It is reported in the aftermath of the car-bomb attempt on the Glasgow airport terminal, that bystanders yelled “let the ****er burn!” as rescuers attempted to extinguish the fire burning on the clothes and flesh of one of the aspiring jihadis.

This happening and the fact that it was even noted and reported may be seen as a kind of harbinger. It may be an indication that the masses, or the ordinary people, the proletariat… or whatever you want to call the non-elite are no longer buying the load being sold to them.

Time after time, over the last five years, the plummy-voiced public intellectuals, the emollient gentlemen from CAIR, or the European equivalent thereof, the glad-handing politico and the exquisitely face-lifted news reporters have assured us, solo and in chorus of several things:

We have been told that Islam is a religion of peace, and that it is just an infinitely small minority of Moslems committing these outrages, not representative of the whole at all.

We are also assured confidently that if we are not satisfied with that assurance, then it means we are just some kind of ignorant red-necked, yob racist.

We are also assured that it’s all to do with Israel oppressing the Palestinians, or the US oppressing the Iraqis… and never mind that while the wholly understandable rage of gentleman named Mohammed may be directed towards American troops, or Israeli settlers… the concrete actions taken to express that rage, seem to land everywhere else. No convincing explanation is ever given for this… other than the multitudinous dead are not Muslims, or not good Muslims, and therefore had it coming anyway.

Pointing out in all reasonableness that the Lutherans, or the Amish, or the Presbyterians are not carrying on like this does not seem to butter any parsnips.

We are also assured that any such plots carried out, or interdicted before they are actually carried out are actually a plot by the CIA, or the Mossad, or some dreadful Bushitler plot to take away our civil rights and foment anti-Moslem xenophobia.

Never mind that the airwaves emanating from the Moslem world are full of spittle-flecked orators, seething and fuming and threatening exactly such actions, and cheering them on, except when they actually happen and then everyone reverts to item one. It seems a pity to have to give the CIA, Mossad and the Bushists all the credit, though.

It has often been speculated by the prescient and those students of history that another outrage on the scale of 9-11 committed by radical Islamists somewhere in the First World, whether tied to an identifiable country or not, will call down quite dreadful repercussions upon the Moslem population of the country where it happens. There has been speculation about why such a catastrophe has not happened, yet. Perhaps the loosely connected web has been sufficiently disrupted to prevent developments along that line, that the A-list plotters and experienced technical experts have been neutralized… or perhaps it is their intent to avoid an action that will unify an outraged First World and call down just such a reaction. Perhaps the continuing series of smaller actions are a deliberate policy; inflicting the death of a thousand cuts upon us, a constant dribble of incidents and deaths; towards the same end, but without attracting retaliation on a massive scale.

But if that is so, then the reaction of Glasgowegian air travelers suggests that a tipping point may be near. The cumulative effect of bombings, murders, foiled plots and Muslim riots over matters as diverse as newspaper cartoons, ennobling of controversial writers, and the spurious desecration of Korans may be coming to a head… for all that we have been told all this time to look away and pretend that we don’t see a thing. The whip hand of “How dare you, you racist!” and the velvet glove of “Islam is a religion of peace!” may soon fail to have any effect at all.