2 + 2= Huh?

On December 21, 2017, an Afghan refugee and recently sworn Australian citizen, Saed Noori, drove his mother’s SUV at breakneck speed along Flinders Street in Melbourne’s CBD, skittling pedestrians and leaving one dead and 18 in hospital.

At the time, the voice of officialdom proclaimed quickly and insistently that the terrible event was not “terrorism-related”. Noori was a garden variety nutcase. The fact that he was an adherent of Islam, the public was assured, appeared to have nothing to do with it.

“​At this time we don’t have any evidence or intelligence to indicate a connection with terrorism,” said Acting Chief Commissioner Shane Patton, who in the next breath conceded how Noori had ranted about “the mistreatment of Muslims” when taken into custody.

The Age preferred the first quote to the second and made it their headline.

The New York Times took the same line, as per its headline atop this post, no doubt comforted by the acting commissioner’s rejection of a reporter’s suggestion that the attempted massacre might have been “a lone wolf attack”. On its Facebook page, VicPol warned social media users against “inappropriate comments” and threatened those linking Saed’s motive to Islam of stern consequences.

Meanwhile, a body going by name of the Online Hate Prevention Institute chronicled news coverage and public reaction in real time, ever watchful for that Islamophobia we hear so much about from multiculturalism’s ardent advocates and apologists.

Need it be said that the ABC found no need to reference Islam beyond quoting the acting commissioner’s passing reference to Noori’s complaint about the infidel world’s “mistreatment of Muslims”?

Today, getting on for 14 months after the attempted massacre, Noori had his day in court. The evidence tendered rather confirmed the comments of those Facebook posters VicPol threatened with sanction. From today’s online Age:

An ISIS sympathiser who drove at pedestrians in Melbourne’s Flinders Street, killing an elderly grandfather, said he “did it in the name of Allah”, a court has been told.

There is never anything to see here, folks, not immediately after these incidents anyway. Adding two and two, apparently that takes quite a while for the guardians of public safety to nut out.

Or perhaps that should be ‘admit to working it out’.

-roger franklin