by David J. Rusin • Nov 24, 2009 at 7:16 am
Islamists would not be Islamists without demanding that Muslims live by separate rules and that the rest of us modify our behavior to suit them. Male-female interactions form a common battleground in this respect, with even neighborly hellos to Muslim women known to stir trouble.
Whether hypnotized by multiculturalism or simply hoping to avoid conflict, some Westerners clearly have internalized the view that female Muslims are to be kept off limits to unrelated men, regardless of the specific circumstances and context — including car crashes and police raids.
In September, a private Australian ambulance happened upon an accident and offered to assist an Ambulance Victoria (AV) crew already on the scene. Problems began when private operator Rian Holden checked the blood pressure and pulse of one of the victims, a “Muslim woman in traditional dress.” Alert to the insult of a male medic touching her, members of the AV unit “abused” Holden and his partner and ordered them to depart. The Herald Sun’s account:
[AV’s Paul Holman] said one of the injured men was becoming irate that Mr. Holden was treating his wife — that created a culturally sensitive situation.
“I don’t know him [Mr. Holden] at all,” Mr. Holman said.
“These people are Muslim. I asked him to get out of the ambulance, thanked him, and asked him to leave.”
The story goes on to report that police assured the departure of Holden from the area.
A more troubling incident took place following the October 30 arrest in Canada of a pair of men linked to Luqman Ameen Abdullah, the radical imam who was shot to death after firing at FBI agents during an October 28 raid near Detroit. Two weeks later, Gary Smith, chief of the Windsor, Ontario, police force, issued an unprecedented public apology for his male officers having removed women from the house and pat-searched the wife of one of the suspects:
Reading from a statement, Smith said it “was never the intention for Windsor police to offend or embarrass the families or our Islamic community.”
“The actions taken did cause embarrassment and did offend their religious beliefs,” Smith added. “I sincerely apologize to the families and the Islamic community.”
Lamenting that “the training received by service members was insufficient,” Smith assured his masters that “more thorough” sessions have been scheduled. No doubt he would like to reserve a seat for Ed Parent, president of the police union, who insisted that “nothing went wrong here.”
Behold the new and not-quite-improved West, where the treatment of crash victims and the safety of cops come second to assuaging Islamist egos.
