I’m on the home-straight, currently, with my second book and I took a break from finishing the thing, earlier, and was confronted by unending coverage of the terrorist attack – sorry, actually it was just plain old murder, apparently – of three young Muslims in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Actually, I wasn’t, sorry. It was two hours before I saw any mention of the incident on TV. Of course, these three were people. You know; actual human beings before they were Muslims so let’s respond like human beings and use the names they were given. They were 23-year-old Deah Shaddy Barakat, his wife, Yusor MohammadAbu-Salha, 21, and her sister, Razan Mohammad Abu-Salha, 19.
A forty-six year-old white man, Christopher Hicks, was arrested on suspicion of three counts of terrorism. Damn it, I keep doing that shit. Sorry, let’s try again. The initial reports didn’t mention his skin colour or ethnicity or any religious affiliation or lack thereof and the charges were for first-degree murder, not terrorism. Chief copper-in-charge Chris Blue reckoned the slayings were “motivated by an ongoing neighbour dispute over parking.”
Weirdly, though, it seems Hicks is a militant atheist with a Facebook profile covered in anti-theist posts and anti-religious rants of what could reasonably be described as a radical nature. Could this be, you know, a hate-related or terrorist attack, like the ones all those crazy Muslims do, instead of a spat over a parking place? Hicks posted on his Facebook page something that many of us might be consider to be a bit of a clue: “Your religion started this, not me. If your religion kept its big mouth shut, so would I.” Eventually Blue conceded, “We understand the concerns about the possibility that this was hate-motivated and we will exhaust every lead to determine if that is the case.” I just bet you will, whitey…
Meanwhile, Richard Dawkins, Stephen Fry and the deceased Christopher Hitchens have been called out by Rupert Murdoch demanding the atheist trio apologise for the murders and, on behalf of atheists everywhere, distance themselves from this atrocity and condemn it in no uncertain terms. Reports that Gay Byrne is pissing himself laughing are yet to be confirmed.
Benjamin Netanyahu was shocked by the murders but reiterated that Israel has the right to defend itself and then wondered, hopefully, if this now meant there was a house and some land going begging?
UK atheists need to brace themselves. We can expect parents being urged to grass up their kids if they show signs of atheist radicalisation. Teachers will be pressured into informing the relevant body if their charges show an unhealthy interest in the reactionary crap spewed out by Dawkins and Amazon are facing an unprecedented demand to ban anything written by him and fellow atheist radicals.
And, of course, the hashtag #jesuisDeahShaddyBarakatYusorMohammadAbu-SalhaRazanMohammadAbu-Salha didn’t go viral at all. Still, there was this on Twitter…
Harry Paterson 