My Question for IS

Two things you're never meant to discuss in public - politics and religion. Well I've had a crack at politics recently and so hot on the heels of that, I have a question about religion.

My little space on the internet is normally filled with holiday snaps, pictures of my latest car or a good moan about my football team. I never attempt anything particularly serious and actually I’m a bit worried about posting this – but if you’re reading it I guess I have.

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I shouldn’t be worried. I live in the UK. I can say what I want and believe what I like so long as I don’t deliberately offend anyone or break any laws. That’s one of the best things about living here - generally speaking, despite all our faults, we usually rub along really well with our neighbours. We do, don’t we?

So the question is: Why?

I’m not a racist, or as far as I’m aware, not any sort of ’ist’. I guess I’m fundamentally a liberal. I try to see anyone’s point of view. I can see and understand good and bad, agree or disagree with your argument or opinion. I enjoy a good debate. I’m British, 53, white, a dad, a grandfather, a football supporter. Why then am I a potential target for terrorists? I don’t intend to be flippant. It’s a perfectly serious question. I live within 1 mile of an area where people have been radicalised and become supporters of ‘so-called IS’. They are people that I may have seen in the street, talked to, bought things from, lived right next to in what I thought was harmony. And yet some of them would appear happy to do me harm. What exactly have I done? What did the people of Paris do, or random people anywhere who have suffered at the hands of terrorists recently?

I’m not religious, but am aware that many wars are fought over fundamental religious beliefs. I know that we Brits have made a bit of a hash of our relationships with the rest of the world on many occasions, but also that we have done many good things too. We have gone to war over issues that we believed to be just – so is it as simple as that?  Are we being targeted because these people simply believe that they are also fighting for a ‘just’ cause and that on this occasion my mum is the enemy, or me, or my kids?  And if that’s the case, what is the cause? Is it simply that they want their religion to be all-powerful, or something else? I really don’t know. 

I’m a reasonably intelligent person, but I just don’t get this at all. I don’t understand how someone who is perfectly happy to use the National Health Service, send their kids to school, go to University themselves, make use of the welfare state when they need help… then decides that actually the UK is the cradle of depravity, go abroad, get trained and come back wearing a bomb under their coat and blow random people up. What exactly is the chain of events that makes that happen? What life events turn seemingly ‘normal’ people into ones capable of cutting someone else’s head off? (There was a gentleman on Newsnight a couple of weeks back who said it was because youngsters grow up in difficult circumstances, are disenfranchised and have no chances in life. I’m very tempted to say “what a complete load of b###ocks” Growing up on a council estate in Wellingborough never did me any harm, and besides, many of these new radicals have very good degrees and much better than average life chances – although of course I appreciate that isn’t the case for everyone).

Are we really that bad? What have we done that could possibly justify such action? If its simply about religion, (and I appreciate that the words simple and religion are rarely found in the same sentence), I've got news for you. You're barking up the wrong tree here. I don't know anyone who goes to church! If ‘the West’ is such a bad place to live, fine - by all means go and live somewhere else, (and I really don’t mean that to sound all UKIP). I often think it would be nice to live somewhere else too quite frankly and I can perfectly well understand if anyone wants to take their family and live in a country that suits their beliefs better than this one – but why would you then want to come back and kill people?

When I was a lad it was easy. Our team wore green, flew spitfires and shot at the other lot who were usually wearing grey. Completely wrong and abhorrent, but it was easier to understand. Perhaps I’m just old and don’t get the new world order of things. It may all be my fault after all, but if it is I don’t know why. For what little it’s worth I don’t believe we should be bombing Syria and our involvement in the recent desert wars is very difficult to justify. Is it because went to Iraq,or Afghanistan, or because we’re mates with the Americans? There don’t seem to be any uniforms anymore. Certainly if the next bomb happened to get me or my mother, or my 90 year old dad – none of us will be wearing uniforms and so quite why anyone would think that was a reasonable or justifiable thing to do is completely and utterly beyond my comprehension.

I don’t understand why this is happening and more importantly I don’t know how to make it stop, or what is required of us to help it stop. But I really would like to know for certain why its happening.

There, that’s my 10p’s worth.If you were offended, it wasn't intentional.