At present there are thousands of young men streaming in to fight for the caliphate of ISIS/ISIL. They are all fired up to defend the values of Islam against the influence of the West.
So what are the things that are things that are attracting them? Well, as with all wars, there is the excitement and comradeship of fighting for a cause. There is also the desire to be seen as a hero, a real brave man, to do heroic deeds and be respected. There is the added attraction of sex. They can take their Jihadi brides, rape infidel women, and sate their sexual appetites in a way that would be impossible within the constraints of their culture.
ISIS is attractive because it is the Rock ‘n’ Roll of religion. The young men have freedoms they never dreamed of. They can kill, rape and destroy to their heart’s content. They don’t have to be content with chucking TVs out of windows, driving Rolls Royce’s into swimming pools or dynamiting toilets. They can do it for real with no limits and god not only sanctions it but gives them backstage passes in the bargain!
The only downside is that it isn’t going to last too long. Having your legs and nuts blown off, getting burnt, maimed and blown to smithereens by American, Russian, Iraqi, Kurdish, Jewish or Jordanian forces can be a slight negative.
The further shock comes later still when you see that your mutilated comrades do not die with smiles on their faces as they are lifted up to paradise by Allah to spend eternity with their allotted virgins.
What attracts the women to such a fate is a different matter.
What do you think?
The trouble I have with religion was illustrated very clearly by an article I read in the Guardian Newspaper regarding the Yazidi girls. These are Christian, which in the eyes of Islamic fundamentalists means they are infidel unbelievers. When ISIS captured the Yazidi people they were instructed very clearly from their scriptures what was required. Allah wanted them to behead non-believers or convert them to Islam. Allah wanted these grown men to bind the young girls of ten or eleven, gag them and rape them. They could be used as sex slaves.
Now in our civilised world we would consider any grown men who tied up a young terrified girl of ten, gagged her and gang-raped her as being a depraved animals. If they used the excuse in court that they were merely carrying out the wishes of Allah that would be inexcusable. They would be rightly locked up for a long time as disgusting paedophile rapists and their actions considered more vile than anything Jimmy Saville had done.
Yet according to the Koran these things are permissible. Allah sanctions the beheadings, the terrorism and maiming of innocent people, the rape of young girls, the torture, the horrendous deaths, the cutting off of limbs, the destruction of pre-Islamic artifacts and the persecution of all non-believers. These are not perversions of Islam. They are contained in the scriptures.
The Koran is not unique. The Bible has similar gruesome and barbaric practices – particularly the Old Testament. There are instructions and sanctions for dashing babies heads against rocks, taking an eye for an eye and worse. Throughout history fundamentalists have focussed on the parts they wish to emphasise to sanction inquisitions, pogroms, crusades and the torture and burning alive of innocent people who simple disagreed.
Of course in the modern age where it is not considered polite to smash your next door neighbours baby’s brains out because they follow a different faith there has been a tendency for religious instruction to follow the ‘nicer’ texts. We are taught to love our neighbour, share our fish and turn the other cheek.
The hypocrisy, contradiction, blood, fire and intolerance is glossed over. But it is there.
These religious texts come from primitive cultures where misogyny, violence and retribution were the order of the day. They are seeped in it. It permeates the doctrine. When ever an extreme fundamental cult comes along they unearth the texts that support their doctrine and apply the dogma.
In Europe we had to fight for the enlightenment. It brought an end to centuries of religious tyranny with all its viciousness and augured a new age of science. We threw off the shackles of theocracy and separated politics from religion. It enabled a flourishing of science that has created all the wonders of the modern world from electricity to space exploration.
Without the enlightenment we would still be in the Dark Ages. Our women would be walking around in veils and we’d likely be riding about on horses. Now perhaps there is something to be said for that kind of society we see vestiges of in America with the Amish culture. They live happily without electricity, cars and modern conveniences. They wear quaint medieval costume.
Personally I’d prefer the choice and like my car, electricity and music.
ISIS, and other religious fundamentalist groups of all religions, are merely feeding off the sections of their doctrine that sanction their actions and justify their desires. They really wish to take the whole world back to the time of Mohamed, Jesus or Krishna and force everyone to live in that medieval culture described in those texts.
The problem as I see it lies in the basis of those religions. They were devised by men in a culture that was primitive and unpleasant. I do not subscribe to those values. I consider them flawed.
I wish to live in a world that has equality, tolerance, peace, freedom, respect, responsibility, justice, love and friendliness as its core values. I place caring, compassion and empathy as higher values, not just for people but all life and the planet. I value debate, differences and argument and deplore violence, hatred and cruelty.
