James: Why Islamophobes Don't Talk About Tunisia

1 March 2017, 12:22 | Updated: 1 March 2017, 12:36

James O'Brien Heroes

...but can't stop talking about mass sex attacks - even the ones that didn't happen.

Reflecting on the court finding that Tunisian security forces failed the 30 Britons murdered in the Sousse massacre in 2015, James wondered why the shocking shooting spree isn't something we talk about more.

He reached a chilling conclusion.

"This was the real deal. This was pure and simple Islamist terrorism, of the very worst kind," he said during his LBC show. "I don't think it's well known enough...it just doesn't seem to resonate in the way you might have expected it to do so.

"If you think about the coverage of the sexual assaults in Cologne, the New Year's Eve before last, they seem to be prominent more in the minds of people - not just the kind of people who troll me on social media - but the narrative of Islamist fundamentalism, it seems to focus more on events that didn't happen in Frankfurt on New Year's Eve this year than it did on events that did happen in Tunisia.

"I suppose it's because if you really, really want to terrorise people, you have to create in their mind the notion that every single person coming here from Syria is a rapist, whereas the real acts of terrorism aren't oddly as terrifying as that.

"More terrorising to think everyone's a rapist than to think that one bloke is a killer."

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