Berlin Pride attack: When 'Don't Divide Us' Becomes a Dangerous Delusion

The Berlin Pride attack is another reminder that drawing moral and political lines isn't the problem. Refusing to draw them is.

At the time of writing this, a suspect has been shot and killed by police after driving a vehicle into a crowd at a Pride event in Berlin. At least 29 people have been injured and 1 person has been confirmed dead. And in the least surprising development in the aftermath of this abhorrent crime is the news that the suspect was an Islamic extremist known to German security services.

Much will be revealed in the coming weeks about this Jihadist murderer and questions will be asked about any missed opportunities to prevent this atrocity.

For many years I've spent a fair portion of my time banging the drum about the unique threat Islamism poses to gay rights. As recently as 2023, I wrote in Spiked that ‘the main source of violent homophobic hatred appears to have an Islamist face’.

So why is it the majority of mainstream LGBTQ groups and events have absolutely nothing to say about this problem? You'd hope the organised efforts to advocate for the existence of gay people might have noticed the group of people most likely to violently disagree.

But it's way worse than LGBTQ groups refusing to say anything useful about this obvious problem—they actively warn against anyone doing so.

In response to the suggestion that the spread of Islamism in Europe may not be entirely conducive to being gay and breathing, the organisers of Berlin Pride stood before the cameras of news media to warn us that “People are trying to divide our society and set some people against others. As the CSD in Berlin, we will not allow this.” They went on to warn that the attack must not be used “for political ends”

I've always been incredibly suspicious of those that lecture against ‘division’ as though it is some unquestionable act of evil.

To the contrary, to be ‘divisive’ is to understand there are right and wrong answers to very important questions. It's to understand there can be grave consequences for nodding along to falsehoods. It's to understand that truth is important, and that lines sometimes need to be drawn with those who are beyond reason. It's to understand that there really are enemies who wouldn't think twice about killing you and everyone you care about simply because you don't believe the things they do.

Also, the warnings against causing division are an entirely far-left fraud. The types who bang on about the importance of “not letting them divide us” aren't bothered about being ‘divisive’ at all. Were they bothered about ‘division’ they wouldn't be throwing the words ‘racist’ and ‘nazi’ around in the direction of anyone who votes differently. Nor justifying violence against anyone who can be perceived to believe anything a bit right-wing.

No, what they actually mean is ‘stop saying things that challenge the fantasies that my entire worldview is built on’. I'm of the mind it's far more ‘divisive’ to slaughter innocent people in the name of Islam than it is to point out that innocent people are frequently slaughtered in the name of Islam.

My advice to anyone, is that it's actually desperately important to draw gigantic dividing lines between liberal civilization and those who intend to stab, shoot, behead, plow and explode their way through it. There is no ‘agree to disagree’ with such people.

I'll leave you with a quote from the great, late Christopher Hitchens: "If you say you're a unifier, you expect and usually get applause. I'm a divider. Politics is division by definition, if there was no disagreement there would be no politics. The illusion of unity isn't worth having, and is anyways unattainable."