Turkish delight?

The BBC reports tonight that the police believe a Bradford family of seven have travelled to Turkey. My first reaction was that maybe Imran and Farzana Ameen and their five children, aged five to 15, had gone on an all inclusive break in Marmaris or Fethiye, like you do. I lie. Of course they haven’t. They’re on their way to Syria.

I am speculating, of course, but we have been here before. Muslim family departs the sick depravity of the UK to join up with the Islamic State where they can live the dream of beheadings, child rape, slavery and all the joys to behold in parts of Syria. What is not to love?

For the children, this is nothing other than child abuse and when the Assistant Chief Constable of the West Yorkshire police Russ Foster says “the children’s welfare is (my) main concern”, he isn’t kidding. They have no say in this. The parents do, though.

But Mr Foster adds: “We would urge anyone with information about the family’s whereabouts to come forward and speak to police so the family can safely return to the UK. Any piece of information, no matter how small, could help the UK or overseas authorities to locate the family so that they can be safely returned home to their loved ones.” Hang on a minute. Do we?

I’m getting a little bored with this “they’ve been radicalised” malarkey. Well, perhaps they have, but how and why did they allow it to happen? Were they attracted, for example, by the sick videos issued by ISIS of men being drowned in a cage, or set fire to in a cage, or beheaded? Did they honestly think, “Well, that looks like the kind of place where I can bring up my kids! I want a bit of that. I know it will be a bit of a bugger to get there, but if we get a flight to Turkey, we can easily make our way across the border where true happiness awaits.” Really?

If what we think has probably happened here – and I acknowledge that we do not yet know for sure – then do we really want the adults back here again? I have a relatively open mind and if there is a believable reason that somehow they have ended up in Turkey by accident – well, we’ve all done it, haven’t we? – I’ll give them a break. But what if they really do believe that the sick, twisted murderers of ISIS were the good guys in all this, I might have a bit of an issue. If they do end up being returned to Bradford, will they realise they have made a dreadful mistake or will it be because they have been forced to go back?

It’s time for an honest and open debate about this. In my opinion, Britain needs to be a decent, secular state where people are free to believe and free to not believe. They are free to go to their churches, mosques, temples, synagogues and anywhere they want to worship or they are free to believe in nothing. But in all instances and on every occasion, the godwhackers get no privileges, no special treatment whatsoever.

Right now, we have no debate at all. Multiculturalism as an idea has failed, but we pretend we believe in it. I don’t. Multi-ethnic, yes, multi-racial, yes, but seen in the round the sharp divisions of religion means multiculturalism does not and cannot work.

The missing children should come home, to secular, non “faith” schools, in an open and free country. Sadly, they too have probably been proselytised to the point of no return, such is the power of religious superstition.

Politicians are too weak to do anything about it, Tory, Labour or anyone else. Only last week David Cameron was making all the right noises at the Tory conference about clamping down on islamic extremism, but only after he confirmed his unswerving support for “faith”, religious, “Free” schools. The contradiction could not be greater. But Labour is no better and under the leadership of the friend of Hamas and Hezbollah, it maybe be even worse.

It may come to a head one day, but I’ll bet a lot of innocent people will have to die first.