Late middle-aged Adrian Russell Ajao, who murdered and injured people on 22 March in London, apparently on behalf of his god, turns out to be someone with a dismal life that decided to make the world notice his existence, his glory, and his suicide. Decades ago he would have killed John Lennon. Unlike the Serb Nationalist Princip who shot Europe into WW1, Russell had neither animus against his victims nor purpose in his actions. Isis was his banner, but he sought only a spectacular end to his own, muddled life.
The young fools who followed the direction of old men with a death wish when they bombed London's transport system or machine-gunned young people in Paris, were full of enthusiasm and purpose, however grotesque that was. Now they go to die in Mosul or Aleppo. The political psychology of Isis-style slaughter expands to fill the 'needs' of a large range of 'lost' and 'left behind' citizens in the West - especially the young - but not only them, as the number of religious murderers that turn out to have served prison sentences for petty crime would show. 'I'm going to be a gangster! - Oh no. I'll be a warrior for my people instead.'
The sad and horrific choices of 'jihadists' as the BBC has taken to calling them, are echoed by the empty and cynical political responses of Western mainstream leaders. 'British values' and the general need to uphold them are presented as the alternative and the answer to terrorism (leaving aside the draconian laws and ever expanding 'security, services.) Prime Minister May had her moments of glory as she made elegiac, onerous speeches outside her house, in Parliament and to the media, indeed wherever she could, about British values, about not being afraid and about the wonderful character of Britain's multi-cultural and multi-racial Britain.
Two basics in the modern, tragic story of Islamic radicalisation were not mentioned in May's sombre, stomach-churning elegies. Bush and Blair, the children of those in the West who set up Sadam Hussain in Iraq, the real jihadists in Afghanistan and created 'modern' Saudi Arabia and Israel, opened up a new continental war which killed hundreds of thousands and which has turned the Middle East into a cauldron of both official and unofficial terror. Bush and Blair are the co-authors of the 21st Century's worst act of barbarism so far - and it is not over. Barbarism of course gives birth to its own children.
Second, the breath taking hypocrisy of Parliamentary grandees lauding 'their' democracy, its 'rule of law' and its preparedness to argue things through rather than fight them out, not only now but 'for generations before us and generations to come' is risible if it were not so painful to hear. What minuscule bit of democratic control is left to Parliament in face of the City of London and the multinationals, was won in long, often deadly struggles and sacrifices by the common people. This is a fight that will need to be renewed as the remnants of current democracy shrivel and die. What steps has the modern British Parliament taken to enable the youth - all youth in Britain - to find security, equality, a good standard of life and mutual respect - except steps backwards? Young people in Britain know about its foreign wars and their results, they know about privilege and unfulfilled lives, they know about drugs and gangs and porn and Facebook bullying, they know about the real day-to-day racism in their lives. How dare these people elevate grotesque versions of British values that have no connection to real life. How dare they.
It is no wonder they are unknown among so many young people, and if they are known at all then they are despised as self-serving liars. No wonder some young people are attracted to what appears a cleaner, clearer vision of life and are thrilled by its simple global perspective and its underdog violence. No wonder they do not see that the old men who want them to fight and die are just another distorted mirror image of the life they have already given up on. In a shitty world they want to do something noble and right and dramatic, so they take the poison, and all their youth and energy and enthusiasm and imagination is uselessly drowned in their's and other innocent's blood.
The big 'answer' to 'radicalisation' among young, would-be 'jihadists', is the creation of a real and active resistance, which does not offer a path to heaven (and death) but which takes on the the great horrors and wrongs of the world, with the thought that the most moral actions in life are to change it all, to end oppression and brutalisation, to serve humanity.
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