« Water, water everywhere .... | Main | Angel orchestra »
June 30, 2007
The enemy is within ....
Is the title of my next book, currently doing the rounds of agents and publishers. But the events of yesterday brought the theme of that book into sharp focus for me at least because the activities of terrorists are very much an internal threat to any and every civilised nation. OK, so these bombs did not go off, but the unanswered question is - "Who planted them?" Perhaps more importantly is "Why were they planted at all?"
I could make an educated guess at the motives underlying such an action. There are usually three main ones:
- disaffection with the current political regime in any given country and revolutionary intent,
- religious zealots determined to destroy whatever "Great Satan" is flavour of this month/year/decade/era,
- intent to foment fear and disruption to damage the economy with the aim of achieving an economic advantage.
To that list you may add the desire to impose a new political order, to achieve "freedom" from oppression or just a hatred of some group the perpetrator feels threatened by, has a grudge against or feels is deserving of extermination. The callous use of indiscriminate bombing stems from the Marxist/Leninist mantra that "some must suffer for the benefit of the many." Ironically a mantr that Whitehall and Labour have adapted to "Some people will lose out, but it will benefit many more!"
It is my view that there are several possible motives for this latest manifestation of terror bombing. One is that a large part of the UK population, the "natives" if you like, feel decidedly excluded from the process of government. They feel ignored and betrayed by the traditional political process which is now focussed not on "majority" rule but on "minority" rights. I have recently heard it said by several young white males that they have no hope of promotion in their careers now because they are white, male and heterosexual. I would hope that they are wrong, but I am also afraid they may have a point. The religious motive is a more difficult one. Our own statistics show that Mohammed will soon be the most common boys name in the UK. Other punters have commented that in less than thirty years Europe will be an Islamic State. I sincerely hope they are wrong, Islam is not a religion I admire, nor is it one I will ever subscribe to in any form. Take a close look at the Islamic world - far from being progressive or even free from corruption they are generally the most corrupt, most restrictive and most intolerant governments in the world - the only ones that even come close in draconian control are the communist dominated governments of China, North Korea and Vietnam.
By the same token the "Faithful" of Islam have been fed a world vision of world conversion. That is the aim of every Muslim, indeed it is their duty - and the Koran even authorises that such conversion may be by force of arms if all else fails. So, we in the ex-Christian West have a problem. The "enemy" is within our societies in the form of a growing Muslim presence whose avowed objective is to convert everyone to Islam and to impose their model of government and state upon us. Nice one for those in Whitehall and Westminster who have promoted the denigration of the Christian faith and the bolstering of Islam to deal with, but, as is the manner of turncoats everywhere, when the time comes they will simply adopt Islam and carry on in power. Small wonder there is a growing element in our society who may be considering the use of force to prevent it.
The final one is much more difficult since this generally contains an element of "internal enemies" for individuals. We all have them, those irrational fears that lurk in wait, the fear of small spaces, the fear of ridicule, the fear of exposure of some minor infraction of the law. The worst one is fear of strangers or of people you have been taught to regard as "outsiders". Now we are into the realms of people who have real psychiatric problems, but they walk among us in society and the only time you might suspect them of being dangerous is when they let slip a remark or a comment which suggests an intolerance. These are the secret bombers, the ones who will allow their hatred of some part of society to fester until it reaches the point where they take action. It may be simply walking into a school and shooting everyone in sight, or it may be planting a bomb outside a public building frequented by the people the bomber hates.
The enemy is indeed within. Both inside our society and within ourselves. It remains to be seen who is responsible for this latest series of failed attacks, it will be a long and difficult investigation but they must be found. The difficulty for us all is that, throughout the "Cold War" all the super powers, the UK included, used terrorist groups and organisations to affect change in countries they wanted "on side". Look around Africa and you see former Terrorists now "respectably" ensconced as Presidents. There are many more similar models across the Far East and even in the Middle East. What does this tell the latest crop of disaffected "warriors"? Why that you can bomb and shoot your way to power - and believe me they will.
It seems to me that we have a very simple question to face. If the enemy is within our society, how do we isolate them and how do we defend ourselves in a society that is obsessed with protecting the right of protest - even violent protest. A society moreover that sponsored terrorism for political ends - until it came home to bite.
It is going to be a long a difficult haul I think, one we may not solve at all in the short term.
Posted by The Gray Monk at June 30, 2007 10:45 AM
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://mt3.mu.nu/mt/mt-tb.cgi/5075