Radicalisation

What are we missing. 

Listening to a group of European mothers who have lost their sons to Islam and their sons and daughters conversion to Jihad, all have the same story. The children grew up within the European family and at some point were convinced to become Muslim and as if through osmosis to transfer to the extremist wing, the Jihad and the war which the Sunni are fighting. Not only against the Western way of life and its historical trail of Colonial interference in the lives of Muslim citizens living in predominantly Muslim countries but also against the Shia with whom they have an historical rift.
We often think that deprivation is a link to becoming disenchanted with their lives but it seems to go much deeper. Many of these converts come from middle class families and it's rather the rejection of what could be termed a 'non Sunni way of life' which seems to coalesce into a deep dissatisfaction with their own life and lifestyle. 
All religious teaching has the effect of separating mankind into the believers and non believers. Judaism and Christianity seem to get by, acknowledging the differences and largely leaving it at that. 

The Jewish community is a closed shop and segregates its followers through birth. 

Christianity is pretty open and largely forgiving, as it try's to be all things to all people. 

The Muslim congregation is very tied to strict observance and brings its followers into the 21st century with a ritual that was in place 500 years ago. 

Civilisation 500 years ago was much more tribal and the collective, very important for survival. Knowledge amongst the ordinary citizen was primitive and the events which occurred to a person were attributed to influences outside of their control. Religion gave simplicity, it gave a solution to the upside - downside - inside out events which were the lot of everyone. Religion gave clarity, religion gave answers, religion gave direction and perspective. 

The "force" which is found in religion had a direct influence on the individual and the combination of individuals, which held some power over their lives.

The Ottoman period, a great period of Muslim prosperity was a creative institution.

They captured knowledge in their libraries and their benign approach to governance, autocracy melded with the democratic instinct, allowed conquered nations to largely rule themselves. 

There was an  acknowledgement that the religious structural underpinning which the format of praying, five times a day, meant the focus and the daily interplay between fellow Muslims left little time or inclination to look elsewhere.
It's the rigour of the ritual which provides the constituent with his or her structure and the religion  has carried this structure through to the present day. It's this time-line and the strict observance of the teachings of Mohamed which in our Western "value lite" world seems so attractive to the many. People who see little worth or significance in this consumerist world, motivated and created by excessive credit to make the wheels of capitalism go round.
Discouraged by consumerism (a Western superstition) and being enchanted by its opposite, a belief in the the afterlife and ones preparation for that event is the Yin and the Yan of a troubled human intellect.
There is no finer breeding ground for radicalisation than schizophrenic disillusionment  !!!!

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The divine wish

As a society we have become terrified of evoking any sort of meaningful discussion, other than what goes on in our official media when it comes to questioning the Muslim society about its opinion regarding the atrocities, carried out in the name of Islam with a call to Jihadi (a holy war) from the extreme Sunni wing purportedly, on behalf of Allah.

A man in the UK is facing arrest because he approached a woman in Muslim dress and asked her what her opinion was on the recent bombings in Brussels. The suggestion is that he committed  a racially construed attack on the woman.

There is no doubt that the authorities wish to control and keep a lid on any backlash which may arise in the population at large but to arrest someone who is asking the question which is on all of our lips "what do ordinary Muslims think about the suicide bombing and more to the point why doesn't it receive a more vocal response from the Muslim society as a whole".

There are the carefully phrased responses from the Muslim leadership and the PR machine within the country but there is no discernible outpouring of rage or concern.

Obviously a society can not be tarred with the same brush when a tiny segment do such horrific things but one has the suspicion that whist being appalled by the brutality they also wonder if this isn't a justified comeuppance on the non Muslim society who are seen as contaminated by the bombing and the killing of their Muslim brothers and sisters, which continues to this day in parts of the Middle East.

Does the sight of Donald Trump and his outlandish taunts, his school yard rants have anything to do with it. Is the American neo-colonialism and their 'regime change' policies have anything to do with the reticence of the average Muslim to stand out and declare their abhorrence of what goes on in the name of their faith.

It's suggested that none of this has anything to do with Muslim belief, yet the dying wish on all the suicide bombers lips is the call to Allah and what they do, is in his name. To disconnect the faith from the extremists, who quote the Koran and confirm their frenzy in its teachings, needs a thorough explanation and not only to us 'non Muslims' but to the young disenchanted young Muslims who are growing up in what are virtually ghetto societies, closed off from outside involvement where the only influence can come from the Muslim society itself.

Any group who purport that they are different have a responsibility to teach 'assimilation' with the majority, in so far as it doesn't clash with their religious belief. But of course there's the rub, since in all the books on religious faith, the Bible, the Old Testament and the Koran, there are passages which could be construed, one way or the other and if either interpretation is blessed with Gods Divine Grace, then "who ever", "what  ever" is sanctified, and no amount of rational argument will have any effect unless the society in which the person resides makes clear the intent, the purpose, the perspective and the ancestry of the writing of the Divine wish.

