From distant Pakistan, an NBC news story surfaces that serves to remind us of everything we need to know about our current crisis.

A week ago, a female police officer in Lahore, Pakistan, patrolling a shopping district in the busy muslim city, saw a crowd gathering, to taunt, accuse, and threaten a young woman in a colorful Kurta (a long shirt-dress). Her dress was covered with bright and abstract calligraphy that the crowd assumed was an improper quoting of the Koran.

In Pakistan, when a crowd gathers to isolate and shout at a woman, it generally means one thing: they are accusing her of blasphemy or some other capital crime, and are preparing to beat, stone, or lynch the woman with the swift crowd justice that these people are raised to enforce.

Sheher Bano is the female police officer in the story. She recognized the situation that was unfolding, and rushed the young woman into a storefront, quickly getting a solid black wrap with which to cover her before escorting her somewhere safe.

One might not think this story was newsworthy, but everyone in Pakistan knows the implications. The woman was almost certain to be killed by the mob because of her dress, and when this female policeman -– an assistant superintendent of police in the big city of Lahore -– took the political and personal risk of quickly acting to save the girl, that was noteworthy, enough so that Officer Bano was rewarded for her bravery and service in a public ceremony in Rawalpindi on Wednesday.

It turned out, upon inspection of the dress, that the girl in question didn’t “deserve” the accusation of blasphemy at all.

The dress is printed with multiple representations of the word Helwa, which is reported as being an Arabic word meaning “beautiful.” No Koran quotes at all. No blasphemy, no crime.

The global press is so happy about how great this story is for Officer Bano -– and it certainly is –- that reporters are gushing with compliments over this woman who would risk her life to save a girl about to be attacked by a crowd. Left unsaid is that the officer couldn’t have expected any help from the public; when onlookers see a crowd out for blood in such areas, they know better than to try to help the target of the day.

Officer Bano was called “fearless” in the celebration, and this recognition certainly speaks well of her superiors. She deserves the praise.

But one must wonder if the western reporters gushing over this story have really thought it through, because it hardly helps their standard worldview. The heroic female cop angle appealed to them immediately; the saving of a helpless young woman in danger, too, is always good copy for a reporter.

But what’s the foundation of the story? What should really be our takeaway from this shocking tale, if we analyze it with care? Consider the red flags in this story, the lessons it bears about the culture of Lahore, Pakistan:

• This crowd saw a woman in an unusually eyecatching (completely modest, but noticeable because of its colors and pattern) outfit, and immediately assumed that the words on it must be blasphemous.
• This tells us they were too illiterate to read what the words were, and just jumped to conclusions. The only time they see Arabic words is in the Koran, so they “naturally” assumed that words on a dress must be from the Koran, and that’s not allowed.
• They were raised to believe the punishment for such a crime is death, to be meted out immediately, by the crowd witnessing it. No trial, no criminal justice system, no chance for the accused to defend herself and say “but it just says ‘Beautiful,’ That’s all!” No time for such things. Just mete out the punishment. And feel free to enjoy it.
• Recent history of crowd justice in Islamist areas is definitive: the presumption of danger -- for both the accused and anyone who comes to the accused’s defense -- is so overwhelming that it because a national -- and then international -- news story when a police officer dared to help her.

Viewed in proper context, is this tale, on balance, an uplifting story about either the nation of Pakistan, the progress of women’s rights, or state of the world today?

Despite the silver lining provided by Assistant Superintendent Bano’s heroism, this is in fact a damning indictment of modern Islamic society. The barbaric practice of crowd justice is still around  because the “clerics” of their religion still teach it to the young. The madrassahs of the world are breeding grounds for this attitude, endangering every place their graduates infect.

And what places are those?

For a very long time, but especially for the past twenty years or so, millions of immigrants raised in that culture have moved into the European Union, Great Britain, and these United States. These governments have intentionally invited them in, both as legal and illegal immigrants, in such massive numbers that they often become the majority population, overwhelming the native-born citizens of numerous jurisdictions.

From London, England to Paris, France, and even all the way across the Pond to Dearborn, Michigan and St. Paul, Minnesota, there are voting districts where this brand of Islamist behavior is represented in the electorate, not just as a sizeable minority, but even as a majority.

What kind of behavior do we expect from them? Do they fit in with the Western values of “live and let live,” and “the great Protestant work ethic,” and “innocent until proven guilty,” and “freedom of expression, religion, assembly and speech?”

Hardly.

When you import a people, you import their culture -- both the good and the bad.

As the late, great Paul Harvey used to say, when recounting a tale of this nature:

“It is not ‘one world.’”

John F. Di Leo is a Chicagoland-based international transportation manager, trade compliance trainer and speaker. A one-time Milwaukee County Republican Party chairman, he has been writing a regular column for Illinois Review since 2009. Read his book on vote fraud (The Tales of Little Pavel) and his political satires on the current administration (Evening Soup with Basement Joe, Volumes I and II, and the recently released Volume Three). An actor in Chicagoland community theatre, he will be playing “Old Joe Boyd” in the classic musical comedy, “Damn Yankees,” only on Friday, March 8, in Des Plaines, IL.

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