The story of Tommy Robinson’s arrest may very well prove to have been a key bellwether of the modern West, so it’s worth highlighting here.  For that purpose, I’ll turn to Mark Steyn, who has long been a clear (and entertaining) voice on the broader topic of free speech in the face of Wester Civilization’s cultural collapse:

On Friday, Robinson was livestreaming (from his telephone) outside Leeds Crown Court where last week’s Grooming Gang of the Week were on trial for “grooming” – the useless euphemism for industrial-scale child gang rape and sex slavery by large numbers of Muslim men with the active connivance (as I pointed out to the Sky guys) of every organ of the state: social workers, police, politicians. Oh, and also the media. …

he was outside the Crown Court in Leeds. He was not demonstrating, or accosting or chanting, or even speaking. He was just pointing his mobile phone upon the scene from a distance. Within minutes, seven coppers showed up in whatever they use instead of a Black Maria these days, tossed him inside it and drove off. In other words, these were not “investigating officers” called to the scene: They showed up with the intent to take him away. Within hours, he was tried, convicted and gaoled – at HM Prison Hull, a Category B chokey, or one level below maximum security. The judge in the case, one Geoffrey Marson, spent all of four minutes on trying, convicting and sentencing Robinson. It is not clear whether that leisurely tribunal included his order expressly forbidding “any report on these proceedings” (the case is Regina vs Yaxley-Lennon because that’s Robinson’s real name).

The gag order on reporting about the arrest has apparently been lifted, but that doesn’t drive the chill from the air.  Steyn contrasts Robinson’s treatment with the kid-gloves handling by authorities that allowed these “grooming gangs” to become true, systemic atrocities.

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We’re approaching a time in history that calls for clarity, and in cases like this, clarity should be easy.  The question that will determine the future may be how able we are to clear the identity politics from our eyes.