Silencing terrorism is not the solution

Covering our ears and closing our eyes to the evils of the world may make some people feel better, but it won’t solve the problem, and it’s certainly not the job of the media to do so, writes Miranda Devine.

Of all the bilious nonsense written about conservative commentators this week, New Matilda took the cake.

The hysterical e-zine published a hit list of News Corp commentators it claimed wrote obsessively about Islam in 2017, as divined by One Path Network, a Muslim video production company which is bankrolled by imams.

Apparently, I wrote 16 per cent of 185 opeds in 2017 about Islam.

That would hardly be surprising considering 2017 was a newsworthy year for Islamist terror attacks in Australia and overseas, as well as for the courtroom resolution of previous attacks.

MORE FROM MIRANDA DEVINE: Fight the right-wing terror hate with love for Muslims

There was the London Bridge attack, when Islamist terrorists mowed down pedestrians in a van and then jumped out and went on a stabbing rampage through London, killing 11 people including two Australians, Sara Zelenak, 21, and nurse, Kirsty Boden, 28.

There was the Manchester Arena suicide bombing of an Ariana Grande concert in the UK which killed 23 people.

Eight pedestrians were mowed down in a truck and killed in Manhattan in another Islamic State-inspired terrorist attack.

The London Bridge terror attack happened, and it is the job of the media to report on it. Picture: AFP/Odd Andersen

There was Melbourne’s Brighton terrorist siege in which Somali-born Yacqub Khayre murdered a receptionist and wounded three police officers.

There was the IS-inspired Stockholm truck attack in which five people were killed.

There was the Palm Sunday bombing of Coptic churches in Egypt, which killed 47 and the gunning down of another 28 Coptic Christians in a convoy.

The ISIS inspired Minto stabbing was in 2016, but hit court in 2017.

MORE FROM MIRANDA DEVINE: Don’t forget the heroes of the Lindt cafe siege

Also in 2017 was the inquest into the Lindt cafe siege in which the Coroner confirmed that gunman Man Monis was an IS-inspired terrorist, despite the denials from Lord Mayor Clover Moore and others.

There was much, much more.

A survey of terrorist-related violence by Global Extremism Monitor found that 92 Islamist groups killed more than 84,000 people around the world in 2017.

The Lindt Cafe siege is something the media had to discuss. Picture: AFP/Saeed Khan

So, if I wrote about Islam 17 per cent of the time, it meant I was doing my job.

Would New Matilda prefer that News Corp commentators suppress information about Islamist terrorism?

Would they prefer that Pauline Hanson were expelled, along with her former unloved protégé Fraser Anning, from the political stage?

All that would happen then is that people with extremist tendencies would have their conspiracy theories about Islam and the media confirmed. It would fuel their paranoia and they would be driven into the arms of Anning and worse, to the deep sewer of the dark web.

MORE FROM MIRANDA DEVINE: Our children must be taught our nation is free and fair

The evidence is that the more a society suppresses anti-immigration and extremist sentiments, the more violence it suffers, according to Jacob Ravndal a postdoctoral fellow with the Center for Research on Extremism at the University of Oslo.

He warned in an article in Foreign Policy this week that “those who shape public opinion should be careful of blaming those operating in the public sphere and within legal boundaries such as radical right parties or anti-immigrant protest movements.

“There is actually a negative correlation between electoral support for radical right parties in Western democracies and the levels of deadly attacks with an extreme-right motivation.”

Be careful what you wish for.

@mirandadevine