RUTHFULLY YOURS

RYAN MAURO: THE DEARBORN MOB VIDEO AND NATIONAL SECURITY

Posted By Ruth King on July 10th, 2012

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/the-dearborn-mob-video-and-national-security?f=puball

A video of provocative evangelicals being violently attacked by an enraged crowd at the 2012 Dearborn Arab Festival has gone viral, getting about 750,000 hits in one week. The story isn’t just about how the police stood or how the media misreported it. It’s also about a dangerous long-term trend that Europe has woken up to and is beginning in the U.S.

The United West edited down the original video to about 23 minutes and released it to the world. A group called Official Street Preachers went to the festival to preach the gospel. They carried around a model of a pig’s head on a pole and carried signs telling Muslims that they were destined to go to hell. Their website is very hell-centric, even preaching that “potheads are hellbound.”

I, as a Christian, do not approve of their tactics but that’s not the point. The point is the violent, frightening reaction to it. Belief in a free society requires a willingness to be offended. If someone offends you, you might tell them off but you continue on with your life, accepting it as free speech. Few handle the dispute with violence and if they do, they should be punished according to the law.

The evangelicals weren’t just yelled at. They were met with venomous hatred that is unsettling to view by a large crowd, not an unruly few. They were violently attacked with crates, stones, eggs and whatever else could be easily thrown. The group’s leader, Ruben Israel, was bleeding from the forehead. Remember, it’s not like the group went to an event run by Islamists like Hizb ut-Tahrir and are using the inevitable chaos as a representation of Muslims. This was a large, public event, attended by Arabs of all kinds.

Most disturbingly, small children and young teenagers were among the most aggressive. The adults stood by as they cursed, threw things and threatened. When some openly made calls for violence, with one shouting, “Let’s beat the s— out of them,” not a single person is seen in the video appealing for calm.

The police ordered the Official Street Preachers to leave and didn’t appear to reprimand, let alone arrest, a single one of the attackers. The video starts with a cop saying they’d investigate anyone videotaped throwing objects. It never happened. The Dearborn Patch even reported that Wayne County Deputy Chief Mike Jaafar said “No officials arrests were made…his team was pleased with the overall outcome.”

Two days later, the Official Street Preachers went in front of the Islamic Center of America to proselytize. A man got into an SUV and tried to run them over, forcing them to leap out of the way. The police that had been called to the scene blocked the van, arrested the attacker and he is now charged with 9 counts of attempted murder, according to Ruben Israel.

“Christian Missionary Group with Pig’s Head Taunt Arab-Americans at Dearborn Festival” is the headline that appeared in the Detroit Free Press. Multiple news outlets reported that 10 Christians were arrested when that had actually happened two years earlier. Can you imagine what would have happened if a crowd of Christians had attacked a small group of Muslims?

These incidents are shocking to Americans, but they aren’t to Europeans. Our allies in Europe are now trying to belatedly combat the Islamist ideology through what Prime Minister Cameron calls “muscular liberalism.” They understand that the root cause is this ideology and it flourishes in areas where there isn’t assimilation, resulting in separatism and hostility to outsiders, especially government authorities.

There are at least 751 Muslim-majority “Sensitive Urban Zones” in France, designated by the government for their instability. These areas are known for their overreactions, often including destructive rioting. Even emergency personnel like firemen require police backup before entering. This problem came to the forefront in 2005 when 300 towns erupted after two Muslim teenagers fled police by running into a power station and were electrocuted. In 2010, French police officers chased a Muslim in one of these areas who robbed a casino. He shot at them and they fired back, killing him. At his burial ceremony, the Islamic cleric blasted the police for his death and riots immediately ensued for four days.

This same kind of rioting has occurred in Sweden and Greece, the latter of which had to deal with tremendous riots after a report that a police officer defaced a Koran. The British government has designated “ethnic minority areas” where soldiers are advised not to wear their military uniforms. These are just a few of the reported incidents. There is certainly much more than isn’t being told, especially in the English-language press.

Non-Muslim ghettos are also known for their hostility to outsiders, especially police, but there’s a key difference: Islamist doctrine. These areas are perfect incubators for Islamist indoctrination because of their separatism, lack of assimilation, feelings of victimhood and antagonism towards Western authorities.

This connection is clear in Europe. Religiously-motivated rage sparked the riots in Greece after a Koran was allegedly desecrated and an imam helped instigate the 2010 riots in France. In Denmark, dogs are sometimes kidnapped in Muslim-majority ghetto areas as Islamist doctrine takes hold because they are considered unclean. In Sweden, Jews are being pushedout of their communities. In the U.K., an extremist group posted signs in 12 towns that declared, “You are entering a Sharia-controlled zone-Islamic rules enforced.”

This unwillingness to assimilate leads to Islamism which leads to terrorism. Former CIA case officer Marc Sageman reviewed profiles of terrorists and concluded the strongest common variable was separatism. About 80% were “totally excluded from the society they lived in.” A 2009 Canadian intelligence report likewise warned about the Islamist promotion of a “parallel society” because “isolationism can lead to conditions where extreme messages can incubate and eventually become a catalyst for violence.” Spanish intelligence determined the same thing about “parallel societies and ghettos.”

The viral video of what happened in Dearborn shows this trend starting in the U.S. An area with a large Muslim population reacts violently to being offended and the mammoth task of containing this reactionary impulse leads to the authorities looking the other way. Moderates, even the non-religious, join in or are passive onlookers. This furthers the separatism that Islamism feeds off of.

If you’re an Islamist recruiter, you are looking at this video with glee at how many festival attendees attacked the harsh critics of Islam in accordance with Sharia Law instead of acting in accordance with Western democratic law.

This article was sponsored by the Institute on Religion and Democracy.

Read more: Family Security Matters http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/detail/the-dearborn-mob-video-and-national-security?f=puball#ixzz20DDLEwdl
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution

Comments are closed.