Into battle

This latest explosion in Belgium brings closer the fact that we are at war with sections of the Muslim community.
There's no point in kidding ourselves that the enemy is in the Afghan hills  or Northern Syria they are here in our midst. They lurk in the fabric of our cities, perhaps the only saving grace is that not only do they belong to the same faith but also they congregate amongst the people of that faith. 


One of the issues that has revealed itself is that the security forces have often been on the trail of many of these people who later go on to commit the crime. It seems that whilst on an evidence collection exercise which has been close but not close enough, the bombs have been detonated.
Under normal circumstances a person is deemed innocent until proven guilty. There are many guilty criminals "living it large" as they say on the Costa Brava but through lack of firm evidence they remain free. Their criminality is largely financial, although perhaps a murder may have been committed but there is no wanton mass destruction planned against an innocent public.
Today's terrorism is different, it is ideological, an act of undeclared war. The United Nations in its Charter has no way of defining acts of terror in so far as not being at war is concerned. Once war is declared a whole new set of defined retaliation comes into play including the secession of the rights of people "suspected" of potential tyranny.
Guantanamo Bay came into being because of the problem of not being able to gather enough evidence to stand up in court whilst knowing the person involved was one or two steps away
The area in Brussels known to be a hot spot for Muslim radicalism, 'Molenbeek' is a place where Salah Abdeslam the mastermind behind the Paris terrorist attack was holed out. Supported by the community as one of their own, he was secure.
In war the rights of men and women are put on another footing, and the common need to catch the perpetrator irrespective is deemed a price worth paying.
Perhaps we have reached our Guantanamo moment and whole swathes of young Muslim men and women have to be detained for the common good.
Maybe I must get out my Crusading Knights outfit and give Dobbin an extra handful of oats !!!

the tender trap

How fragile women have become. In the generation where their equality is no longer questioned  they still seem obsessed with the journey and the hurdles they had to overcome.

There's a shrillness in their dismay when a man, in a position of influence, says something they don't like. As with that phenomena Political Correctness, there are sections, within the the female establishment who have an agenda which when scrutinised, uses that last bastion of protest, the influence it has with the media and media types, to protest and degrade a possibly rational argument when it is made against them. They attempt to close the argument down as ideologically 'off piste'.

The issue which raised the ire of the 'commentariat' today was the comment made by the CEO of Indian Wells Tennis, Raymond Moore (a 69 year old South African) that women tennis players should be thankful that the men's game, led by the likes of Federer, Nadal, Djokovic and Andy Murray have drawn bigger crowds and made tennis the money making machine it is, and from which, women benefit. Then Djokovic tweeted that he felt the men should be paid more money than the women because of this fundamental drawing power.

The hair began to fly and the Queens of the Court lined up to denounce, not only what had been said but more importantly, "that they had said it" !

It's this pressure to clamp down on 'free speech', and avenues of thought, which is presumed by the female lobby (since that is what it is) to be out of order. As in PC, there is a growing list of subject matter, issues which are too hot to touch and are definitively influenced by the people who have a connection to the media.

"If the facts get in the way" then it is prejudice and bias which is claimed to substantiate the contra argument, not an expose' that those facts are wrong.

That women's tennis is more 'eye catching' than an edge of seat contest of skill and physical endurance goes without question. From the cut of the jib, some of the most beautiful and athletic women  draw the fans to the woman's game with fashion and shape being as much on display as the volley and serve. Whether you judge the tennis as pure tennis or become a voyeur of the female figure I suppose each has its fans. 

The men seem content to dress in the most unattractive way with baggy crumpled shorts and a colour coordination which is freakish. They are there to play tennis!

The women on the other hand seem to be the total opposite with the tennis dress, a careful revealing ensemble, epitomised by Maria Sharapova, its duality of purpose possibly detracting from the aspect and skill of the game they play. 

"What ever". The almost immediate media response and calls for an apology (which was forth-coming) from that tough band of gender equality activists Billy Jean King and Martina Navratilova 
was enough to send the men into free fall.
There is nothing more formidable than a woman on the war path other than a group of women on the war path !!!

Conviction

It's a human condition to get carried away with our own conviction. Conviction is a powerful thing if for no other reason than the enthusiasm of the totally converted is infectious !
Great oratory is enormously convincing, both for the speaker and the person listening, as ideas and beliefs are expounded the enthusiasm is infectious and the sense of surety it engenders often trumps our own confusion, 'unless' we have spent as great deal of time, bolstering our own argument. 

Listening to a fire and brimstone 'paster' articulate his unshakeable belief, using the specific words and phrases of his bible, each sentence the word of God 

The humanist has his reasoning, the atheist has his scepticism but neither has the 'brimstone'.

Quoting the Bible or the Koran with their resort to mysticism and parable, parables  which rely on a context which is clearly short of scientific reasoning, which defy the carbon time line, the words never the less are interpreted as personal. They are a direct message from God, to each one of us and are therefore often an emotional challenge. 

