STOP giving them what they want. Please.
The horrors of Bataclan, Westminster and most
recently Manchester represent a new and divergent malignancy which may grow. Partly it is
a silent sickness of young, dysfunctional predominantly men who are misfits and easy prey to organised sociopaths or inadequate people using
ever more harmful drugs, more regularly at a younger age. They plug into a
convenient but warped idea of a faith they clearly know little about. They can
then, relatively easily it seems, make links with groups who will put that
anger and those perceived personal sleights where they can grow them. Finally,
albeit briefly – they take on the convenient cloak of victimhood in order to
vent their social failings, anger and/or alcohol and drug-induced psychosis,
fear and need for attention.
Then the media give them what they crave.
New
Terrorists on the Block is the title of a rather dark
performance poem I wrote last decade about rumbling ‘real’ IRA activity a good
while after The Good Friday Agreement and the then growing activities of Al Qaida.
There will always be people who think the answer to their problems is to kill
and maim innocent people. But if we remember that one of their ultimate goals
is publicity we must be more sophisticated on this issue and stop dancing to
their discordant tune.
I’m not talking censorship or not reporting facts. However,
if I were a young unstable man with a disastrous background or other social
problems, or just someone with vicious and violent tendencies, or someone of
low intelligence lacking guidance, or an educated but immature idealist swayed
by extremism and I saw the acres of high octane media coverage in the aftermath
of Manchester and the following pictures of stern officers in black with
weapons, openly on the streets of the UK – I would think one thing – ‘result’.
We also have to face the fact that the hard-core
come from or have strong associations with countries decimated by war and
failed Western interventions. Do we need to re-read Wm Golding’s Lord of the Flies to remind ourselves
what humans can revert to when the thin veneer of civilisation is stripped away?
Where is the perspective and where is the plan? Rhetoric won’t do.
While terror attacks pretty quickly slip below news
of the latest celebrity shite in the tabloid press and social media it means we
are not dealing with day to day problems. It means that we are not talking
about – for example - the (roughly) 25,000 casualties and serious injuries on
our roads EVERY YEAR. We are not talking about the 40,000 premature deaths from
pollution (see last week’s post). We are not debating why our NHS is still
using an archaic IT system – something that only came to light when the system
was brought down recently by hackers. They
start to control the agenda.
Then we have the isolation of real Muslims. Vilifying a whole community because of a few bad apples is dangerous
and stupid – even if the president of America can’t grasp that. Also, suggesting
that these terrorists are their responsibility is mad. When right-wing
supremacists and Christian fundamentalists commit atrocities – do we say it is
all the responsibility of other Christians? Last Friday three men in Oregon
were stabbed, two died. They were trying to calm a man who was abusing a
teen-aged girl in a hijab and her black friend. The men tried to defend her and suffered
for their decency and bravery. In part of his rantings, the murderer, a known
white supremacist with racist posts on his fb page, claimed to be defending
Christianity. Is he ‘representative’ of all Christians? He does not represent
me. Are all white working class men responsible for the murder of MP Jo Cox?
The world is a truly upside down place when – in the
US recently - one journalist was body slammed by Republican candidate Gianforte
who did not like that reporter’s question (re healthcare). Gianforte was
subsequently elected. And in another political meeting a journalist of 30
years’ experience was arrested for asking repeat questions of US health
secretary Tom Price. Meanwhile here in
the UK ex Sun columnist and now Daily Mail columnist and bag of poison, Katy
Hopkins freely continues her bile and hatred. Although she parted company with LBC radio after
her ‘final solution’ tweet. Like the terrorists, she uses vile behaviour to gain
attention – encouraging hate crime. She has not been arrested!
Localised and organised terrorism may be pushed back
– eventually - and I say this as someone who has (as regular readers know) very
definite ideas about how we got to this horrible place. However, this new
terrorism will be harder to untangle. These small people – with their failings
and weakness can tack on all the baggage of a global mess to make themselves
feel much much bigger than they are – it is the ultimate hedonistic high.
Right now the sensible nice people are being drowned
out by the bullies and the thugs. We can help by not repeatedly handing a
metaphorical megaphone to the thugs (see blog 152. Could the nice people speak up please)
I pray there is no repetition of recent events but I
suspect that is a big ask. But if there is another horrible occurrence I want
front page headlines about the terrorist’s inadequacies – relationship
failures, social conflict, drug use, alcohol abuse – all the things that made
these hapless failures easy prey to the hard-core. I do not want to hear
‘Islamic terrorists’ or ‘jihad’ I do not want any more stupid monikers (Jihadi
John!) that elevate these feeble minded misguided creatures to the status of
Godzilla.
In the face of this madness there is no easy
solution but I would recommend we begin by NOT giving them the very thing they
seek.
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