We must talk honestly about Islamic terrorism

Friday’s terror attack in Melbourne demands we rethink the way immigrants are integrated, writes Peta Credlin. And we must stop being hamstrung by political correctness when discussing Islamic terrorism.

I was on air on Friday evening as the news broke about the terror attack in Melbourne that took the life of much-loved local restaurateur Sisto Malaspina and left two others in hospital with critical injuries.

Then of course, we referenced the well-rehearsed line from the police media conference “no known links to terrorism but we are keeping an open mind”.

And while police did not want to use the “terror” word pre-emptively, it had all the hallmarks of the sort of crimes that are reshaping life in western countries like ours.

Now of course, we can call it for what it was — yet another terror attack on Australian soil by those that hate who we are, and our way of life. More than once on air, other commentators kept referring to the fact that there were no other suspects — that this appeared to be a lone wolf-type of attack. Again, and again I kept pointing out that while the police, as they said, may not be looking for other offenders at this time, you can bet they haven’t ruled out other suspects.

The very nature of these attacks here, and around the world, often involve others to help co-ordinate the attack, provide logistical support on weapons or bomb-making (often remotely over the internet), and as would appear to be the case in Friday’s attack, other associates.

Heartbroken Nino Pangrazio, business partner of the victim Sisto Malaspina at Pellegrini’s in Melbourne’s Bourke St. Picture: Yuri Kouzmin

When these events occur, beyond the uniform police almost immediately on the ground trying to protect civilians and bring order to the crime scene, a team of other security personnel in Melbourne would have scoured databases to see what else they can find out about the man at the centre of this attack. In Canberra intelligence services would have supported this effort and as we now know, our chief domestic agency, ASIO, has confirmed the Somali-born attacker Hassan Khalif Shire Ali was known to them.

Reports also say he had links to Islamic extremism and radicalised members of the Somali community.

On Friday night, Myer was launching its famed Christmas windows. The city was still caught up in the tail-end of Cup Week with tourists and locals alike moving around the retail precinct and into bars to start the usual end-of-week wind-down. And today, it is Remembrance Day as we pause to remember the lives lost in the Great War that were meant to deliver us a lasting peace.

Hassan Khalif Shire Ali lunges at police before being shot on Friday.

Did any of these events this weekend inspire this hate? Was the vehicle primed with gas-cylinders and meant to act as bomb as it hurtled down Bourke Street towards the pedestrian precinct and the children massing for the windows and their mesmerising automations? None of this is yet known. But what I do know is that we in Australia, as in the wider West, face a challenge of great magnitude as we deal with the scourge of Islamist terrorism. It is real, it occupies enormous bandwidth inside our security and intelligence agencies, it makes us rethink our supposed success as an integrated immigrant nation and it invites yet another fight with the suffocating influence of political correctness.

This is how it will pan out this week: More will be found out about this attacker, newspapers will print dossiers of his known associates who have previously raised concerns with police, we’ll look into his migrant past, and we’ll pose theories as to what caused his radicalisation and wonder why the millions spent on deradicalisation programs have such a poor rate of success. Some will look for online connections to overseas terror groups and others will see if there’s any link to local mosques or preachers known for inspiring hate against the very communities in which they live. All the while, a vocal media arm will speak out against commentators like me wanting to talk about radical Islam, or why some radicals here and overseas hate as they do.

Various community leaders will praise our resilience and maybe light up a building or call for a peace vigil. The authorities will keep their updates as bland as they can for fear of offending anyone, and a Premier desperate to win an election in a couple of week’s time will be all over this issue but at the same time, as a man from the left of politics, he’ll try to straddle the fraught language so precisely he ends up with a backside full of splinters.

I don’t know to what extent this man was vetted by security agencies before emigrating to Australia from Somalia. We know he’s come to their attention at some time, and that’s to the great credit of our intelligence experts, but it is sadly needle-in-a-haystack stuff once they are here.

These events challenge everything that sits at the very heart of our western democracies and should demand a serious rethink about the way immigrants are integrated (or not), terrorism in the guise of religion, hate preachers, online access to overseas terror propaganda and our ability to speak openly and honestly about all of this, because it is too late to do anything to avert the collusion course we’ve embarked on.

I’m back on air tomorrow night, and let’s see if I am right.