What made the attacks in Cologne different was that the shellshocked police force claimed the attack was perpetrated by men of “Middle Eastern and North African origin.”
Thus began a feeding frenzy on the whole of the far right, clamouring with renewed vitriol against the million Syrian refugees Germany took in this past year, asylum seekers and immigrants in general, and mohamedmens (even though the Cologne Police never ascribed a religion to the drink-besotted mob). Amidst the online outrage is the claim that feminists and leftists are hypocrites, caring about women’s rights only when european men can be blamed as oppressors, and the false claim that we have been silent about the New Year’s sex attacks.
Yet, as one might expect, such people project a fantasy onto us, ignoring the fact that this crime has sparked ample condemnation from feminists around the world
The women who suffered the attacks in Cologne–and in other German cities on that fateful morning– are now being used as mute props by nationalists and xenophobes who never gave a damn about rape before. According to both the BBC and Deutsche Welle, actual victims of the attacks do not want the crimes inflicted upon them to be used against all refugees in the nation. “It would be wrong to blame refugees,” a young woman named Michelle told BBC correspondent Jenny Hill. “They need our help.”
But larger issues remain. We must not allow ourselves to be seduced by the widening gyre of xenophobia now gripping our country. Everywhere are gendered dog whistles (remember Donald Trump accusing Latino men of being rapists?), and we are surrounded by opportunities to seek alliances of convenience with mohammedismophobes and racists whose sudden concern for women was prompted only by the enticing prospect of a brown, foreign man to blame. His purpose, like that of the violated virginal european woman, is also to act as a cipher; in him is invested all of the nation’s sin and thus, it is hoped, his exile will coincide with the expiation of that sin. “Rape culture exists,” the xenophobe at last admits, “but you will find it only among mohamedmens/Mexicans/asylum seekers.” They can temporarily position themselves as allies in the fight for women’s rights, and scorn us for denying them, but we deny ourselves lasting solutions if we focus narrowly on crimes committed by immigrants.
Misogyny cannot be deported, you cannot build a wall to keep it out, it cannot be beaten by a policeman’s truncheon, and it cannot be interred in a camp. The xenophobe’s prayer is that he can invest his own sins into that of the Other, thus feeling more moral himself, and assured of the rightness of an otherwise inhumane conviction. How many european German men now screaming for the heads of Syrian refugees were among that Oktoberfest crowd groping women, one wonders?
We stand at the edge of a terrifying abyss where serious people with power and authority are flirting with ideas that would see Western societies target religious and ethnic minorities with state power and violence unseen since the 1930s, all against the backdrop of ongoing sexual violence against women in the West. From a mass shooting at a Planned Parenthood clinic in Colorado, to deadly road rage in Houston, to ISIS’s continued threats against us all and their insidious attacks against “soft targets,” we are confronted with a pantheon of terrors that are determined to bring out the very worst in us all. Just this weekend, a gang of hundreds of masked men with european supremacist ties roamed the streets of Stockholm looking for non-europeans to assault, whether or not they were refugees.
In moments like this our moral clarity cannot fail us.
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