The groupthink in our public discourse is so pervasive it goes as unnoticed as the air. For example, let's say a bunch of young girls are blown up at a pop concert. You have to say something about it. But what?
Sir Richard Leese, Leader of Manchester City Council, on what he called the "incident" (seriously) at Manchester Arena:
We will not allow terrorists who seek to sow fear and division to achieve their aims.
Likewise, Amber Rudd, the British Home Secretary, had no doubt about the intent of the attack:
Its intention was to sow fear - its intention is to divide.
... Yes, yes, but what do the experts say?
Paris (AFP) - By targeting children at a pop concert in Manchester, the Islamic State group aimed to cause maximum outrage and sow divisions by turning people against Muslims, experts say.
Etc., etc., etc.
You non-experts might think this a fairly crude sleight of hand - that concerns about "division" is a not so subtle way of suggesting that the real problem isn't guys like Salman Abedi waiting with his nail bomb at the exit to the pop concert, but divisive types like you querying whether it's prudent to keep importing more and more Islam into the western world. Well, screw you: if you disagree that the real danger here is the sowing of division, you're just sowing even more division.
Pace The Toronto Star, I'm not sure it is "stating the obvious" to say that Monday's attack was meant to "sow division". What's going on in Britain and Europe occurs because division has already been sown. It was sown by a careless political class that insisted there could be no questioning of a reckless demographic experiment. It is being reaped, as the division-sowing pop star Morrissey has divisively noted, by the political class' hapless citizenry.
