“All 12 of us are here” says Muhammed Abdul Mannan, the head of the Luton family who have decided to settle in Syria. Mannan is 75 and suffers from diabetes, his wife has cancer. He obviously thinks that he will be better off in Syria, amongst the caring, sharing brigade of ISIS. Well, good luck to him with that one.
When I read things like, “It is feared that they have gone to Syria” I am not sure who is doing the fearing. I am assuming the family remaining in the UK are not too impressed since a trip to meet up with ISIS does not come with a return ticket, but there must be something extremely attractive about Syria that appeals to the adults in Mannan’s party.
I am guessing that the way of life in Britain was particularly unappealing, what with all that freedom, democracy and tolerance. And the fact that we don’t normally behead people for believing in the wrong god, or throw people who are thought to be gay from tall buildings or burn people alive. Other forms of cruel killings are available. Bloody infidels, those British people.
I do not know how you “radicalise” an old bloke, which doubtless someone will pop up to tell us in the next few days. It will probably all be the fault of the police in Britain or British policy abroad. But isn’t it just possible that many people just like what ISIS stands for, that they actually want to support the caliphate and want it to happen? I find it very hard to believe that all these people are going to Syria, not because they want to but because someone else is telling them to?
I see each and every person who goes to Syria as someone who, whether unwittingly or not, condones the killings of people like Alan Henning, the slaughter of holidaymakers on a Tunisian beach and the rape and torture of innocent people. Unless they are genuinely oblivious to what can be seen on any news bulletin and are totally stupid, these people have some responsibility to themselves.
Personal responsibility, taking control of your own lives. Believe it or not, I was once a target for the Moonies, who used to patrol the St Catherines Place shopping area in Bristol. I was low and, I suppose, vulnerable and one day I was stopped by one of their number. He started to tell me of a life which was much better, away from the mundane and the routine. He gave me a leaflet and a phone number. As I walked away, I had a sudden thought: this was all very well, but I had to go to the pub and meet some friends. And it disappeared from my thoughts forever. It wasn’t a close shave, but it was an introduction from another way of living, as was my brush with the Militant tendency who, back in the late 1970s, tried to recruit me to their secret sect within the Labour Party. They would come to my house and promise me a seat on the council, maybe one day I might be an MP. I had a special talent, you see. That was how it worked. There was a better world out there. Thank God for Neil Kinnock.
I was lucky. I wasn’t “radicalised” by a crazy religious cult or a crazy Trotskyist cult, partly through design, partly through luck. On both instances, I really was young and to an extent vulnerable. But it was easy enough to not take the next step. Neither appealed to me and I avoided them. But what if you do have some sort of belief system, or you buy into a Trotskyist political ideology? I guess it would be easy for you to go in much deeper.
I do not “fear” for Mr Mannan because, for reasons best known to himself, he has made a decision by his own free will. I fear for the children, though, who like the children of all religious people are bound to their belief system from birth, without any kind of say, but this is not our fault.
How anyone could possibly be attracted by ISIS is beyond me but for an adult with free will, there is little excuse and no sympathy from me. Sorry.
