In which Sam Tom remembers the world we have lost
In the early 2000s, I visited Cologne with my mother. It was one of the nicest places I have been in Germany. I have fond memories of the chocolate museum and the great zoo that offered much better conditions for animals that anywhere I have ever been. I loved the architecture and Mrs Lyle loved the beer. The only bad thing that happened was an angry cyclist shouting "Dumme Frau!" at Mrs Lyle for inadvertently walking in a cycle lane (they take those very seriously). I once thought Germany was nice and envisaged maybe living there one day.
So I was particularly disturbed by the mass violence against women that surfaced at the start of this year in Cologne, and as it has transpired despite the attempted cover-up, all over western Germany as well as Finland, Austria, Sweden and Switzerland. (Not to mention ongoing violence in my former country of residence, France, where the horror has reached the level of murder rather than "just" sexual assault and rape.) It has made me seriously rethink large portions of my personal politics. I am musing about it here because I don't think kneejerk Facebook/Twitter reactions are helpful, but I would still like an outlet in written form. If what I say offends anyone, well, that's too bad, don't read me anymore. I am not driven by hate but by dismay at what Europe is coming to. I know I'm not a bigot - it's hard to be one when you've lived in such a diverse city as London and got to know many people from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds, all different and all individual. So if anyone thinks I am one, I actually don't care because they are wrong. I just think Germany's "open door" policy - admitting anyone claiming to be Syrian, with no background checks - in response to the tragedy in Syria was a terrible decision that has had an awful impact on the whole of Western Europe. I am not against the idea of admitting refugees per se - it's hard not to feel sorry for anyone in that situation - but they have gone about it in a very dangerous way, which seems more about injecting large volumes of working-age men into the labour market than helping the weakest.
The people that I used to align myself with ideologically - feminists, liberals, the Left - have utterly disgusted me in their response to the attacks. Expecting them to condemn a mass assault on innocent women in a straightforward manner, without further political posturing and virtue signalling, was clearly asking too much. I've read a lot of articles about the event in the Guardian, Independent and feminist web pages where the authors clearly feel unable to simply acknowledge that women have suffered and extend compassion. As women have suffered in the Middle East, so now are they suffering here. Yet the online feminist commentators make feeble gestures at condemning generalised "male violence" that must be instantly followed up with assertions that it happens everywhere. Many of the women who day in, day out condemn "rape culture" in the West are strangely silent. Today the Everyday Sexism page on Facebook has a feature about...sexism in Star Wars. Columnists like Penny and Hinscliff make me not want to be a liberal or a feminist any more. I wouldn't call myself right-wing and have never even voted Tory, but I simply cannot align myself with these people now.
It's true, rape happens everywhere (a fact so self-evident, post-Savile, that it's amazing that anyone feels compelled to state it). But 1,000 men setting on women in impunity in a public place in Europe as the police look on powerlessly, then try and pretend it never happened, is new to me. The mayoress of Cologne tells women to remain "at arm's length" from men, and to avoid looking too cheerful, and the Viennese police chief warns women not to go out on their own. Chancellor Merkel says now it's time to get tough; immigrant men must be deported if they offend "time and again". Yet no-one has yet been convicted and it's hard to pin an offence on any one man in this kind of mass attack. Some of those women may find it hard to have a "Happy New Year" again, as they may always remember that night in 2015. But who cares? We've got to protect Schengen, right?
At times like this, I am actually slightly glad I am transgender because I don't know how I would cope as a female-bodied person if I were trying to just live life as an ordinary woman. A century of feminism seems to have achieved nothing when it comes to the crunch. Liberal politicians pay lip service to women's rights as long as they don't contradict the rights of another group. Yet as soon as they do, we see that women are still at the bottom of the pile in society. Literally everyone comes before them. It is fine to sacrifice them on the altar of a borderless Europe, in pursuit of the multicultural dream. They are just meat to our globalist leaders in Western Europe. They are an absence, a hole, not even real people. I'd suspected it previously and now my fears have been confirmed.
