Per The Telegraph, The suicide bomber who killed 22 people and injured dozens more at the Manchester Arena has been named as 22-year-old Salman Abedi.
Born in Manchester in 1994, the second youngest of four children his parents were Libyan refugees who came to the UK to escape the Gaddafi regime.
His parents were both born in Libya but appear to have emigrated to London before moving to the Fallowfield area of south Manchester where they have lived for at least ten years.
He had become radicalised recently – it is not entirely clear when – and had worshipped at a local mosque that has, in the past, been accused of fund-raising for jihadists.
(They’re still changing the article, so you might not find the exact text above.)
I’m sorry to say that lots of us saw this coming. As of last night, the media weren’t releasing his name; the delay always means that the perpetrator is a left-winger or (more likely) a Muslim.
Also, for anyone who follows the situation of Europe drowning under its Muslim immigrants, a recurring theme is that the immigrants very often don’t work (the supposed reason for bringing them in), don’t integrate, and give birth to a second generation that is MORE radical and LESS integrated than the first.
Manchester is 15.8% Muslim, yet also has one of Britain’s largest Jewish and ethnic Chinese communities as-well. And a large, established G/L community. With a metropolitan population of 2.7-million and a regional population of 6.6-million, I read Manchester compared to being Chicago to London’s New York.
2.3% Indian,
8.5% Pakistani,
1.3% Bangladeshi,
1.9% Arab
( – Wikipedia)
They’re not integrated.
If a country doesn’t have a strong integration process and takes on more than they can handle from a third-world nation, then major problems await. Having the blind expectation that a mass group of people from a different culture, speaking a different language, with no support network to just spontaneously assimilate seems rather absurd.
But, maybe it has happened somewhere in history.
@2 you should try telling that to liberal-leftist politicians.
I don’t find conservatives that invested in this either, at least, stateside. It’s just more of the same old blame-game.
And, the “one-size-fits-all” policy on immigrants who come from means, or aren’t leaving/fleeing their country out of crisis doesn’t work on an influx of refugees who come from nothing and escape for political reasons (regardless of religion).
Hence ILC’s language. “don’t integrate” vs. “they’re not integrated.”
Writing “don’t integrate,” the emphasis is placed mostly on the migrant, not the structure they’re migrating to. Obviously, it is up to the migrant to integrate. But, first, there must be a sound structure in place. Going right to blaming the religion is extremely lazy (just as saying there isn’t a major integration problem is too).
Kind of like how capitalism can’t work unless it’s pure or true capitalism. Anything else isn’t really capitalism, etc.
The reason these people fail to integrate with their new societies is that their new societies actively discourage integration. Instead, we are expected to adopt, or tolerate, the traditions immigrants, presumably, fled.
Indeed, schools in the west spend a lot of time teaching students about the wickedness of western civ, predatory white males, non-judgementalism, etc. How can one expect a Muslim (or a Mexican) to become British (or French or American) when s/he’s taught from the get-go what a vile, hateful, corrupt, cesspool of a culture his new home is?
In places like the UK, one can be arrested for citing tradition or heretofore orthodox opinion (some UK politician was arrested a couple of years ago for quoting Churchill on Mohammedans).
CCP, in #2, appears see the fallacy of “magic dirt”: the idea that success/failure depends solely on location, not culture and tradition. I hope CCP understands that this opinion is thoughtcrime.
Some BBC talking head was quoted earlier stating that we just have to get used to these unpleasant events. My first thought was “that’s easy for you to say as you’ve not lost a child” but then I figure she’s probably correct. Since discussion of the problem is taboo, no solution is possible.
#hashtags, sidewalk memorials, singing “Imagine”, and the rest of the usual dreck that pops up after these atrocities has never helped. So that’s what we’ll do.
KCRob, I always appreciate your take on my comments. Thank you.
Tim Pool offers a pretty astute perspective based on personal experience. He had a whole series of videos, including an interview with a Swedish police officer, and the difficulties he had dealing with/working for the Swedish government.
But, here’s a video encapsulating his experience a few months ago(starting at 1:00).
I’m not sure if it’ll be worth your time to watch. There isn’t much that you probably don’t already know, but I appreciated the context in which Pool coupled his thoughts in.
I’m a big subscriber of teaching the whole picture (i.e. the “wickedness” as well as the emphasising the benefits and progress). I’m getting really exhausting of people who can’t strike balances between both viewpoints.
@6: CCP, I agree with most of Pool’s conclusions.
Mark Steyn has pointed out that western societies are giving up their identities: post-Christian, post-modern, post-borders, multi-culturalism where diverse cultures don’t have any actual substantive differences, and all the rest.
Mark also has noted a woman in Canada who’s rabidly jihadi – stating that any man she marries has to agree to martyr himself in jihad. She was born in Canada to a Muslim immigrant who’s a loyal Canadian; a pharmacist working for the Canadian military. He doesn’t know why she’s more religious than he is.
As nature abhors a vacuum, stronger identities fill in. Islam is a strong and assertive identity while Euroweenie is soft and squishy – always apologizing and groveling.
bin Laden said people prefer the strong horse. He had that right.
Two points:
1) I want to thank VtK and ILC for waiting until an official announcement was made before putting this up. It shows a desire for the truth rarely seen anymore.
2) One of the hopeful signs I clung to just got knocked down. A cab driver was giving free rides home to people from the Area. Several outlets reported him as being a muslim, which I hoped was true. It wasn’t. He is a Sikh.
Anyone who chooses to play baseball, understands the rules of the game and the whole business with umpires is part of the deal.
Muslims are not kept from integrating in the United States. Our rule of law, ordered society, constitutional government and civil rights guarantees are really quite easy to understand.
