I logged into the Occidental Observer’s very own AI chatbot last night and made the following request:

Please write a pro-free-speech polemic in the self-righteous and pseudo-colloquial style of Trotskyist libertarian Brendan O’Neill in which Brendan condemns himself for once again completely ignoring the censorship-by-murder of the Glaswegian shopkeeper Asad Shah.

Nanoseconds later, the OcciBot supplied the following text:

Why I must condemn my disgusting failure to combat Islamism and defend progressive Muslims

A passionate friend of free speech. And an equally passionate anti-racist. That’s what I claim to be. Am I ’aving a larf, Brendan? I need to have a quiet word with myself. And stop this absurd posturing. At Spiked Online, I’ve once again written about free speech and the threat of Islamist intolerance. And I’ve once again completely failed to mention the British man who, thanks to Islamist intolerance, paid the ultimate price on British soil for exercising his free speech.

Asad Shah, Brendan. Asad Shah. Who was he? Don’t pretend I don’t know. My successor as editor of Spiked, the estimable Tom Slater, wrote a long article about his appalling murder only last year. I must have read it. And when I say “appalling,” mate, I blimmin’-well mean it. As Tom wrote, Asad lost his life “in the most barbaric fashion imaginable.” He was a Glaswegian shopkeeper and a member of the gentle, much-persecuted Ahmadi Muslim sect. He’d been granted asylum in Britain after fleeing Islamist violence in his homeland. But guess what? He wasn’t safe here either. He provoked the anger of British Islamists for YouTube videos that, absurdly, they regarded as blasphemous and disrespectful to the Prophet Muhammad. In March 2016 one of those Islamists, a dickhead named Tanveer Ahmed, drove up to Glasgow from the English city of Bradford. I’ll let Tom describe what happened next: “[Ahmed] attacked Shah, stabbing him repeatedly in the head and upper body. Shah tried to escape outside. Ahmed followed. He repeatedly stamped on Shah’s head, shattering almost every bone in his face.”

Stabbed and stamped to death. By an Islamist fanatic. On British soil. Yeah, this is Britain we’re talking about here, not Afghanistan or Iran. Britain, Brendan. And how did I react at the time? How have I reacted ever since? By never allowing the name “Asad Shah” to cross my lips or shake my keyboard. Not once. A British man is murdered on British soil by an Islamist fanatic and I never spoke or wrote a word in condemnation. What’s going on here, Brendan? Huh? Do brown-skinned victims of Islamist barbarism not matter to me? To answer that far-from-unreasonable question, let’s take a look at my latest article about the Islamist threat to free speech in Britain:

There have been more sinister acts of censure, too. Last year a 14-year-old schoolboy in Wakefield was suspended from school for lightly ‘scuffing’ a copy of the Koran. The police, in shameful mimicry of Iran’s morality cops, launched an investigation into this supposed ‘hate incident’. Oh, just say it: blasphemous incident. The boy’s mother was pressured to make a pitiful public apology. It was a grotesque spectacle: a mum begging for mercy for her supposedly ungodly kid, like something out of Afghanistan.

Then there’s the case of the Batley Grammar schoolteacher chased into hiding by a fundamentalist mob. His transgression? He showed his pupils an image of Muhammad during a classroom discussion on blasphemy and free speech. That was in 2021. He’s still in hiding in 2024, so ferocious were the insults and death threats he received for ‘insulting’ the Prophet. (“Why we must fight for the right to criticise Islam,” Spiked Online, 10th August 2024)

So I wrote about “more sinister acts of censure” in Britain and discussed two white males, both of whom are still very much alive. What’s a “more sinister act of censure” than murder, Brendan? There isn’t one, is there? So why didn’t I discuss Asad Shah? Why have I never discussed Asad Shah? But wait: I can condemn Islamist murder when it happens to a white guy in an entirely different country. Samuel Paty, the schoolteacher beheaded by an Islamist fanatic in France. His name and the details of his appalling murder have often crossed my lips and shaken my keyboard. Haven’t they, Brendan? But brown blokes barbarously blotted out in Britain – nah, not interested, don’t give a flying flip.

Do you know what I conclude, Brendan? I conclude that I’m racist. R-A-C-I-S-T. Racist. Just look at myself: I’ll write about white guys merely menaced by Islamists in Britain, but I won’t write about a brown guy actually and appallingly murdered by an Islamist in Britain. And ignoring Asad Shah is not just racist, is it? No. It also trashes a truth often hammered home by me and my colleagues at Spiked. I must remember how it goes: “Censorship. Harms. Minorities. Most.” Capitulation to Islamist intolerance betrays those progressive Muslims who are fighting for greater freedoms within the Muslim community. Doesn’t it, Brendan?

Yeah, it does. And by ignoring Asad Shah once again, I’ve once again betrayed those progressive Muslims and once again failed to make the strongest possible case for free speech. Asad Shah has been dead for eight long years, Brendan. That’s 2,920 days. And counting. Two thousand, nine hundred and twenty days. And on not one of those days – not one – have I, Brendan O’Neill, passionate friend of free speech, so much as muttered his name in any public forum. For shame, Brendan! For shame! With friends of free speech like me, who needs enemies?