Cologne Mayor to Victims of Migrant Sex Assaults: You Asked For It

Feminism dies on multiculturalism's sacrificial altar.

January 8, 2016

On New Year's Eve in Cologne, Germany, around 1,000 Muslim migrants congregated by the city's main train station, where they sexually assaulted numerous women and gleefully defied police; one officer recounted that the attackers showed a lack of resoect for the police "like I have never experienced in my 29 years of public service." An attacker crowed, "I'm a Syrian! You have to treat me kindly! Mrs. Merkel invited me." In response, Cologne Mayor Henriette Reker has vowed to make sure that women change their behavior, so that they don't provoke the poor dears to sexual assault again.

That's right. As hard as it may seem to believe, Reker blamed the victims, and declared that corrective measures would be taken. She said: "The women and young girls have to be more protected in the future so these things don't happen again." She didn't mean protected by police. "This means," Reker continued, "they should go out and have fun, but they need to be better prepared, especially with the Cologne carnival coming up. For this, we will publish online guidelines that these young women can read through to prepare themselves."

Reker's words recalled a hadith in which Muhammad, the prophet of Islam, said to a Muslim woman: "'O Asma, when a woman reaches the age of menstruation, it does not suit her that she displays her parts of body except this and this,' and he pointed to her face and hands." (Sunan Abu Dawud 4092) The idea behind a woman covering everything except her face and hands is rooted in the assumption that if a man is tempted by her, it's her fault. She can therefore try to quell that temptation by removing its impetus and covering up. If she fails to do so, or if she covers up and is attacked anyway, the fault lies entirely with her, and her family can cleanse itself of the dishonor she has brought upon them by putting her to death.

There is no room in this web of assumptions, which is all too common in the Islamic world, for the idea that if a man rapes or sexually assaults a woman, he bears the guilt. The guilt is all on his victim.

And now, Henriette Reker has shown us yet again that when multiculturalism and feminism come into conflict, multiculturalism always wins - at least when it comes to Islam. Feminists have been telling the world for decades that it is outrageous and wrong to say that a rape victim was "asking for it" because of the way she was dressed. But now, Reker has said essentially just that: if only the women in Cologne had been properly "prepared," you see, if only they had access to the "guidelines" she is cooking up, then all would have been well. Reker said nothing about getting Muslim migrants "prepared" for life in Germany, and has made no announcement about issuing any "guidelines" for them about how to keep themselves from molesting women.

No, for Reker, as for Islamic supremacists everywhere, the responsibility to prevent sexual assault lies solely with them women. What, then, will her "guidelines" direct the non-Muslim women of Cologne to do? If she is consistent, they will tell women to buy a niqab. Buy a burqa. Or at very least to "dress modestly." The "guidelines" will remind women that if they get attacked by migrants, it's their own fault, as they should have been more careful.

And so Cologne's Mayor slips without any evident hesitation into the Sharia mindset that it is entirely the woman's responsibility to avoid tempting men, and entirely her fault if she is attacked.

The rape of captive non-Muslim women is sanctioned in Islamic tradition. One of Muhammad's followers recounted:

We went out with Allah's Messenger (may peace be upon him) on the expedition to the Bi'l-Mustaliq and took captive some excellent Arab women; and we desired them, for we were suffering from the absence of our wives, (but at the same time) we also desired ransom for them. So we decided to have sexual intercourse with them...(Sahih Muslim 3371)

There is no indication that they thought it necessary to obtain the consent of the women involved. They were just chattel. So also now, apparently, are the women of Cologne - and if they're not "prepared," so much the worse for them.

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