It is difficult to watch a news or current affairs programme today without some kind of "in-depth" analysis by some so-called expert on the reasons why young British people become involved with and committed to what are always termed extremist organisations. Well they do it for the very same reasons that other people who are generally regarded as normal join different organisations, many of whom, such as UKIP and the Conservative Party, I certainly consider extremist. The reason is ideology.
Ideas are the most powerful things in the world, much more powerful than bombs, guns and other forms of weaponry. It was ideas and the ideologies that such ideas spawned that drove the Nazis and the Soviet regime to murder and eliminate millions of innocent people. It is ideas that drive what is happening today in Guantanamo Bay. To read our press you would think that torture and atrocity are the sole preserve of Islamic movements, but we have the incontrovertible evidence that both us and the Americans are just as capable of atrocity as anyone else. Islamic State is being accused of wanting to rule the whole world, but the Americans have been quite open about the fact that they also mean to do just that for decades now. However, it's all right for America to bomb innocent people, invade other countries, torture and massacre their populace because they are the good guys eh? If anyone wants to know about barbarism I suggest they read about British rule in India.
The thing about ideology is that it usually provides certainty. Your religion furnishes you with the truth, and of course if you have the truth, then the other guy is by definition wrong. So, the Christian has the unvarnished truth and so does the Muslim. What complicates matters is that the Catholic truth is different from the Protestant and the Sunni truth is different from the Shi'ite. Its the same with political ideologies, for example, very few Westminster MPs begin a sentence with anything other than the statement 'the truth is...' and they are always telling us that what they do 'is the right thing to do'. You see if you have the truth then you are absolved from the tiresome necessity of having to think. You are always right, and I am always wrong, simples. That allows you to defend the necessity of having to prevent the other person from opposing you, because anyone opposing the truth must be a baddie, don't they? So it's OK to torture and kill baddies and enemies of the truth, to destroy their homes, their countries, their infrastructure etc. If you are doing this in the cause of truth then you are actually doing the poor misguided creatures a favour. My problem is that when I consider religion and politics, I am faced with about a million truths and I can never decide which one of them is true. Confusing isn't it? I will continue this thought later as this post is getting too big. In the meantime, if you are confronted with some enlightened and blessed soul who wishes to share their truth with you, take my advice, run! You have been warned
Your Servant
Doktor Kommirat
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