focus reports sources who claim that...the suspect is indeed a sympathiser of the Islamic State" and a paragraph mentioning the Cologne sex attacks by migrants at New Year 2015/16, though there's also a paragraph saying "There is presently no indication of the identity of the hostage taker, nor motive".

In contrast, the BBC, whose headline is Hostage safe after Cologne railway station drama, makes no mention whatsoever of Islamic State or Arabic speech. The closest it comes to mentioning a possible terrorism aspect is to cast doubt on it: "Local media say the incident does not appear to have been terror-related."

As for DW, whose headline is German police search for clues in Cologne hostage-taking, it says "Authorities believe with "high probability" that the suspect is a Syrian man with a German residency visa", "During their search, [police] discovered the identity documents for a 55-year-old Syrian migrant with a German residence visa valid until 2021", "Authorities have yet to clarify the suspect's motive. 'The investigation is considering all possibilities and we are not ruling out terrorism,' said Cologne deputy police chief Miriam Brauns" and "Witnesses have reportedly described the man as professing allegiance to the "Islamic State" militant group while committing the attack. But police have not independently verified such testimony."

When you read the DW report you can see just how far the BBC has gone to downplay any possible Muslim terrorism angle. And they are even more brazen in their agenda-pushing than Breitbart as Breitbart at least have the decency to add that bit saying "There is presently no indication of the identity of the hostage taker, nor motive".

Incidentally, Newssniffer shows that the BBC actually edited their report to make it even less about terrorism. An earlier version said "It is not clear whether there is any terror link. No details have emerged yet about the hostage-taker or any potential motive". This was removed and ""Local media say the incident does not appear to have been terror-related" added.

Returning to Biased BBC, after Kaiser pointing out the 'worlds apart' nature of the Breitbart and BBC reports, Roland Deschain observed:

Well, I guess they both have their agenda and report accordingly. However one charges me £150 before I can watch any other channel on condition of its impartiality, whilst the other does not.

Quite.

Turning tide

Woolly liberal

Woolly liberals must face truth about migrants  (Times £)

Hugo Rifkind has written an interesting piece.

“ It’s no good embracing refugees without accepting that some of their values are beyond the pale and must change.I find myself discombobulated over migration and Europe. Do you, also?”

“Do you, also?” sounds as though he's speaking with a German accent. 

“Perhaps not. Perhaps, back in September, when the tiny body of Aylan Kurdi washed up on a Turkish beach, and Angela Merkel declared that Germany would take 800,000 Syrians, and the Swedes said they’d take even more, per capita, and the world’s liberals — such as me — genuflected before them, then perhaps you saw, quite clearly, where it was all going. So perhaps you aren’t discombobulated at all. The opposite, even.Combobulated as anything. 

Not me though. Firmly dis. This weekend, Mrs Merkel performed her sharpest volte-face yet (and she’s performed a few of late) saying that isf Syria and Iraq should ever again know peace (a big if, admittedly)then all the refugees that Germany has taken in should leave, and say “thanks” on their way out. 

In Sweden, meanwhile, on Friday, we were told that gangs of rightwing hooligans were roaming around Stockholm looking for brown people to punch.[...]For the woolly, well-meaning liberal - again, such as me - there’s a strong temptation to not quite think about any of this. Or, if you do have to think about it, then there’s an even stronger temptation to do so a little dishonestly”

Hugo proceeds to describe Jess Phillips’s misguided comparison between Cologne and Broad Street, Brum; then:

 “No. In fact a situation far more similar to Cologne occurred in Cairo on the night when president Morsi stepped down. Scores of women in Tahrir Square were harassed, beaten and raped by a jeering mob. And it is certainly true, then as now, that a whole host of surprising western voices piped up to condemn it. 

Some of them, than as now, seemed a lot more upset by sexual assaults conducted by Muslims than they ever seemed to be by anybody else, but that’s not really the point. Although, I cannot lie, I’d be a lot more comfortable if it were. 

[...]Yet in the end, even a woolly liberal needs to stop twisting and stare an obvious truth in the face. Leaflets are now being handed out in German swimming pools.politely explaining that women in bikinis were not to be unilaterally grabbed on the bottom. If you believe in immigration (which I do) let alone the moral necessity of accepting refugees (which I certainly do) this is the bit on which you have to dwell.Can we take in new people and make them just like us?”

(Not according to Trevor Phillips, who’s come in for stick for mentioning that Muslims aint like us, and it’s insulting of us to even expect them to become so.)  (The left does not approve.) 

“sometimes, in order to figure out your own thoughts, you need somebody to say the exact opposite. In that vein I’m grateful to Trevor Phillips[..] who said last month that continuously pretending that a group is somehow eventually going to become like the rest of us is perhaps the deepest form of disrespect”  

To do so, he added, was to suggest they just “haven’t yet seen the light”’ which is patronising and unhelpful, not least because maybe they never will. But they have to.  The lesson of Europe’s current migrant trauma is that integration - and, in the end, assimilation -  is not an option but essential. 

[...]It’s not enough for minorities to just keep their heads down. They have to change enough to not even want to. A society can have any number of foods, headdresses and religious ceremonies, but it cannot have any number of values. 

[...] For Germany, and for Sweden, though, the interesting bit is what happens next. The question is not just whether their migrants can become liberals. It is also, and perhaps more importantly, whether their liberals can stay liberal while they do.

Knit me a hairy jumper. I’m wondering if some of those woolly liberals aren’t beginning  to see the light. 

Here’s something else that caught my eye.

The Guardian is getting flak and it’s not happy. All those woolly articles are attracting avalanches of criticism.

Cologne seems to be the catalyst for some kind of turning point, although the Guardian itself is sticking to its guns. For now. Silencing the opposition can’t work for very long. Who’s going to keep on reading articles they disagree with, especially if they can’t have their say?