I will resist the urge again this week to simply discuss Pokémon
Go – although would briefly like to mention that I caught my first pocket monster
whilst mildly inebriated in London, and also discovered that the MI6 building
is a Pokégym.
However, more serious matters are afoot. Whilst British
holidaymakers experience a taste of what’s to come in a post-Brexit world, with 12 hour tailbacks between
here and Calais, and Labour infighting reaches new levels of ludicrousness
with the party
being sued by its own members, the world’s attention has turned to Germany,
which has inevitably been the victim of some isolated events of violence
carried out by individuals, which are predictably being stitched into a
narrative of global terrorism by our sensationalist media.
It appears clear that there are no obvious connections
between the events in question, and although some have claimed affiliation with
so-called Islamic State, there is no way to confirm this. Indeed, it suits Dahesh’s
narrative to allow lone attackers to claim victims in their name, despite the
fact they may not have had any meaningful contact with the organisation.
This also shines a light on the phenomenon of news coverage,
whereby we see a spike in certain events receiving coverage, in the wake of
significant breaking stories. So in the fallout from the Brexit vote, people were
informed about all racist and anti-xenophobic abuse taking place across the UK,
thereby creating the illusion that this hadn’t been happening (and woefully
underreported) beforehand. Likewise, we are now hearing about an isolated
stabbing, which police identified a s a crime of passion, in Germany because
the attacker happened to be a Syrian refugee.
Tellingly, the young man who blew himself up at a music
festival in Bavaria was reported to be disenfranchised due to being refused
asylum in the country. It is not welcoming people in need into our countries
which does the damage, but rather building walls to keep us apart.
No comments:
Post a Comment