The news this week has really, really annoyed me. As part of our blame culture, it seems that terrorist activities are our fault.
Starting this week was the news that the three British high school students (all girls) had left Turkey and entered Syria to join the medieval Islamic State. Clearly they weren’t happy with the 21st century and would much rather live with little sanitation, chained to a sink and popping out more little Moslems to blow a few more of us up. Weird.
You’d think that the people to blame for this strange decision would be the Islamic State recruiters who somehow convinced them to give up freedom for servitude. Or, if you’re like me, you’d think it was the fault of a religion that, like all religions, should have died at birth.
But, no, it wasn’t their fault.
Firstly, the parents deflected any blame saying they weren’t brainwashed at home, completely ignoring any religious brainwashing from birth. Next the blame went to their high school. The Headmaster went on air to say it didn’t happen there because they took that sort of thing very seriously.
Finally, the newspapers decided it was the fault of social media, primarily Twitter. Apparently the people who monitor tweets should stop this sort of thing happening. If this is true, I’m surprised Twitter doesn’t stop all terrorism in the world. Clearly they have the power.
Then there was a survey into how Moslems think they are viewed by the general British public. Half of those surveyed felt that they were generally mistrusted by most people.
I despair. I really do. Why are people so easily led and why is happiness such a bad thing?
