Fighting an idea with violence.

Is doomed to fail.

Because you can’t kill everybody who has that idea.

This is particularly true with extremist ideologies, which have at their heart the concept of martyrdom.

It’s like the 1980s arcade game Asteroids.

You shoot the asteroid and create several more.

They need martyrs.

Because this is a promise of eternal life in heaven.

Do you see how killing people who believe in this is not a deterrent?

It is the opposite.

‘It’s because of Islam, right?’

Well no. I’m secular please don’t blame me for Stalin or Hitler or Pol Pot.

There are more than a billion people who are Muslims, the best guess for Isis troop strength seems to be about 20 – 30, 000. So do the maths. I can’t.

They want this ‘us versus them’ illusion, like we are so different. This binary clash of civilisations falsehood is a thing they encourage. It’s clearly not true.

I’m lucky to have been to several countries in the Arab world – which isn’t a great phrase as they bicker amongst themselves as much as people in ‘the Christian world’ or ‘the West’ or whatever it is.

Always had a good time. Always met nice people. Always felt incredibly welcomed. Always felt embarrassed how people wouldn’t let me pay for stuff: even taxi drivers.

‘You are from England? Be my guest, don’t pay.’

Wow. A taxi driver letting you off the fare. Let that sink in.

So he ruined it by telling me how much he liked Top Gear, which is apparently big in the Middle East, but this act of kindness has stuck in my mind.

Chaos theory is nonsense of course, a butterfly flapping its wings doesn’t change anything, but an act of kindness can stick in your mind and have this effect. So anybody who I think might be racist about ‘the Arabs’ gets the cab driver story from me, plus a few other stories of kindness shown to me by people from other countries, and in theory maybe they won’t be racist to people who will take offence and become a jihadist.

Even if this doesn’t work, being kind to people from other communities is quite a nice thing to do for its own sake.

But people support them in the region?

No. Read the Isis in-house magazine.

(you really should do this. Know your enemy, and don’t let a third party interpret their ideas for you. It’s here: http://www.clarionproject.org/news/islamic-state-isis-isil-propaganda-magazine-dabiq )

It’s packed with criticism of other Muslims.

They hate other Muslims, other Muslims hate them.

Like Millwall, they don’t care.

Their interpretation of the Koran is obsessed with death and the apocalypse and is not widely shared by most Muslims.

Their recruitment tool is victimhood.

The West hate us so we will destroy the West.

They succeed.

I saw a profile picture on a Facebook

‘I hate Islam’

Brilliant.

If you are Isis.

This is exactly what they want.

They want to generate a bit of hatred, some of it will take hold: recruitment.

In the style of a Vis Top Tip:

World Leaders – stop bombing the wrong people.

That would also help.

Innocent people being bombed is an excellent recruitment tool for violent extremists.

It generates revenge and martyrdom

Not in many people.

But you only need a tiny tiny percentage, as discussed.

Injustice breeds extremism.

Mosques became the centre of revolt in countries which were occupied by Europeans or which were governed by dictators who were backed by the West, because they couldn’t close the mosques.

Isis could only exist in opposition to the Assad regimes which were propped up by the rest of the world for decades. Nearly 50 years of human rights abuses, states of emergency, torture, detention without trial. So an ethical foreign policy would help.

So what to do?

Acknowledge history.

In Algeria the French secret police would drop rebel leaders into the sea from helicopters, and then go on to train the Argentinian Junta in how to torture people.

In Paris in 1961 the secret police murdered dozens of Algerians, and dropped them into the Seine. Nobody knows how many.

This is context: It should not need stating that this does not justify any acts of revenge, decades later. But I get the impression that a lot of people don’t get this context.

If you are Russian, vote out your leaders who are instrumental in blocking unilateral action in the region, and contributing to the ongoing civil war.

If you are a world leader: put pressure  on China who seem to be backing Russia’s stance on the Assad regime out of old habits.

Beware the language of conflict.

‘This is targeted bombing though,’ somebody said.

I will decide the adjectives, thanks.

All bombing in the history of the world has been described by those carrying it out as targeted. It looks amazing in the videos they release when the bombs hit the right target. And you don’t get to see the rest.

Jihadi John is possibly dead, said the authorities days before Beirut and Paris were attacked.