That is why, without entering into any esoteric discussion regarding god, I reject all religion. As far as I am concerned all religions are outmoded, flawed and supporting a culture I despise.
The world has moved on and human beings, while still showing a great propensity for hatred, violence and callous cruelty, are a lot more civilised than we used to be. I would hate to see religion undo that.
There is nothing new about the use of terror as a weapon of war.
Alexander the Great used the tactics in his war with the against the Persians, way back in 332 BC. He was so furious at the way the fortified island city of Tyre held out against him, forcing him to waste much time and energy to defeat them, (it took months and he had to construct a causeway out to the island in order to capture the city) that he made an example of them. His idea was that everyone else should see what happened to people who resisted him.
He destroyed the city. Sold 30,000 into slavery and massacred 8,000 civilians. He had them crucified on the beach for everyone to see.
The message soon got round. Many came over to his side to escape his wrath and people were terrified to stand against him.
We can see the same tactics being used by ISIL. Nowadays they use social media to show mass beheadings, people locked in cars and blown up with rocket launchers, underwater film of people being drowned as they are slowly lowered into the water, people have their heads blown off with plastic explosive, being buried alive, thrown off high building, slowly crushed and people being burnt alive in cages. It is barbaric and gruesome, cruel, heartless and callous (and all in the supposed name of religion!) but, in the short term it is highly effective.
As with Alexander the Great it sends terror into the hearts of the enemy. Despite the fact that the Iraqi troops far outnumbered the ISIL troops ISIL have been able to take places like Palmira. The Iraqi troops were so terrified at the thought of what would happen to them if they were caught that they ran away.
In the long term it will lead to the utter annihilation of ISIL. The revulsion for their tactics will unite civilised people in opposing them. Even pacifist like myself are so repulsed by their primitive inhumanity that they want them, and their intolerant savage doctrine, eradicated. People will soon recognise that ISIL is not driven by religious conviction so much as megalomania and animalistic blood-lust. Their Jihadists are in it for the sex and excitement, the religious fervour is a sham.
Terror gives short-term advantage and a long-term heavy reckoning. ISIL’s days are numbered. The whole world has had enough of their evil.
Over the course of the last century there has been unparalleled growth and prosperity. Globally science has delivered huge benefits and technology has created massive profits.
The world has never been more prosperous.
The end result of this is extreme fanaticism, war, overpopulation, poverty, misery and the destruction of the natural environment.
Why?
The reasons are very clear:
The system of capitalism has produced winners and losers. The winners are the tiny numbers of businessmen and bankers (almost exclusively men) who have be come multimillionaires, billionaires and trillionaires, the corrupt leaders who cream off the profits, and a few ‘lucky’ individuals who joined the ‘club’ through sport, entertainment or the arts. The losers are, to various degrees, everyone else.
In the West ordinary people enjoy a good lifestyle. They formed unions and fought for social justice. They are still given as little as the ‘bosses’ think will keep them quiet in order to maximise profits.
In the Third World there is a staggering population explosion, no jobs, extreme poverty and early mortality and nothing to look forward to.
Billions of people live on the edge and yet technology now provides them with images of opulence.
People with nothing to lose don’t mind blowing themselves up. People who live in misery buy in to the pernicious philosophy that some fictitious ‘God’ will make it right for them in the end. People without hope latch on to any glimmer for a better future. They will join ISIS and fight ‘a holy war’ for hope of a better life.
They may be in the process of being used by the leaders who seek power but for now they have brotherhood, comradeship and a cause. That’s infinitely better that misery and no hope. They can also vent their spleen against the ‘infidels’ who have ruined their lives.
The sad truth is that we have let them down.
In Britain we have not created an equal society with full integration. Around the world we have not produced a system of fairness and opportunity. We have created third class citizens and fostered the misery. We’ve waged wars, put dictators in place and bolstered up corrupt, vicious tyrannies in order to exploit them.
When the ‘Arab Spring’ happened we let them down.
Desperate people do desperate things.
I have no doubt that both ISIS and the mass migration will come to an end soon. The forces against it are too great. But they are both symptoms of the same disease. Unless we start to deal with the underlying problems of inequality and deal with the global problems of overpopulation, unemployment, war, fundamental religion, environmental degradation, poverty, corruption, pollution, and disease we are sitting on a time-bomb.
So what is stopping us?
The strings are being pulled by the billionaires who run the show and they do not care about anyone else. They are as callous and heartless as ISIS and a thousand times more destructive and vicious.