I had been thinking about visiting Leipzig this year for a holiday as Jack is keen to go to the Gothic Pogo festival. But now I'm not so sure. I think I'd rather go somewhere nice. It's not that I would personally feel unsafe, but I don't want to encourage the country down the route it's going and there are plenty of less rich countries that could do with the tourism money.
So I was particularly disturbed by the mass violence against women that surfaced at the start of this year in Cologne, and as it has transpired despite the attempted cover-up, all over western Germany as well as Finland, Austria, Sweden and Switzerland. (Not to mention ongoing violence in my former country of residence, France, where the horror has reached the level of murder rather than "just" sexual assault and rape.) It has made me seriously rethink large portions of my personal politics. I am musing about it here because I don't think kneejerk Facebook/Twitter reactions are helpful, but I would still like an outlet in written form. If what I say offends anyone, well, that's too bad, don't read me anymore. I am not driven by hate but by dismay at what Europe is coming to. I know I'm not a bigot - it's hard to be one when you've lived in such a diverse city as London and got to know many people from different ethnic and cultural backgrounds, all different and all individual. So if anyone thinks I am one, I actually don't care because they are wrong. I just think Germany's "open door" policy - admitting anyone claiming to be Syrian, with no background checks - in response to the tragedy in Syria was a terrible decision that has had an awful impact on the whole of Western Europe. I am not against the idea of admitting refugees per se - it's hard not to feel sorry for anyone in that situation - but they have gone about it in a very dangerous way, which seems more about injecting large volumes of working-age men into the labour market than helping the weakest.
The people that I used to align myself with ideologically - feminists, liberals, the Left - have utterly disgusted me in their response to the attacks. Expecting them to condemn a mass assault on innocent women in a straightforward manner, without further political posturing and virtue signalling, was clearly asking too much. I've read a lot of articles about the event in the Guardian, Independent and feminist web pages where the authors clearly feel unable to simply acknowledge that women have suffered and extend compassion. As women have suffered in the Middle East, so now are they suffering here. Yet the online feminist commentators make feeble gestures at condemning generalised "male violence" that must be instantly followed up with assertions that it happens everywhere. Many of the women who day in, day out condemn "rape culture" in the West are strangely silent. Today the Everyday Sexism page on Facebook has a feature about...sexism in Star Wars. Columnists like Penny and Hinscliff make me not want to be a liberal or a feminist any more. I wouldn't call myself right-wing and have never even voted Tory, but I simply cannot align myself with these people now.
It's true, rape happens everywhere (a fact so self-evident, post-Savile, that it's amazing that anyone feels compelled to state it). But 1,000 men setting on women in impunity in a public place in Europe as the police look on powerlessly, then try and pretend it never happened, is new to me. The mayoress of Cologne tells women to remain "at arm's length" from men, and to avoid looking too cheerful, and the Viennese police chief warns women not to go out on their own. Chancellor Merkel says now it's time to get tough; immigrant men must be deported if they offend "time and again". Yet no-one has yet been convicted and it's hard to pin an offence on any one man in this kind of mass attack. Some of those women may find it hard to have a "Happy New Year" again, as they may always remember that night in 2015. But who cares? We've got to protect Schengen, right?
At times like this, I am actually slightly glad I am transgender because I don't know how I would cope as a female-bodied person if I were trying to just live life as an ordinary woman. A century of feminism seems to have achieved nothing when it comes to the crunch. Liberal politicians pay lip service to women's rights as long as they don't contradict the rights of another group. Yet as soon as they do, we see that women are still at the bottom of the pile in society. Literally everyone comes before them. It is fine to sacrifice them on the altar of a borderless Europe, in pursuit of the multicultural dream. They are just meat to our globalist leaders in Western Europe. They are an absence, a hole, not even real people. I'd suspected it previously and now my fears have been confirmed.
I had been thinking about visiting Leipzig this year for a holiday as Jack is keen to go to the Gothic Pogo festival. But now I'm not so sure. I think I'd rather go somewhere nice. It's not that I would personally feel unsafe, but I don't want to encourage the country down the route it's going and there are plenty of less rich countries that could do with the tourism money.