Waleed Aly faces backlash over his bizarre justification of the Sri Lankan terror attacks that rocked the world over Easter weekend.

His article, published in the Sydney Morning Herald, argues that the Sri Lankan terror attacks, that left hundreds of Christians dead when Islamic terrorists stormed hotels and churches around Colombo, are “uniquely senseless” because the country’s Christian and Muslim minorities have had no documented conflict.

“But to grasp the true depths of this moment, it’s worth recognising that in several ways this [Sri Lankan] attack simply makes no sense. That is significant because, although we habitually describe terrorism as being senseless violence, that is almost never really true,” he writes.

The idea that a Sri Lankan Islamist group would choose specifically to target Christians makes no sense in the way terrorist attacks usually do.”

Critics quickly pointed out Aly’s hypocrisy, after he vocally condemned last month’s Christchurch terror attack, which resulted in the deaths of several dozen Muslims at a mosque in New Zealand.

Aly argued that the Christchurch shooter exemplified the views of many white supremacists around the world, which he says is fuelled by Internet racists and right-wing politicians, such as Australian Prime Minister, Scott Morrison, and One-Nation leader, Pauline Hanson.

Terror, at least in the eyes of Aly, only makes sense when it is groups and individuals attacking Muslims.

Aly’s bizarre article goes onto say that Sri Lanka’s Muslim population has traditionally targeted the country’s Buddhists, who make up the majority religion in the region. Aly doesn’t hesitate to list examples of this conflict, insinuating that the Buddhists hold more responsibility for the bloodshed than the country’s Muslim minority.

He argues that Muslims and Christians have a “social solidarity on a shared experience of post-civil war persecution”.

The inference is clear: to Aly, it would make more sense if Muslims had attacked Buddhists – after all, this is the heart of the true religious tension is the country.

However, these attacks against Christians aren’t “uniquely senseless”.

Christians, particularly in Islamic dominant countries, experience escalating violence at the hands of Islamists, making them one of the most persecuted religious groups around the world.

A 2018 Pew Research Center report ranked Christians as the top victims of political restrictions and social hostility around the world.

The Easter Sunday attacks, which killed 250 people, including two Australia, were the latest example of Christian persecution.

What underpins the Sri Lankan attack is simple and crucial: Waleed Aly’s religion. Islam. A religion that, once it has a stronghold in any region or country, begins to slaughter and maim non-believers with ferocity.

He could have saved himself the 850-word diatribe and summarised the terror attack in one word – the word he spends his entire article avoiding: Islam.

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