We don’t make it particularly complicated or challenging for becoming a productive participant in the daily life in our country.
Now, if a group of hyphenated-Americans want to huddle together, it is allowed. They can even be Amish like.
What’s to tolerate about a bunch of people who don’t integrate?
However, if they decide that “we” are not welcome in “their” neighborhoods, why is their intolerance of “us” acceptable?
Shari’a law is not compatible with our law. Now, if Shari’a is a model of excellence superior to our lower order of law, we should emulate it. But that is not the argument. The argument is that the Quran and the Hadith are above the law of man. That is to say, the First Amendment “freedom of religion” places religious law above all of the laws of the United States.
We have become diversity cultists. We are so tolerant of diversity that the idolatry of diversity only lacks a tangible fetish such as a unicorn or a golden calf.
Now we have come face to face with a death cult and we are confronted with how to defend ourselves against death cultists who insist we enslave ourselves to their raging intolerance of everything we are.
Cray, Cray must have the answer to this somewhere in his:
Islamist terrorists, apparently have a “viewpoint” that is possible to modify. OK, Cray, Cray, how do you reach the underworld of ISIS and the theocratic dictatorship of radical Islamists that is the focus of their vision? Send a couple of Mormons?
No sane person draws a bead on an enemy combatant and wonders about whether to “tolerate” his weaponized self. Soon enough, if your luck holds out, you learn to get the drop on the next guy before he can aim back. Dead guys. You purposefully made them dead. Strangers left where they fall as you cover your sweating hide and look for his pals. Call in air power. Shrapnel, concussion bombs, strafing, all sort of crap you really don’t want falling around you. Some of us have done that, day after day and we live with it.
A guy walks into the exit area of a theater and little kids are so blown to bits that they have to be identified by DNA. Meanwhile, it was all an accident. The bomber was the bombmaker and he wasn’t supposed to blow himself up. Now they have to train another guy. Mistakes happen. No one said terrorism would be easy.
Sorry to rant, but talk is cheap when the bullets or shrapnel fly.
These L-O-S-E-R-S don’t need understanding. They are totally understood. Ditto MS-13. Wishing evil away does not make anybody safe.
Now for the real dilemma. We absolutely have to profile these heinous death cultists. In order to profile, we have to accept that skepticism and common sense are a pretty good place to begin. But, say that and watch the liberals go into civil rights hyperbole overdrive.
I was discussing Muslim immigration in Sweden, in response to ILC’s alluding to Europe’s immigration policy in general. I was not discussing the U.S. Those are completely different situations. Europe is much more left-leaning and absorbed a great deal more refugees over the decades en masse. Both its policies and circumstances are different. If you’d like to comment on that, great.
If you’d like to watch the two videos I posted in Comment #4, even better. I have nothing further to say than what I said in Comment #4. Thanks.
Pres. Theodore Roosevelt warned us about assimilation, and the national dangers of non-assimilation, 100-years ago…and we have not learned since.
*Sorry, Helio, I meant Comment #6
In Western societies, absent an apartheid or Jim Crow situation – That is correct. Integration is a choice, and it’s on the immigrant to make the right choice.
Listen to Thomas Sowell sometime, talking about the experience of blacks in America. In his day, maybe there was ugly racism in some quarters (unlike today) but he, and many other blacks, didn’t give a crap. They just didn’t. They knew it was up to them to make something of their lives, regardless. And they knew that they were in a good place for making something of one’s life: a relatively wealthy AND open society. So, they learned how to get educations and present themselves with dignity and they just plain got down to working and being successful in life.
Plus what others said…Regardless of the above response, you’re making a great argument for less immigration.
Bingo. Multiculturalism blocks integration. (To be precise: It misleads immigrants away from choosing integration.) In today’s world, it’s probably the main thing blocking it (much more than, say, racism).
Thanks Craig!
Going to V’s point in his follow-on post… I have avoided expressing support for the Manchester victims, not because I don’t support them, but because there’s gotten to be too much virtue signalling. I’m sick of the virtue signallers.
The UK has gotten to a point where they would rather spend money and resources tracking down a guy who thinks people should be protected from Islamist terrorists, than tracking down Islamist terrorists. Awful!
Cray,Cray:
I have spent time in Sweden and looked at its social structure at some depth. Socially, it is very much unprepared for radical muslims.
They really don’t understand how men could go about raping their women. It is a true mystery to them. The men must be “brought along” and taught about feminine rights and given the opportunity to grow and flourish and become more self controlled and to celebrate women.
Their churches are quaint and they have great festive, community oriented parties and ego massagings. People actually get married when the grandchildren turn 16 because it is a nice occasion and a good place to wear flowers in their hair and surround themselves with gentle people and dance barefoot.
Meanwhile, down in Malmo, the kindly police have decided that the Muslims may do what they wish in the name of tolerance, but please don’t rape the little Swedish boys in the train station.
Sweden created a socialist paradise for Swedes who decided to stay and work for the weekly allowance permitted by the nanny state. You might be really happy there. But these innocent Muslims are a bit of a headache. Nobody can quite figure out why they want to pee in the punchbowl.
Its a lot like a herd of sheep inviting the wolves in to meet the lambs. Moon bats everywhere would love the Swedes. Meanwhile, notice that Norway, Finland, Estonia, etc. have somehow avoided the Muslim tolerance problem. What’s up with that? And keep you eye on Denmark. They are in the midst of dealing with the “Muslim problem” by including them out.
Perhaps one of the major obstacles to the integration of migrants into Western Culture is that the leftist intellectual elite have a firm contempt for Western Culture; which they endlessly attack as “racist, patriarchal, oppressive, with a legacy of colonialism and slavery.”
How do you convince migrants to integrate into a culture that the elites of the culture hold in contempt?