I have written a number of times on here, especially in the ‘I told you this would happen’ slot about the danger of hotheads and especially mobs violently taking the law into their own hands when confronted with perceived Islam-related problems. I have no issue at all with condemning such actions. This is because they are more often than not pointless, create much more violent conflict, target the innocent as well as the guilty and are no better than the sort of savagery that Islamic terrorists inflict upon non Muslims. Also this sort of vigilantism represents for me a worrying sign of the sort of societal breakdown that we should not be wishing either on our generation or on future generations. Mob rule is always a bad thing and any robust action that needs to be taken to solve problems should be the preserve of the legitimate State and not individual non-State actors.

I remember once hearing a speech or reading an article (one that I cannot locate at present) by Gavin Boby the mosquebuster, in which he outlined some of the dangers of a breakdown in the rule of law. The rough gist of what he said, which was in regards to some of the depredations of Islam and in particular the issue of Islamic Rape Gangs, was that it only takes one hothead to take the law into their own hands to spark a breakdown in the rule of law. If I recall correctly he posited the scenario of someone with access to weapons and who is trained in their use, who goes out and takes revenge for their daughter being targetted by an Islamic Rape Gang. The picture Mr Boby painted as a result of such an action by a hothead was not a pretty one. It was a picture of revenge, copycat revenge and counter revenge and was an example of a society where the rule of law, the same rule of law that ideally protects all of us, has broken down.

I wholeheartedly agreed with Mr Boby on this point. I believe that a breakdown in the rule of law is not something that should be wished for applauded as it would negatively affect everyone, whether they be innocent of any wrongdoing or guilty. I would rather see courts deal with alleged miscreants than have mobs with flaming torches running round dispensing ‘justice’ to whomsoever they believe is ‘guilty’. I also believe that whilst I see that there is a need for political change with regards to the way that European nations deal with the more negative aspects of Islam, that change needs to come from the people via the ballot box, rather than be dispensed by the hand of the capricious ‘King Mob’ or by individual violent hotheads.

I worry greatly about the current dichotomy between the views of the political classes and the views of others when it comes to Islam and I think that it is storing up problems for the future. I am observing a growing gulf between the Islamophilic views of many in politics and the more Islam-sceptical views of what seems like a growing number in the population of various European Union nations. This is not good and does not bode well for the future.

The worst case scenario I can see is a complete breakdown in trust between people and government with the people failing to engage with the political system by using it to replace bad politicians with those that might be better and instead taking the law into their own hands. A failure by EU governments to properly and effectively deal with what should be by now obvious problems caused by Islam in Europe, may well lead some to do things that are stupid, unjust and destructive out of a sense of frustration. I would very much rather that there was a political solution, one with widespread support, for Europe’s Islam related problems than any solutions that King Mob or self appointed vigilantes might provide. I have predicted the rise of vigilantism with respect to Islam whilst at the same time condemning such vigilantism and it gives me no pleasure at all to find myself having to say again and again ‘I told you this would happen’ with regards to someone attacking others on the grounds that they perceive the victims to be a representative of an ideology that they see as a threat. I worry that this problem will get worse if the gulf between the attitudes towards Islam and migration between governed and government grow any wider.

The issues of vigilantism, mob ‘justice’ and a breakdown in trust between government and governed jumped into my mind recently when I read about a horrific incident that has occurred recently in Germany. What happened was a man deliberately drove a vehicle at a group of people who he perceived to be ‘foreigners’ in the German city of Essen. As with so many of these violent vigilante actions, the victims were random people, more than likely innocent of any wrongdoing and this attack has injured at least eight people and left one Syrian woman with life threatening injuries.

I have no hesitation at all in condemning this individual’s actions. It will do absolutely nothing to change Chancellor Merkel’s policy either towards migration or towards Islam. Not only has this awful attack resulted in the severe injury of people who are more than likely innocent of any wrongdoing, they just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. This crime will also invite a possible crackdown from the state against the more peaceful and constitutional opponents of Islam. It will allow the more Islamophilic elements of German politics to smear their political opponents with guilt by association with this violent fraggle at a time when Germans should be peacefully politically organising against the policies of Frau Merkel and her ilk.

This incident has not just damaged random individuals who did not deserve to be targeted in this way, it has also damaged the causes of civic nationalism and counter-Islam as well. I can of course see where this incident and the motivation for it has come from, even though I cannot condone it or justify it in any what shape or form. You may well have a situation of an individual who may probably have felt the frustrations that many Germans feel about Merkel’s migrants and the damage that they’ve done to German society and he wanted to do something about it. That frustration is to some extent understandable but he has gone about expressing that frustration in completely the wrong way. This deranged individual has harmed those who had probably done him no personal harm and has also behaved completely unjustly and unjustifiably.

There seems to be much in common with this attack and the one carried out by another attacker Darren Osborne on people outside Finsbury Park Mosque in London. Both of them were mentally ill, both of them seemed to be acting out of frustration at government policies towards Islam or migration and both of them used vehicles to attack people who were plainly innocent of wrongdoing. Both of them also used violence and terror as a way of achieving their political ends and neither of these paths can be acceptable in a democratic society. There are political structures available to those of us in the West that allow us to peacefully exchange one group of politicians for another. This is the method that should be used to remove the Islamophiliacs and replace them with politicians who are more sceptical about the ideology of Islam. Random attacks on equally random people will make a bad situation worse not better.

I am of the opinion that vigilantism is a sign of societal breakdown and not something that should be celebrated or wished for. I fear that this recent incident in Essen and some of the other published examples of vigilantism in Germany may indicate that some aspects of German society are breaking down under pressure of excessive levels and inappropriate types of migration. I am concerned that this breakdown is encouraging disturbed hotheads to take their own dangerous and violent actions, something I unequivocally condemn. The only proper way in my view to deal with Europe’s current Islam related problems such as crime, terror and Islamic hostility to the rest of us, is via the political system wielding the big stick of the security and legal apparatus. We gain nothing from surrendering the public square and the arena of debate to the sort of lunatic who thinks that all Europe’s current problems can be solved by rash, unnecessary and violent actions. The Essen incident was not, as some of the more siren voices on the nationalist Right are saying ‘the start of the fight back’ but are instead maybe the early sign of the sort of societal breakdown and vigilantism that no sensible person should wish on any nation or society.