Government advice is that it is highly likely that a terrorist attack will occur. This is deeply troubling for holidaymakers who might prefer to be in the safety of their own homes. Still, that’s enough about the UK. Foreign Secretary Phillip Hammond has announced that the risk of a terrorist attack in Tunisia is just as likely as it is here.
It looks to me that whilst the terrorists haven’t won yet, they are well on their way to winning whatever it is they want to win. Look at the map of the world and there are more ‘no go zones’ than ever there were, all across Africa and the Asian continent. Places where, not long ago, it was safe to visit in safety should not be visited at all unless you have a death wish. And even to the places you do visit, the terrorists have made it that much more of an inconvenience. I remember when airport security was very informal and took a matter of moments. And you could regularly access the flight deck to converse with a bored pilot.
I have never wanted to visit Tunisia anyway, what with my aversion to visiting any muslim country. Not that I regard all muslims as terrorists, of course not, but I do not like the muslim way of doing things. I like a few beers, I want to hold hands with my partner if I want to, I do not want gay people being banged up for being gay, I don’t like religious restrictions on women. It’s not quite a situation of “When in Rome” because I would rather all countries had a more secular point of view, whereby the devout could pray and the non-believers could do what they wanted.
Tunisia is finished now as a tourist destination. One islamic fascist has killed the industry for both the foreseeable and unforeseeable future. We have seen no reversal of the islamist tide in recent years, rather the exact opposite, and no one in their right mind can see that improving. Tunisia can build a wall between itself and Libya, but what is to stop terrorists who armed to the teeth climbing over the wall? After all, Tunisia unwittingly provides plenty of the ISIS fodder.
If I knew what could and should be done, I would surely be a rich man, but I am going to have a go anyway. At the core of the issue are two matters: extreme religion and poverty. Now I regard pretty well all religion if not exactly extreme then irrational and illogical. I have no wish to ban religion of any kind but we need to be able to question it, rather in the way that scientists question every aspect of science. Religion stands still and exists on the basis of writings from a time when no one really knew what was going on. Science changes permanently and constantly asks itself questions. The second matter is poverty.
It cannot be a coincidence that many of the religious wars are down to poverty, especially with young men, jobless and in lives that they see as being hopeless. For some, you can almost understand when confronted with the so called glamour of Jihad, when compared to the misery of their own lives. It’s rubbish, of course, because there is nothing remotely glamorous about blowing people up and beheading them, but if you have been convinced that everything is the fault of the decadent west, you can almost begin to understand it, but only almost. I know people of religion and others of no religion and none of them have chosen the path of murdering innocent people. But something, in the less developed, oppressed world out there, is turning their heads. Indeed, it’s happened in the ghettos of England too.
Phillip Hammond isn’t warning us in the UK to come home straight away because it is “highly likely” there will be a terrorist attack in the UK, but he might as well, just as he has warned Brits in Tunisia to do the same. Somehow, we feel safer at home, despite what happened on 7/7, or to poor Lee Rigby, but we aren’t.
Dealing with the excesses of religion and poverty abroad, the latter of which can only be addressed through overseas aid, would represent a start, a level of understanding of why things are like they are. But it is hard to confront the reality that god is not great and probably doesn’t exist at all. If it wasn’t for “Him”, would we be in the worldwide mess we are in now?
