Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

Why is the army trying to recruit snowflakes?

Imagine sending a snowflake to fight Isis. Imagine packing off the kind of people who shake and weep when they encounter an idea they don’t like to wage war on Islamist militants who kill people for fun. Imagine calling upon a generation that has been brought up to think that mere words can be crimes against humanity — words like ‘I don’t believe in climate change’ or ‘If you have a penis you are not a woman’ — to take up arms against people who commit actual crimes against humanity.

This is what the British Army wants to do. It wants to recruit snowflakes. It thinks it can utilise their ‘compassion’. Let’s leave to one side the fact that the most active snowflakes are the opposite of compassionate — there’s nothing nice or caring about silencing women who criticise Islam or shutting down feminists worried about transgenderism, both of which have been done by snowflake students.

Brendan O’Neill
Written by
Brendan O’Neill

Brendan O’Neill is Spiked's chief politics writer. His new book, After the Pogrom: 7 October, Israel and the Crisis of Civilisation, is out now.

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