In these dark times it is unavoidable to be nervous that the terrible attacks that happened in Paris on Friday could happen in any major city. But I am more nervous about the consequences of the reactionary backlash that has already started. So it's worth examining a couple of myths that have already become a mantra:
The myth that terrorists have piggy-backed the refugee crisis and by implication the asylum doors should now be slammed shut: Many refugees are fleeing because they are trying to escape from these kind of terrorist attacks. And these attacks are happening on a regular basis in parts of the Middle East with no media coverage at all. The day before the Paris attack suicide bombers killed 40 people in Beirut - and this hardly caused a ripple in the world's media.
The myth that multi-cultural society is a breeding ground for radical Islamism. It is sadly no accident France has been targeted - it is a very different kind of society to Britain - or most of Northern Europe for that matter: The official policy of aggressive secularism that bans the headscarf and obliges schools to serve pork; the ghettoization of major cities that have created a marginalised immigrant underclass in the suburbs; and the systematic racism of French police who still exercise stop and search in the manner of British police in the 1970s. It is the very lack of multiculturalism that has created layer of angry Muslim young men has been created that is a fertile recruiting found for Islamo-fascism and this is reflected in there being more French nationals fighting with IS than from any other European country.
