I listened to Tommy Robinson speak to Ian Collins on 23/03/2016 to discuss Muslims and, more specifically, the prophet Mohammed. While I appreciate that he is going out of his way to make it clear he isn’t tarring all Muslims with the same brush. I still disagree with his logic. Picking up on specific details, such as those that he did, could make any religion sound the way he is making Islam sound. There are some utterly bizarre teachings in the bible. For example, there is an instance when Elijah is ridiculed by children for being bald, so he unleashed two bears to kill forty two children. I do not think this proves anything.
We could debate the specifics endlessly, but the one thing we all agree on is that we want this to stop. If it were true that Islam itself is the reason and cause, then there is no resolution. As you won’t be able to convince 1.6 billion (a figure I found on the internet) people that their religion is wrong, and that they should stop. So what is the answer? The example Tommy gave in the interview, the ‘puberty’ argument let’s call it. He used it as an example of how the perpetrators had been lead into acting this way after reading it as part of their faith. I just don’t believe that normal, nonviolent members of the world will switch to that kind of behavior, purely on the say so of anyone or anything. This is fundamentally where we the two sides will disagree. But just to explain my side.
I believe these people will be inherently violent and sadistic individuals, which you find everywhere in the world, and that they took this example to express this, not to express their belief in their religion. I imagine, but do correct me if I’m wrong, that the argument against this would be that they may have been nonviolent, but that the particular teachings outlined have made them this way. That they have been brainwashed into extremist behavior by others showing them this kind of thing. But again I disagree with this. I believe that if you give somebody a reason to go to war, which I would argue we do by our violent methods, then they will. And if that person happens to be a Muslim, some of their culture will be visible in how they express this violence. The same way our culture is visible in how we express ours.
Now let me be controversial in saying; do you not believe there is an argument to say that we have also been brainwashed into accepting and supporting violent extremist behavior? We vote for decisions, voice our opinions on the internet, in the pub, at work, as to whether or not to bomb other countries. Which invariably ends up killing a lot more civilians than ‘we’ lose to terrorism. Why is it different? The only difference I see is that our politicians wear a suit while making that decision, and that we are much better equipped in terms of weaponry and that we carry it out for reasons that ‘we’ deem to be justified. The public being so far removed from the decision making and the actual reality of those decisions, that we cannot fully understand the impact. Which, again I stress, is invariably much worse, statistically, than what we universally condemn the extremist for.
We, of course, should condemn them for it. But why aren’t we condemning our own actions. My opinion is that we are brainwashed into believing that we are justified and that violence is the best course of action. For what are politicians, if not expert salespeople. We have tried the aggressive method for 15 years and the results are there for anybody to see. It does not work. Why do we not try a more diplomat and entirely less violent way of dealing with it? Why do we trust our government to make these, when it is not them in the firing line for any retaliation? We don’t have security and bodyguards following us everywhere we go and stationed outside our houses at all times, and politicians are not wearing uniforms and physically fighting anybody. Also, in the vast majority of cases, they have no family members that are either.
Arguing the specifics of how we got to this stage will distract us, so again, how do we stop it? I don’t know, but I do know that after 15 years, aimless bombing can be ruled out. So let’s try something else. Can we not at least agree on that?
