Islam

Well this is interesting.  I had got used to the standard response to terror.  I had thought that when 22 young people get blown up by a suicide bomber in Manchester we were meant to say that it made ‘no sense’, that it ‘wouldn’t change us’ and that ‘love’ must overcome ‘hate’. I thought that when a crowd of people get run over and a policeman stabbed to death we were meant to say ‘We may never know’ what caused such an outrage.  And that when people slit the throats of Londoners while shouting ‘This is for Allah’ we agreed that only perpetrators themselves were responsible for such inexplicable actions?

Several people have been killed in a terrorist attack in Iran today, with Isis claiming responsibility. This has potentially huge consequences for the wider Shia-Sunni conflict. In 2014, Douglas Murray wrote for the Spectator on Islam's 30-year war. His piece seems particularly prescient in light of today's events: Syria has fallen apart. Major cities in Iraq have fallen to al-Qa’eda. Egypt may have stabilised slightly after a counter-coup. But Lebanon is starting once again to fragment. Beneath all these facts — beneath all the explosions, exhortations and blood — certain themes are emerging. Some years ago, before the Arab ‘Spring’ ever sprung, I remember asking one top security official about the region.

On Sunday, in the hours after the London Bridge attack, Christians celebrated Pentecost - recalling when the Holy Spirit inspired the Apostles to come out of hiding and proclaim the Good News. In light of the terrorist atrocity, my parish priest spoke on the fruits of this Spirit – love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control – as the correct response to such horror. It struck me that while we have become used to proclamations of Islam as the 'religion of peace', it's this message which sets Christianity apart in the face of persecution, and many of us forget the impact that the peaceful philosophy of Christianity has had on the world as we know it today.

It is not enough for Muslims to say ‘We condemn terrorism’. Sure – we believe you. But something more is needed. What? It’s easy to get bogged down in the slightly wrong issue of violence and war. We should not expect Muslims to condemn all violence that claims a religious justification – for most war does tend to claim such justification, and an element of this lingers in the West, and few of us are complete pacifists. What we need to hear from British Muslims is that they reject the vision from which terrorism comes. It is a vision of society unified by one political and religious ideology. It is a vision of pluralism, and secular politics, swept aside by this vision. It is a theocratic vision.

I feel like an obituary writer, what with Nick Scott, Roger Moore, Alistair Horne — all great buddies — and now my oldest and closest friend, Aleko Goulandris, dead at 90. Mind you, they all had very good lives: plenty of women, lots of fun, accomplishments galore, and many children and grandchildren. And they all reached a certain age — what else can you ask of this ludicrous life of ours? Well, I won’t be writing about the high life this week, but scum life instead. And I’ll tell you why: those innocent young children slaughtered by that Islamist scumbag in Manchester, that’s why.

What does Isis want? As Douglas Murray writes in this week's cover piece, jihadis are quite clear on the subject - but we just aren't listening. The question that never seems to be asked, however, is: what do we want? That is the core of my objection when our politicians tell us to continue as normal and that terrorism is just 'part and parcel of living in a big city'. It really shouldn't be and it isn't - in Warsaw, Prague, Budapest, Tokyo or a number of first-world cities. In the words of the writer Ben Sixsmith: Jihadism was not inevitable. It has been imported. Cosmopolitans see this as the bad part of a trade-off for a more open, equal and diverse society. Nationalists believe it is a self-inflicted wound.