Perhaps it's this interpretation which we carry in our own minds which allows some of us to accept the story but it's still remarkable that in the 21st century, millions of people thrill to the call of a man who lived 21 centuries ago. The Abrahamic faith and the Muslim faith all draw from the same Well.  All derived from dreams passed down as stories told around the camp fire. 

The passion of the Pastor , the Imam, or the Rabi is a direct result of the mysticism which these Arabic tribes, who lived in a part of the world where life was hard and community meant everything, is the same passion that is still as real today as when it was first felt, in the first telling. 

The advocates of Gods word, the Prophets, had to have an edge, the edge was not only important for their survival but bound one to the other, as a tribe, who's earthly faith was wrapped in the patriarchal leadership. Is it any wonder that the "afterlife" would also be subject to stories and revelations which ensured that life on Earth, which was hard, would be substituted by life after death with something so much more pleasant. 

 

Blackpool

Blackpool was the Mecca of the working class seaside holiday. Villages such as the one I grew up in used to hire a coach and set off for 'a day out to Blackpool' on a public holiday.

It was a fun from start to finish. The boisterous trip there, everyone knew each other and the anticipation of the sea, the beach, the funfair, the girls and the mischief we would get up to as a collective was a great contrast to the relatively dour life we lived. 

The first to see the Tower and then the sea brought a cheer and a babble of anticipation as the bus set us down and we we were off to what ever took our fancy. The Pleasure Beach with its wild rides like the Big Dipper were favourites. The glitzy shops selling all kinds of knick knacks, the food stalls with their specific aromas, the candy floss and the ubiquitous Blackpool Rock designed to knock hell out of our poor teeth and make a visit to the dentist inevitable. If we were old enough there were pubs and bars along the way making the destination more problematical but who cared, it was the journey that was important. The sand and the sea, we rarely saw the sea since the tide always seemed out and Blackpool sits on a deep bay. The donkeys on the sand for the very young, the amusement peers jutting out from the land with the entertainment shows, sometimes the big names from the world of entertainment, the comedians and the singers. And towering above it all, the centre of the town, 'Blackpool Tower'. This huge amusement arcade packed full of titivating things to suite all needs. From the jungle gym for the young to climb about in to the one armed bandits. The shriek of the ghost train or the beautiful ballroom with its mammoth Wurlitzer organ playing for the people to dance to. A ride to the top of the Tower gave you a parametric view of the town below with its gaily painted trams honking their way up and down the wide promenade flanking the sand with thousands of people walking aimlessly about, agog to all the glitz and glitter around them. 

At last it was evening and a final extravaganza, the Blackpool Lights, a myriad of coloured lights strung across the road and up each lamp post flashing on and off, a Disney land of magic.

The bus would make a last sweep of the lights as it drove slowly down the prom and we, sated from food, drink and a plethora of memories would settle back in our seats to chatter happily about our day, as night time fell and the driver negotiated the narrow winding road back through the wonderful Dales to our grimy, sooty town of Bradford and the village of Esholt where we disembarked, happy and content with our day out to the seaside.

The trickle that dried up

One man's 'entitlement' is another man's burden and listening to Alan Greenspan, it's the rise in "entitlements" which curtails the ability of companies to spend on modernisation of plant and machinery, which drastically diminishes the productivity of labour, to his mind, and is what is holding back growth across the civilised world
"Entitlements" such as Medicare, minimum wages, legally binding labour contracts, minimum standard on working conditions the list goes on. In the mind of a this neo-liberal who studied under Hayak and Friedman, entitlements are an inhibitor to growth.  No matter how growth is obtained one is committing economic sin, not to seek to establish growth. 

Societies participation is limited to benefiting, when it can, through "trickle down economics".
And so you have the dilemma. Privatisation, fiscal austerity, deregulation, the whole gambit of laissez-faire economics which, in the short term, punish the worker and dismantle any social cohesion he might have built up, in the long run, is good for everyone because it produces growth and profits which sustain some sense of well being. 

It's fundamentally a question of jobs versus unemployment but all at a price. Wages are barely sufficient, the work is often short term, without any sort of continuity and society is made to understand that for the system to work and prosper, any of the old sureties are gone and the Global corporate Minotaur must be fed and kept happy.   

The new kid on the block is "flexibility"
After the Second World War there was a period of sustained old fashioned liberalism/socialism which attempted to take into the economic mechanism, human welfare. A concept that real gains are made when society at large is rewarded with the benefits of growth and the fiscal health of a country is based on recycling wages, profits and dividends to provide the stimulus for the market in goods and services to grow organically.
Today's growth is rigged.  Profits come from ever smaller strategic segments of economic activity whilst the rest are left to fend for themselves, inevitably to rot and die, along with the people who are engaged in these activities.
The burger flipper, the shelf packer, the carers, both for children and the old are the collateral damage of a heartless world wide economic experiment driven by Wall Street. The misuse of what were called, euphemistically, the units of labour, (people), and the lowering of relative wages has accelerated the stagnation of most of our cities across the globe as people eke out their lives as best they can with little left over to spend and stimulate their respective economies. With increasingly less "trickling" down, stagnation is the only game in town.