On New Years' Eve, 516 criminal complaints were filed to the police about what appeared to be coordinated attacks by migrants on civilians. Of these complaints, 40 percent of them concerned sexual assaults. Die Welt, a German newspaper, reported that similar situations unfolded in Hamburg and Stuttgart. Concerning the attacks, the mayor of Cologne, Henriette Recker, responded by telling women, "There’s always the possibility of keeping a certain distance of more than an arm’s length — that is to say, to make sure [you] don’t look to be too close to people who are not known to you and to whom you don’t have a trusting relationship."
Many organizations and news sources attempted to downplay the role that recently arrived refugees had in the attacks in Cologne. The Independent published a source claiming that only three of the fifty-eight people arrested during the New Years' Eve attacks were recently arrived refugees. The Associated Press released a statement by Ulrich Bremer, a Cologne Prosecutor, saying that these reports were "total nonsense," and that "the overwhelming majority of persons fall into the general category of refugees."
In the German town of Bronheim, a local swimming pool banned any adult migrant men from the nearby asylum from entering due to several complaints that migrant men were sexually harassing women.
In the Belgian town of Kokzidje, the mayor proposed a similar law banning all adult migrant men from the pool, due to several complaints from women of sexual harassment.
Nightclubs in Freiburg, Germany have been dealing with such issues as well, as women have claimed to have been slipped date-rape drugs and harassed by migrant men within these clubs.
In Stolkholm's central train station, groups of migrant teens, in the words of one Swedish police officer, "grope girls in between their legs, and slap them when they protest." Police in Sweden are also facing accusations of covering up mass sexual assaults by migrant men during a music festival last summer.
Do we see a pattern here?
Young migrant men are assaulting women in places where we believe they should be free to attend safely and independently; swimming pools, nightclubs, public squares. But many of the recently arrived refugees and migrants don't seem to share these attitudes.
As the statements of Henriette Recker and the refusal of media to accurately portray the Cologne attacks have shown, we seem to be all too willing to simply dismiss these attacks and not get to the heart of the issue. Let's think about something for a second; the German Minister of Justice suspected that the Cologne attacks were coordinated.
Let me be absolutely clear, a large group of men could very well have had coordinated in advance a plan to rape and harass women in a public square during a large celebration. I believe feminists have a term for this: rape culture. And indeed, the cases of assault that I have pointed out to you have shown that a significant portion of adult migrant men possess a similar mentality. And what is the response of feminists throughout the West?
No, seriously, what is it?
I'm asking because I don't know. To my knowledge, no leading feminist has spoken out about this growing issue. And you would think they would have, considering Europe's response to this has been curiously un-feminist.
Consider Recker's flustered response, essentially blaming women for not staying together in groups and recommending they stay, "more than an arm's length away from strangers." This seems to be classic victim blaming, something, rightfully so, any feminist would be outraged about if a woman was raped at work or on a college campus.
The real "rape culture" many feminists should fear may not be one endemic to the West, but one imported from the East. As we continue our policy of accepting refugees and migrants from the Middle East and Africa, we cannot remain blind to the fact that many of these migrants come from cultures where the rape and objectification of women are commonplace. Consider the fact that Nigeria, a major source of migrants for Germany, banned the practice of female genital mutilation just last year. People do not lose their cultural habits overnight.
New Years' Eve forced us to face an uncomfortable truth: all refugees are not saints. Many come from cultures with radically different views of women than ones that we are used to. They believe they can continue their horrific behavior as if they were still in Africa or the Middle East. Well, I'm sorry, but they can't.
I'm a huge supporter of helping refugees. I also support the passing down of various aspects of their culture, such as their language and music. But when retaining your culture means so callously trampling over the culture of another, when it amounts to a gigantic spit in the face to all the battles women have so passionately fought for and won over the decades to ensure an equal place within our society, then your culture should no longer be welcome.
As for us Westerners, we cannot continue to delude ourselves that all refugees are saints. We have opened our arms in compassion, and many refugees have responded by cutting off our hands. We can no longer live the comfortable lie that pursuing German Prime Minister Merkel's open door policy will solve all our problems. It will only create more.
The governments of Europe are knowingly putting their own citizens in increasing danger to help every last refugee. Now is not the time to be politically correct. Now is not the time to castigate all critics of mass migration as Xenophobes. Xenophobes will always be there. And when they resort to violence, our justice system must swiftly deal with them to show that we do not tolerate such behavior.
However, we also cannot tolerate these attacks on women.
If feminists continue to remain silent on the issue, they prove to the West that they have sacrificed the freedom of women to appease our modern gods of "tolerance" and "compassion" (However we define those terms now).
Feminists, you have made incredible strides over the past century to ensure that you are held with equal respect and dignity as men. Don't let your fear of others labeling you a "racist" or "intolerant" let those victories go to waste.
