(REVIEW) Somali-born writer Aayan Hirsi Ali sees Dec. 31, 2015 as a turning point in Europe’s fraught relationship with multiculturalism.  On that date, 1,500 men, mostly newly arrived asylum seekers of Arab and North African backgrounds, converged on downtown Cologne, where thousands of Germans had gathered to welcome in the New Year.  The men mobbed together to entrap and sexually assault women and girls, often stealing their wallets and mobile phones in the process.

In the months that followed, 661 women and girls reported being separated from their male companions and being pushed inside “hell circles” of young men who groped them without regard to their age, appearance or circumstances. Some women said they were pinned to the ground for 30 minutes of continual assault.

Løgn

On New Year’s Day, the Cologne police issued a statement that the evening had been largely peaceful.  An outpouring of reports on social media left the authorities–and the media–no choice but to discuss the attacks publicly and release information on the background of the assailants.

Sket flere gange før

The police claimed to be taken by surprise by the New Years’ events, but the tactics used by the young men in Cologne were not new in Germany. In 2015, German women and girls had reported being encircled by groups of migrant men, who  groped and robbed them at festivals in Berlin, Darmstadt and Breman.

Også i Sverige

Soon after the Cologne case, the Swedish police admitted to a cover-up of their own.  A mob of 50 young male asylum seekers, mainly Afghans and Moroccans, had assaulted women in the same way as they had in Cologne.  Police issued statements that the event had been peaceful, and they hid the fact that 38 sex offenses had been reported on girls as young as 14.  Södermalm police chief Peter Ågren said that one reason for the cover-up was to avoid provoking racism or “playing into the hands of the (conservative) Swedish Democrats.”

Backlash

In the 1950s and 1960s, Muslim women in urban areas enjoyed many of the same freedoms as Western women. Photographs of Afghan, Egyptian, Turkish and Iranian women taken in the 1960s show “women in shift dresses with bare arms, their legs visible from the knee down; women walking in streets unchaperoned, with elaborate 1960s coiffures and Jackie O-style bobs; girls seated alongside boys in classrooms.”

Der lyttes til islam

In the last 30 years, Islamist patriarchs have rolled back the freedoms that these women enjoyed with shocking speed.  Ali fears that the same fate awaits Europe as bureaucrats who are more committed to multiculturalism and intersectionality than to universal human rights try to accommodate migrant cultures. 

Europæiske områder uden kvinder

 “Walking in certain neighborhoods in Brussels, London, or Paris, you notice that only men are visible.” writes Ali.

The shop assistants, waiters and patrons in cafes are all men. In parks and in communal areas of apartment buildings, only men and boys socialize.  Women have erased themselves from public places.  Those who enter face harassment, intimidation and sexual violation.  It is taboo in Europe to point out that the perpetrators of these crimes are disproportionate-ly Muslim immigrant men who operate in groups and make it increasingly dangerous for women to venture into a growing number of neighborhoods in European cities.