MICHAEL COREN Young jihadists are twisted, evil and clueless

DANIEL PEARL

Credits: REUTERS/Handout/Files

MICHAEL COREN | SUN NEWS NETWORK

http://www.sunnewsnetwork.ca/archives/sunnews/straighttalk/2014/09/20140902-071649.html

 

Back in 2002 American journalist Daniel Pearl was kidnapped and beheaded by an Islamist gang.
Before he was murdered he was forced to "confess" that he was a Jew. Pearl had been eager to tell the Pakistani story, the Islamic story, to build bridges and bring peace. He was, if anything, on the political left. Not that different, in fact, from the recent tragedy of James Foley.
I mention this because of one of the people who kidnapped Daniel Pearl was from my hometown in England. He was raised in London with the health service, toleration, police protection, human rights and wealth. Great wealth, in fact, because he attended the local private school -- my parents didn't have that sort of money and I went to the state school.



So this monster who left Britain, went to Pakistan and became a killer wasn't the product of persecution or suffering. Nor was his religion oppressed in Britain; it was given protection, even a special protection not awarded any other faith.

Now we have learned of John Maguire, a convert to Islam, who left the University of Ottawa to become a jihadist. He's not the only Canadian to have done so, and there are thousands of Englishmen, French, Belgians, Scandinavians -- Muslims from pretty much everywhere in fact -- who have done the same.

So what makes these young men volunteer not to fight for freedom and dignity, but to murder mostly other Muslims in a brutal campaign of terror and hatred?

They are brainwashed, of course, told about supposed American, Israeli and Western atrocities and how Muslims are subjugated the world over. They are shown horrible pictures of dead Muslims, as if pictures of dead Jews and dead Christians are not similarly shocking. They are not very bright or sophisticated, know little of genuine Islamic history, aren't aware of the record of the brutal Islamic Ottoman empire or the way the greatest oppressors of Muslims have been other Muslims.
They can't grasp nuance and complexity, they live on adrenaline and emotionalism; they are, ironically, products of the very Western decadence and materialism they claim to despise.

Then there are the sociological and psychological, even sexual, aspects of all this. Most of these men are severely inadequate, working in boring jobs if they're working at all, failing to make their way, wasting their time on fatuous courses at universities. Suddenly they are heroic, mysterious, have meaning and significance, people are frightened of them, stupid girls desire them.

I've seen this replicated numerous times -- terrorists in Northern Ireland, Nazis in far-right movements, even Satanists in cult groups. Most of them have no idea why they're there or what they're doing, but they know it makes them feel special and adds something to their otherwise dull lives. Throw in a touch of sadism and bloodlust and you have the answer.

Pathetic, tragic, vile, sad in a way, but ultimately pointless and also horribly damaging. The banality of Islamist evil. The evil of banal Islamism. Please explain this to every person who thinks it's our fault or the West is to blame. Such idiocy enables and encourages them, and that makes you partly culpable.