It seems that some Europeanans (including youth) have been taken by Jihadi ideas and going to Syria and Iraq to join ISIS and other extremist fighting groups. But now they are starting to flow back to their home countries, freshly indoctrinated and who knows with what agendas. The UK is looking to reassert control over the situation … basically with more spying.
I believe (as I’ve already mentioned) this is probably going to be useless because the real challenge is the transporation of ideas not people. Maybe you can prevent extremist-oriented people from going to or coming back from ISIS but you can’t block off the ideas. All it takes for to transmit an idea is a phone call, email, facebook comment, youtube video … etc.
I have many weeds in my garden. I have, from early on, aborted any attempt to fight them – I don’t want to develop a fighting mentality. I believe that weeds are working for me – telling me that there are deficiencies or excesses in my soil which create ideal conditions for them to grow …. and that the weeds themselves, by being, are creating a healtheir soil (by changing its constitution). Indeed, I’ve been watching the weeds for 3 years now and every year they are different … there is a process of natural succession … the weeds of last year changed the soil conditions and made it possible for the weeds of this year to come forth and do what they need to do.
If I want to do anything about the weeds I am probably better off doing as they do instead of working against them (trying to pull them out) – as they themselves do – by changing the soil conditions so that they become less favorable for weeds and more favorable for whatever plants I want to grow.
Those who are travelling to join ISIS fighting may very well be weeds, but they are not the problem, but an important symptom. They are telling us something about the soil in which they grow … the cultures from which they come … the same cultures who are now trying to protect themselves from these “returning weeds”.
Ironically, I see a shared quality between ISIS and western cultures. They are both uncivilized. ISIS is “honest” … it expresses its incivility brutally and directly … their antiquated beliefs are proudly paraded. The west hides its incivility under an elaborate disguise of superficial civility. People dress nicely, they use words instead of bullets, socially devised legal systems instead of beheadings. But underneath that disguise is a ruthless, rotting and cannibalizing civilization where many if not most people are abused, unhealthy, hungry and spiritually bankrupted … ISIS didn’t do that.
What if what we are witnessing is a collission of ideologies. In this case two uncivilized ideologies … one coming from a primitive past the other from a corrupt future. What if their collission is an inevitable evolution? What if their collission is mutually destructive and therefore desirable?
The body fights infections by, amongst other things, developing a fever. A “good fever” changes the conditions which favor the infecting parasites into conditions which favor healing mechanisms that erradicate the infection. A “bad fever” takes out both the parasites and the host.
It looks like we are going to develop a fever … hopefully a “good fever”. This fever is caused by two parasites. Fortunately for us, these two parasites are also attacking each other. Let’s just hope that there are enough gardeners left behind to nourish what is left back to health.