Human beings have very powerful minds and emotions. I used to believe that we are incredibly resilient. I no longer believe that.
I believe we are all incredibly fragile and easily damaged.
My long experience of working with children and observing adults have made me extremely aware that many of us are broken and our response is often aggression, hatred and violence.
I used to say to the teaching staff at my school that there was no such thing as a bad kid. Their bad behaviour was the result of having been damaged by their experiences; our job was to mend them.
I have seen close up the effects of bereavement, bullying, racism, divorce and abuse. The victims often either withdraw or become aggressive.
When I was a child at school a number of my teachers were ex-soldiers. They were not only violent aggressive bullies but they seemed to hate us.
I cannot begin to imagine the effect war has on the fragile human psyche. My father would not talk about it. My grandfather would not mention it. But I have met numerous highly confused and violent veterans; one of whom was a murderer.
Around the world at the moment we have millions of people traumatised by war. Some are victims and some are perpetrators. I cannot begin to imagine how some of them ever manage to sleep again. It is no wonder that some are either heartless fiends and others are traumatised wrecks. If you are going to saw someone’s head off at some point in the future that will haunt your waking moments and turn your sleep to nightmares. It catches up with you.
Human beings are fragile. The little things send us off the rails; the big things drive us into psychosis.
It seems that ISIS is selling the wearing of the complete female body veil known as a Burqa as a liberating, feminist experience. Women wearing this all-covering shapeless body garment are no longer sex objects so this is feminism in action.
Except it isn’t is it?
They might not be sexual objects per se as all of them of whatever age, degree of feminine perfection or shape are made equally nondescript. Though it doesn’t stop the single males in a sexually repressed society imagining what lurks underneath that shapeless mass of cloth. But is it feminism?
Obviously not. The sheer fact that there is no choice in the matter is sufficient to remove all of that notion. The fact that this is imposed on all women regardless of their wishes is not, under any guise, freedom. Some may prefer to remain ‘safe’ behind their masks, hidden from view, but that is no excuse for imposition.
The Burqa is a pre-Islamic uniform imposed on women by a repressive, misogynistic middle-eastern culture. It isn’t even Islamic. To claim that it is liberating is merely spin.
We will see feminism when women are afforded the same rights and freedoms as men. When they can drive, go out without escorts or permission, vote, participate fully in commerce, politics and religion as equals, and are not separated off as chattels of the men.
There may well be a reaction to the decadence of many Western females with their scanty attire, promiscuity and intoxicants but at least they are free to do what they choose; even if what they choose is crass.
The women being enticed over to Syria as ‘brides’ of the Islamists are taking a reckless risk. They are being ‘sold’ the idea of being married to a fearless, butch Jihadi warrior, but in actual fact are much more likely to end up as a sex slave of a bunch of ignorant savages.
What do you think?
Following David Cameron’s speech regarding the reason so many of our Muslim youth are turning to extreme, barbaric, violent ideology it is wise to look at the ways of solving the problem.
One of the main reasons identified for the turning to extremism was the lack of integration into British society and culture. Many Muslims felt excluded, threatened and marginalised. They did not know, accept or value the British values of tolerance, freedom and democracy. They felt themselves to be outsiders.
There is also the problem of indoctrination at a young age. Once an ideology is introduced at an age prior to the mind being able to assess its validity it is assimilated without being processed. This evil of indoctrination is pernicious.
Part of the answer is simple: shut the Faith Schools and Madrassas. We need our children growing up together with respect, tolerance and empathy. We need a shared set of values that goes across all faiths, races and creeds. We all need to buy in to the shared culture and contribute to its enrichment. We need inclusivity.
What we do not need is separation, isolation, differing values, and indoctrination.
If people are British they should be integrated. If they reject British values perhaps they should not be here. For Muslim children to be taken off after school to be indoctrinated is wrong. For Faith schools, including Hindu, Catholic and Protestant, to preach their ‘brand’ of religion to children too young to think is child abuse. It is as bad as the Creationists peddling their propaganda and distorted views to children.
Religion in schools is simply wrong!
Indoctrinating children is child abuse!
Education is a big part in the creation of shared values, integration, self-esteem, empathy, respect, thinking, civilised behaviour and a wider perspective. The evil suppression, misogyny, violence and barbaric intolerance of ISIS needs countering with a superior view of a harmonious, tolerant world.
Education builds a better zeitgeist.
I simply do not agree with the ridiculous idea that religion is somehow related to morally. I think ISIL, the Crusades, Inquisition, Pogroms and witch burning, to name a few of the atrocities carried out in the name of religion, Â put pay to any attempt to equate religion with morality.
