At least 14 dead and 50 injured in a bomb attack on a St Petersburg underground.
So tell me, where’s the show of solidarity for the Russian victims? How many public buildings will be lit up with the Russian flag? How many people have changed their social media profiles in support of the victims? How many celebrities have come running to thrust their face into the rosy glow of shared defiance?
The answer is barely any. Not a peep out of JK Rowling. Not one word from Gary Lineker.
They have their heads down, preferring not to look. It seems to be acceptable to imagine that bad things happen to bad people. If you accept Putin is a monster then, ceteris paribus, he is responsible for the devastation in his country. Overlooking the bodies, strewn about the platform.
Moving quickly to identify the reason for the attack, a BBC reporter live at the scene suggested the bombing could be some kind of attempt to distract from Putin’s corruption issues.
CNN said it ‘may have been a Putin false flag’. This before the Russians themselves had even called it what it was: an act of terror.
The New York Post said the explosion might be an excuse for Putin to ‘crack down on certain groups’. Sky News joined the melee, its diplomatic editor saying the explosion in St Petersburg could be used to justify further restrictions on any protestors against Putin.
Meanwhile, the chairman of the Human Rights Foundation and Putin critic Garry Kasparov claimed on Twitter that the events in St Petersburg were ‘perfectly timed to serve Putin’s political agenda’.
Kasparov called on people not to confuse sympathy for the victims of the attack with ‘sympathy for Putin’s regime’. He said the same on the Clinton News Network.
The message from the left is clear: Do not show sympathy.
It will be interpreted by the ‘little people’ (thick Brexiteers, Trump supporters) as sympathy for the Russian regime.
And so that’s the story you are being sold. A very different narrative to the one shoved down our collective throat after the latest terror attack in London.
The Eiffel Tower was plunged into darkness. Merkel said she stood with Britain. The hashtag #prayforLondon and #WeStandUnited trended around the globe.
This is our terror-response template, to which we are encouraged to conform when we need to self-soothe.
But, it is now clear, it is not universal. It is not extended to all. It is not extended to Putin’s Russia.
Liberals cannot see past the monster in their minds to the faces and bloodied torsos of the people on the train. The humanity hurting. The mother who died protecting her daughter. The daughter crying out ‘mama’ in the dark and chaos.
The accepted view, that Putin is to blame for Trump, is so overwhelming, the thinking so mandatory, that the liberal monkeys are blinded to the 70 bodies felled by nails.
It is the liberal conundrum, the deathly silence that occurs when two mandatory liberal thoughts conflate to contradict each other: ‘we stand united in sympathy’ versus ‘no sympathy for the Putin regime’. Terror versus a Putin false-flag incident. This dissonance renders them mute.
If the terror response template were initiated, people would accept the attack as terror.
But if we look away, pretend to fiddle with our phone, then people will accept that Putin was responsible.
The suppression of the mass sexual assault on New Year’s Eve in Cologne was another example of this. The clash between the accepted view of immigration, and the importance of female consent, struck the liberals dumb. Unable to report the truth because it would run counter to the mandatory view that migration is a public good.
Hear no evil.
And now the liberals cannot show sympathy to the women, children or men slain by nails because it would run counter to the narrative that Putin is to blame. If this attack were to be identified as terror, we would have to stand
Far better to create another narrative, one more fitting with the liberal worldview.
See no evil.
If the attack is pushed as a Putin false flag, a weapon ordered by the monster himself, then the corruption demonstrators become the real victims. Their voices amplified. Putin even more cruel than before.
Leaders can carry on as before. May sending only a short letter of sympathy for the people of Russia. Merkel focusing on her own elections. Turning their back on those hurting to show they don’t stand united with the Russian president.
Speak no evil.
Only Trump called to offer support. And only Tel Aviv lit up the City Hall with the colours of the Russian flag. Thank God for the decency of these two leaders — for both of whom the threat posed by Islamic extremism is so stark.
But maybe some good will come of this attack on Mother Russia. Because unlike our pathetic leaders, Putin may have the good sense to take action. Putin, Trump, Netanyahu. The only leaders with their eyes open to seen the real threat faced by the west.
But if this the accepted response by liberals, then surely it should be applied equally, to all.
I ask you. Do the liberal left really stand united against terror? Or do they pick and choose which victims to support?
Do they really stand strong together? Or fall compliant to the liberal narrative that proclaims Putin a monster?
And doesn’t it all leave you wondering just whose side this lot is on?