‘We’ll know from his phone records. If he stops using his phone, he’s dead. The vehicle we hit is too mangled for us to be sure.’

Nobody is talking about the bombing of Jihadi John now: whether it was a successful assassination or the killing of another innocent.

‘Collateral damage’ being the phrase they used to describe the killing of innocent people by accident, a word deliberately used in order to minimise how bad it is to kill somebody by mistake as part of your conflict. In the kind of places where some people think that life matters a bit less.

The idea that ‘violent death and taking down some people with you and then heaven’ is ‘better than life in its current form’ tends to come from places where life isn’t so great in the first place.

Palestinian kids do this; no job, no future, suicide by running into Israeli soldiers. A version of ‘suicide by cop’. You end up on a poster of martyrs.

Some young men copy them, in the way they copied Kurt Cobain, even though their circumstances are different.

Give people a better idea.

Give people a better opportunity.

Reduce inequality.

Don’t invade the wrong countries.

Invading countries, I repeat, is not the best way to deal with terrorists: the weapons, infrastructure, ideology, leadership structure, and methods are associated closely with countries which have been invaded.

Campaign against the arms trade and lobby for a reduction in weapons? There’s 100 million AK 47s kicking about so it’s a challenge. It’s an expensive amnesty for sure, but better value than the cost of more and more weapons.

Don’t look to the narrative arc of a violent movie for solutions to complex problems.

Acknowledge and seek measures to uphold human rights. These aren’t perfect, but they are the best tool we have for resolving conflict amongst people and delivering justice.

Education, education, education.

There are some well educated terrorists for sure, plus some who have had every opportunity in life. But most aren’t. The countries with the poorest and least educated people generate the most terrorists and suffer the most from acts of terror.

When one of the failed London bombers was captured: he grovelled.

He mentioned human rights

‘I have human rights you know’

My first thought:

‘Human rights?

After attempting to murder people?

How dare you?

You’ve forfeited those through your actions’

A bit later I thought:

‘You do have human rights; because they are inalienable. You cannot take them away. Your scummy actions will not cause me to change my view on this, nor cause me to deny you your rights. The right to justice, a fair trial.

By not allowing your action to change my view on human rights, we can be seen to be carrying out justice. My instinct might be to put a bullet in your cowardly face* has the potential to cause another injustice, for all the world to see. People might cheer me on, but why create another martyr? Because we know that martyrdom, along with  Islamophobia, is a key recruiting tool.’

(* I wasn’t there incidentally. I just read about it)

You may carry out inhuman wrongs. You may choose this path. You may parade your ‘prisoners’ and demand ransom. We should have nothing to do with it.

The subsequent appeals, incidentally, failed. The way in which they were arrested, questioned and offered legal representation were found in the European Court of Human Rights were found to be exemplary. I’m sure it cost a lot of tax money to establish this. But better than the alternative, to waste the guy.

To actually bend the rules. To say – actually, because you are terrorists, we will deny you your human rights it’s a special case.

Because then you allow terrorists to dilute your commitment to human rights, to make you do bad things.

ISIS captives wear orange, in a parody of those held at Guantanamo Bay.

Guantanamo Bay is exactly what violent extremists had in mind. The perfect recruitment tool. Torture and humiliate your enemies, deny them rights.

Beware, too, the revenge stories told using the laser guided language of technology.

That you can ‘take people out’ with ‘targeted’ or ‘clinical’ or ‘precision’ strikes.

People live with people. Have you ever seen an explosion? You will frequently  get the people you want to kill, but not others.

You know how angry ‘we’ are because of the killing of innocents? That’s how angry other people get when you kill innocent people too. Even if they are unlucky enough to live in the same town as people belonging to this awful nihilistic, apocalyptic, ignorant, bullying, illogical, incoherent death cult.

It’s a category fail. Similar to the category fail that, in the minds of Isis which sees all people in Paris as a legitimate target. Be better.

I’ve heard it said we should close our borders.

Great. Maybe do that, maybe stop rock concerts too, because they are clearly a risk. Shut the borders, forget about human rights and stop people from traveling?

I don’t want to live in that place.

Mostly there’s not much we can do. And getting angry just makes it all much worse.

Learn about the conflicts around the world. Vote for people with integrity, look to build bridges. Be nicer to each other that before. Give some money to people fleeing violence who come from poor countries if you can afford it.

Choose life innit.