Beware the victim narrative that feeds jihadi hate

Terrorists thrive on a narrative of victimology, writes James Morrow. By stoking the idea that Muslims are uniquely under attack from a supposed epidemic of Islamophobia in Australia, we play into their desires.

Now we know one of the anti-Christian, anti-Western Sri Lanka suicide bombers, Abdul Lathief Jameel Mohamed, spent time studying in Australia and was possibly radicalised here, we need to ask ourselves some hard questions.

Specifically, what is going on in our free, prosperous, tolerant society that could encourage someone to go down the path of violent jihad?

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The question takes on even more urgency in the light of the hundreds of Australians who have travelled to Syria and Iraq over the past half-dozen years to join Islamic State.

At one point, the highest number of foreign fighters travelling to the region came from Australia, a startling fact when you consider both our distance from the conflict zone and our relatively small population.

Could there be something in the way that large segments of our media and culture, particularly academia, work to play down and denigrate our Christian and Western heritage, while at the same time promoting the idea of epidemic Islamophobia, that is leaving impressionable minds open to the call of radical hate preachers?

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It’s a long-established fact that regardless of ideology, terrorists thrive on a narrative of victimology.

Sri Lankan soldiers inside the St Sebastian's Church in Negombo on April 21 following a bomb blast during the Easter service. Picture: STR/AFP

Hate preachers have long used selectively edited videos of combat in the Middle East to convince vulnerable minds that Islam is under attack by the West and that jihad is the only way forward for the righteous.

It will almost surely be found that this same narrative drove the Sri Lanka terrorists to their murderous ends.

Yet while Australian security agencies do everything they can to tamp down this sort of radicalism, many well-meaning individuals in the mainstream media and academia help to stoke the idea that Muslims are uniquely under attack from a supposed epidemic of Islamophobia here and around the world.

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In the wake of the Christchurch mosque shootings, the ABC (to choose one of many examples) aired an entire episode of The Drum — complete with a panel comprised entirely of female Muslims — devoted to the proposition that the Australian media had played a hefty role in “fomenting the rise of white supremacy”.

Needless to say, there has not been an all-Christian episode of The Drum devoted to Sri Lanka. Nor has there been much discussion in the Australian media of the fact that, from Nigeria to Egypt to Pakistan and beyond, it is Christians who are far more likely to be attacked or murdered — often with official sanction — for practising their faith, not the other way around.

If anything, Christianity is routinely portrayed — particularly by our national broadcaster — as a backward cult of misogynists and child molesters thankfully dying out on our shores.

Protesters march during the Stand Against Racism and Islamophobia: Fraser Anning Resign! rally in March. Picture: Scott Barbour/Getty

At the same time, Australians — and those studying in Australia — are routinely told our modern, post-settlement history is something of which to be ashamed; a never-ending story of colonialism and exploitation.

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Likewise, the dominant classical and Judaeo-Christian traditions on which our tolerant and prosperous society is based should be buried and treated as antique embarrassments as we instead embrace multiculturalism.

Look no further than the attempts by academics to stop the Ramsay Centre for the Study of Western Civilisation from getting even a toehold in the university curriculum, while Middle Eastern or Chinese studies programs linked to Gulf State theocracies or the Chinese Communist Party are welcomed with open arms.

As we struggle to cope with the fact terror has become an Australian export, it is not enough to worry about how local alt-right groups might have encouraged Brenton Tarrant.

If it is true that culture can inspire people to hateful acts, we should be more careful about feeding into anyone’s narrative of victimology, while at the same time promoting our free, tolerant and open Western society as something to be celebrated and admired, not destroyed.

James Morrow is Opinion Editor of The Daily Telegraph and co-host of Outsiders on Sky News Australia, 9-11am, Sundays.

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