{"id":1145,"date":"2016-01-17T01:28:13","date_gmt":"2016-01-17T01:28:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/?p=1145"},"modified":"2016-01-17T09:28:40","modified_gmt":"2016-01-17T09:28:40","slug":"cologne-attackers-were-not-muslims","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2016\/01\/cologne-attackers-were-not-muslims.html","title":{"rendered":"Cologne attackers were not Muslims"},"content":{"rendered":"

Interestingly, there\u00a0are efforts in media and the blogosphere (an example here<\/a>) to portray some debauched, drunken molesters in Cologne, Germany as “Muslims” and represent their behavior as if it’s something condoned in Islam. I believe their behavior was not typical of Islam but typical of the West, or of people desperately trying to “integrate” into its society.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Once again, although I’m not a Muslim, I can see what they must be thinking about these new accusations against their people.<\/p>\n

It is obvious\u00a0that the Cologne attackers were not Muslims, or at least did not consider themselves Muslim. Their behaviour was of (if we accept they were\u00a0refugees)\u00a0desperately straining themselves to “integrate” and become “European”. By all accounts, the offenders in question were drunk and were celebrating the Western New Year celebration, which is not even celebrated by Muslims. The Islamic New Year is at a different date than the one on\u00a0our Western calendars. Islam prohibits intoxication with alcohol, provides moral guidance for\u00a0people to not do<\/em> what they did in Cologne. If only those men in Cologne were\u00a0serious Muslims, they\u00a0would not have been\u00a0there\u00a0in the first place.<\/p>\n

Refugees understandably want to behave the way they did in Cologne. And\u00a0from their perspective, Westerners support\u00a0their behaviour. Remember, it is the\u00a0West that constantly and proudly advertises itself to the world as\u00a0a place of absolute freedom, debauchery and intoxication, and\u00a0rejects morality and Islam while asking others to “integrate” into its society. The way many outsiders read this, given the differences in their more ordered culture, is that any behavior by them is going to be tolerated.\u00a0Yet still it\u00a0is reported that in Cologne,\u00a0foreigners\u00a0failed to “integrate”<\/a> – despite their vast leap of already buying into the West’s renowned\u00a0mass\u00a0intoxication\u00a0and permissiveness.<\/p>\n

And remember, Muslims have a reputation not for being\u00a0intoxicated\u00a0and looking for debauchery, but\u00a0the opposite. That is exactly the cause of so many Westerners’ contempt for them, with those Westerners believing the Muslims are a threat to their drinking, drugs, and other vices and affections. It is strange to now see Westerners cry out that Muslims are the immoral ones, and revive\u00a0the canards about rape by foreign\u00a0races and “invaders”<\/a> that were so popular to the Nazis.<\/p>\n

Even the racist or neo-Nazi\u00a0analysis of Cologne\u00a0can’t be\u00a0as dumb as the Islamophobic one. Cologne is\u00a0a stronger case for<\/em> Islam in Europe than against it. The only reason anyone is arguing that Islam is the problem is just for political gain, and for more suppression of people’s freedom of conscience by the state<\/a>. Bashing Islam\u00a0won’t improve the state of morality in Europe. It will only degrade life for many\u00a0and make it\u00a0even more unbearable, and events like Cologne will become even more commonplace. The\u00a0Cologne attackers were not Muslims, they were pure-bred Westerners in their ideology, the kind the West likes to call its own.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Interestingly, there\u00a0are efforts in media and the blogosphere (an example here) to portray some debauched, drunken molesters in Cologne, Germany as “Muslims” and represent their behavior as if it’s something condoned in Islam. I believe their behavior was not typical of Islam but typical of the West, or of people desperately trying to “integrate” into…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":577,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46,8,68,71,63,37,72,892,67,66,3,70,69],"tags":[1365,760,1306,211,1363,1362,1367,173,976,567,1364,1366,25,815,39,1368,144],"class_list":["post-1145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-alter-globalization","category-antistatism","category-conflict-2","category-conflict-resolution","category-futurism-2","category-history","category-international-relations","category-islam","category-middle-east","category-politics-2","category-religious-studies","category-religious-violence","category-violence","tag-celebration","tag-crime","tag-culture","tag-germany","tag-imperialism","tag-integration","tag-intoxication","tag-islam","tag-morality","tag-muslims","tag-new-year","tag-permissiveness","tag-politics","tag-rape","tag-religion","tag-sin","tag-the-west"],"yoast_head":"\nCologne attackers were not Muslims - L'Ordre<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Cologne attackers were not Muslims, or certainly not guided by Islam. These were just drunken people, just the kind the West likes to consider its own.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2016\/01\/cologne-attackers-were-not-muslims.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Cologne attackers were not Muslims - L'Ordre\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Cologne attackers were not Muslims, or certainly not guided by Islam. These were just drunken people, just the kind the West likes to consider its own.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2016\/01\/cologne-attackers-were-not-muslims.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"L'Ordre\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-01-17T01:28:13+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2016-01-17T09:28:40+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Harry J. Bentham\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Cologne attackers were not Muslims - L'Ordre","description":"The Cologne attackers were not Muslims, or certainly not guided by Islam. These were just drunken people, just the kind the West likes to consider its own.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2016\/01\/cologne-attackers-were-not-muslims.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Cologne attackers were not Muslims - L'Ordre","og_description":"The Cologne attackers were not Muslims, or certainly not guided by Islam. These were just drunken people, just the kind the West likes to consider its own.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2016\/01\/cologne-attackers-were-not-muslims.html","og_site_name":"L'Ordre","article_published_time":"2016-01-17T01:28:13+00:00","article_modified_time":"2016-01-17T09:28:40+00:00","author":"Harry J. Bentham","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2016\/01\/cologne-attackers-were-not-muslims.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2016\/01\/cologne-attackers-were-not-muslims.html","name":"Cologne attackers were not Muslims - L'Ordre","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/#website"},"datePublished":"2016-01-17T01:28:13+00:00","dateModified":"2016-01-17T09:28:40+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/#\/schema\/person\/576f5919c442d93e18909ed47628846e"},"description":"The Cologne attackers were not Muslims, or certainly not guided by Islam. These were just drunken people, just the kind the West likes to consider its own.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2016\/01\/cologne-attackers-were-not-muslims.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2016\/01\/cologne-attackers-were-not-muslims.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/2016\/01\/cologne-attackers-were-not-muslims.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Cologne attackers were not Muslims"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/","name":"L'Ordre","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Harry Bentham","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/#\/schema\/person\/576f5919c442d93e18909ed47628846e","name":"Harry J. Bentham","description":"Harry J. Bentham is a British futurist blogger who has been a contributor at a number of think tanks including the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies since 2013. His work at Press TV and the L'Ordre blog featured at the multi-faith Beliefnet website has gained increasing attention and praise, including in the international media. Commentaries on political and ethical controversies by Bentham have been published at the Institute for Ethics and Emerging Technologies, H+ Magazine, Dissident Voice and numerous other publications. He edits The clubof.info Blog (http:\/\/www.clubof.info\/search\/label\/Harry_J_Bentham).","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/Harry-J.-Bentham\/e\/B00D4MSEY0\/"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/author\/hbentham"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1145","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/577"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1145"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1150,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1145\/revisions\/1150"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lordre\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}