Believers
Madmen pose with
Hardware exposed
To elevate their egos
To eternity.
Foolish fools
Believing silly rules,
Eschewing girls from schools
Inflamed with
Dreams of glory.
Endorphins rage
Through synapses
Of the brave.
Adherents ecstatic
With grave zeal
and brotherhood
Of unity;
All built on a book
Of lunacy.
Opher 4.7.2015
Everywhere I look around the world and through the depths of history I see excited young men clutching weapons in one hand and sacred books or political treaties in the other all wild-eyed and crazed; all joined by a cause; all eager to impose their vision on the world.
They butcher and torture until they themselves are numb, callous and cold and their Messianic fire has corrupted into sadistic futility.
All are assured of one thing – their cause is inevitably short-lived. We have seen the crusades, Jihads, Pol Pot, Hitler, Rwanda, and a thousand other massacres, genocides and causes as religions and regimes rise and rapidly fall.
It does not stop the fanaticism. Fascism and the adrenaline of brotherhood of war is a powerful aphrodisiac. It fires the belly and confounds the senses. The crazed believers are prepared to lay down their lives for their pointless cause. Â They are easy to recruit and indoctrinate – point and they will go,
It all harks back to those tribal days of young men on hunting parties whose lives depended on their skills, bravery and willingness to support each other in a common aim – whether that be fighting off a ferocious wild cat or bringing down a dangerous buffalo.
Young men, befuddled by hormones, eager for status and glory, easily drawn to a cause, are always gullible.
Young women, equally befuddled, seeking father’s for the eggs they store, are attracted to the strongest. They support the craziness – always gullible.
We are so primitive. We are transparent. Our intelligence, helplessness and stupidity are our constant downfall.
Perhaps one day women will be attracted to men for their neuronal skills and compassion rather than their muscle and brute force. The world would be a different place.
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What is it?
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ISIS stands for the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria – sometimes described as ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant).
It was set up by the Al Qaeda leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
He declared a global Caliphate and called all Muslims to join.
ISIS is a Sunni fundamentalist sect.
What is their Aim?
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Their aim is to set up a global Caliphate. Impose strict fundamentalist Islamic culture and law on a global scale on all people in all countries.
What do they believe?
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What is their Mode of Operation?
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Is the basis of their beliefs justified?
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The interpretation of the Koran from which they derive their beliefs is not a perversion of Islam; it is a fundamentalist, hard-line interpretation. This would be similar to fundamentalist Christians and Jews taking the more unpleasant sections of the Old Testament at face value and dashing baby’s heads against rocks, making living sacrifices etc. The Bible, like the Koran, is from an Abrahamic tradition of misogyny and violence. There are many ambiguities, tribal prejudices, acts of violence, intolerance and vindictiveness pertaining to the age and culture in which it is written.
Most practicing Jews, Christians and Muslims gloss over the intolerant, blood-thirsty elements of their religion and focus on the tolerant, loving, harmonious sections.
Fundamentalists take a hard-line.
What should we do about ISIS?
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My views
As an antitheist I see these people are typical of previous fundamentalist theocracies. Religion is a primitive superstition. Judaism, Christianity and Islam all have their roots in ancient Arabic tribes. Their doctrines are steeped in the cultural baggage of thousands of years ago. The violence, intolerance, tribalism, misogyny and prejudices are those of primitive, uncivilised people. We’ve come a long way since those times.
The morality and wisdom of those days was and is flawed. We’ve learnt a lot more and become wiser.
I see the United Nations charter of Human Rights as being a far more intelligent, coherent and useful document.
I do not believe there is a god, paradise or a non-stop stream of virgins. When you analyse the way the Koran and Bible was written and put together the assertions made about the documents are farcical.
I would do away with these outmoded doctrines and replace them with a better statement of morality and law that is better thought-through and presented in order to help instil fairness, justice, freedom, equality and harmony.
It is time to reject all fundamentalist beliefs as outmoded superstition.
ISIS is just the latest in a long line.
The Future
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History shows us quite clearly that these movements rise, flourish and die. It takes time.
There is only one possible outcome: ISIS will be destroyed, its leaders killed and its aims left in tatters.
Their lofty aim of a global caliphate is risible.
It is merely a question of how much destruction, barbarity, death, torture and pain will be inflicted before that occurs. It could take some time.
The other worry is what will rise up to take its place? Will the future tyranny be just as bad?
Opher 4.7.15