Europe’s silence over Cologne Carnival sexual assaults unravels their biases against refugees

Where is the hue and cry by torchbearers of civilization who were shedding crocodile tears for the love of womankind? It was almost as if the mostly poor Muslim immigrants had invented violence against women for the first time on European soil

Human history is marred by violence, wars and betrayal. All rays passing through the convex lens of social evolution seem to be converging on a point that the biggest crimes in the history could not have been done without the tyranny of the masses.

Societies have gone to the extent of lynching saintly beguines, by declaring them witches and wizards, while they embraced evils like Genghis Khan, Adolf Hitler and Mussolini as heroes.  

Ironically this phenomenon has recently resurfaced in Europe following the so-called New Year Eve harassment incidents, when almost the entire continent and the world watched in horror as mass media aggressively reported about ‘Syrian’ and ‘North African’ refugees assaulting women.

The German right wing extremists, as well as their counterparts in other parts of the continent, capitalized on the news to increase their near to zero ratings across the region. They promised to put the culprits behind the witness boxes and kick them out of their countries. They reminded each and every refugee in the region how graceful the European societies were by welcoming the homeless and war-ridden people and how thankless those refugees are by abusing their women.

To that extent every action of the so-called civilized societies seemed to be making sense, but the criminal silence of the same media and so-called defenders of the European civilization over the mind-boggling level of women abuse, by mostly European men during the recent carnival in Cologne and other cities, left every sane mind in shock.

What happened on New Year’s Eve is condemnable to the core and was followed by the outrage across the world. Surprisingly similar attacks took place in Cologne Carnival too, but where is the hue and cry by torchbearers of civilization who were shedding crocodile tears for the love of womankind? It was almost as if the mostly poor Muslim immigrants had invented violence against women for the first time on European soil.

A Belgian female journalist was groped live on TV. This shameful incident was caught live on camera when a Caucasian looking male groped her in front of the whole world, but all promises of catching the culprit remained fruitless.

The respectable reporter was served with the Cologne Police’s sincere apology to sooth her pain. The height of duplicity also surfaced when a statement claimed that increased reporting of assaults during the Carnival were due to the awareness among women after the New Year Eve, as if it was on NYE that women perceived the definition of sexual assault and harassment in the lands of the civilized.

Associated Press Germany reported that 542 criminal complaints, including 45 allegations of sexual offenses including rape, were reported. The report also claimed that the figures were similar to the 2015 Carnival when around 50 cases of abuse against women were reported. Despite all this mishmash, it seemed an “all is well that ends well” moment for everybody after ridding of the alien kind of women abusers during the Carnival.

The level of assaults against women during the carnival was of no less significance than that which occurred during the New Year Eve, and clearly exposed a social pattern. However, the incidents during the Carnival were widely downplayed by the Western media contrary to those of NYE.

To my wonder nothing is shaking now. Women are quiet, international media is muted, so-called women rights guardians right wingers are reposing after the long struggle to blame aliens for everything bad.

Every single sound for putting an end to women exploitation perhaps has now gone into a state of coma. Or was the big fuss about refugees assaulting women only a malafide move to push an anti-immigration agenda?

In Germany, like any other country, discussion about rape and abuse of women rights had been a taboo for a long time. It has surely been a hard time for women to open up about sexual abuse and violence against them.

It was highly unlikely, but unfortunately true, that according to the Section 177 of the Criminal Code of Germany, the definition of sexual harassment was very vague before New Year’s Eve. According to the law if a sexual offender touches, or says something, to harass a woman, it will not be considered a crime unless he uses force or threats of violence against life or limb.

In Germany many women rights organizations have been striving to amend this law for the last thirty years. Amid this, many incidents on large and low scale have been committed by European and non-European perpetrators, but this abovementioned law was never changed. But following New Year’s Eve, European societies started to scramble as never before.

There are many other reasons which cannot be brushed off. According to Cologne Police such a gang that perpetrates sexual abuse, can be compared with the other gangs who are operating in the same manner. Cologne Mayor Henriette Reker indicated that the police had held back information from her and her trust in the Cologne Police leadership is significantly shaken.

Again it is the society that decides the pattern of social behavior. However, the right wing in Europe has already named it as religious invasion and clash of civilization; but I won’t term it that way as it wouldn’t narrow down my point. This discriminatory attitude toward refugees is inhuman. It seems like the world does not want to share its resources with needy people, rather preferring to throw the rest of their resources in garbage.

I never hundred percent agreed with the politics of Frau Merkel, but now I feel like awarding her sainthood for taking on the kind of opposition she is facing by mostly radical Xenophanes both in Germany and across Europe.

I strictly believe that the humane laws developed by a society must be exercised, but no policies or laws could be humane if designed under a biased approach towards a specific group of people.

It is ironic that, for example, the rightist Polish government, which tosses itself up and down to beg England to keep tens of thousands of their economic refugee citizens in UK, is going every length not to keep the war-torn people from other countries.

Many scholars describe this matter as a clash of civilizations. Notably there is no civilization where human beings forget to behave in a civilized manner, and start to snatch belonging of homeless and war ridden people.

This is a game of survival in which every player is concerned about what it gets. The strong will survive and thrive on the resources of others and the weak would be named as reckless refugees.

Khadija Khan is a journalist and commentator based in Germany. You can follow her on Twitter @khadijakhanlodh

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