PRIMATES ON THE LOOSE
‘By
comparison, chimpanzees at birth are neurologically and cognitively ahead of
human babies of the same age, but the chimps begin to fall behind by about six months
old because of the more rapid continued development of the human brain
following birth. With the exception of these differences, we are quite similar
to the African apes anatomically and genetically, especially to the chimpanzees
and bonobos. Humans have 46 chromosomes
in their cells while all of the great apes have 48. In reality, this difference is not as great
as it would initially seem because the human chromosome 2 is a fusion of ape
chromosomes 12 and 13 with most of the same genes.’
Last week I paid a short visit to the very dark side of
the Twitter-sphere, to the tweets of the Islamists, the would be Jihadist
warriors and big time haters, haters of all that we think of when we think of a
free and democratic society. Above all they hate secularism and the freedom to
reject religion. Those tweeting run on a spectrum from the bedsit fantasists,
the genuine Islamist fanatic, some of whom will make it to Iraq or Syria, and
the real sociopaths and psychopaths gripped by bloodlust and the desire for destruction.
There are of course elements of the latter in all three groups.
The tweets were mostly banal and puerile, little more
than name calling and the hurling of abuse, the language though was often
graphic and gloried in the suffering being inflicted by IS.
‘poor females when their heads will
be cut off, lolzzzz’
Tanveer turns out to be
a man, which confused me since glancing at the picture I assumed I was talking
to a woman, though the picture itself was ambiguous. His profile is as follows,-
‘engineering
student as well as a cricketer, interest in girls ,wanna know about video
editing ,aim for getting commission in pak army’
The profile seems out of
character with the tweets and the tone of the tweets. Even making allowances
for poor English the language felt infantile, playground banter rather than
shaped thoughts. [I have corrected a few errors]
‘We Muslims are doing whatever our lord commands , care
yourself coconut.’
‘To support His
followers is my Lord's command ,u btr care ur religion n city, else ur dead
body will b shown in #DABIQ5 lolz’
Bedroom fantasist?
Possibly though, though his desire to join the Pakistani army is as disturbing
as it is revealing.
However if you read the profiles of those British IS ‘jihadists’
recently killed in Iraq and Syria, as reported in the Daily Telegraph, there a striking similarities. To give just two
examples:-
‘Raised
in north London, he studied business administration at Hertfordshire University
in Hatfield where he was an enthusiastic member of the Hurricanes, the
university’s American football team, posting photos of himself wearing the team
kit on his Facebook page.’
‘Before travelling to Syria, Akram, who had a degree in
biomedical sciences degree, was working as an estate agent in London having
previously worked in Marks & Spencer, according to his LinkedIn profile.’
 |
| British Jihadis |
Should we be surprised
that young men who play American Football, study business administration or
biomedical science and take the trouble to create a LinkedIn profile should go
and fight for the kind of society IS seeks to create, committing hideous crimes
in the process? Depressingly I think we should not, indeed if the twentieth
century taught us anything it surely taught us something about the ubiquity
and, to use Hannah Arendt’s phrase, the ‘banality’ of evil.
The German
Einsatzgruppen murder squads, operating behind the front in Poland, Belorussia,
Ukraine and Russia systematically exterminated men women and children. These
killing squads consisted of butchers, bakers, and printers, led by those who
possessed higher qualifications, lawyers and doctors and civil servants. From
the occupied areas they found plenty of willing accomplices, perfectly ordinary
folk who up until that point had led perfectly mundane lives, but quickly became
willing butchers of their Jewish neighbors.[1]
 |
| The Butcher, the Baker, the Candlestick maker |
So be clear the nice
young man packing your groceries in Sainsbury’s may be more than capable of
committing mass murder and genocide,- the rape and mass enslavement of women
who just happen to belong to the wrong religious sect. This has nothing
whatsoever to do with race, as it happens the nice young man is good white boy
from a non-religious background, who chooses to convert to Islam, not, as Mark
Steyn points out for spiritual uplift, but because “it’s the coolest gang on
the planet,” and he’s bored and wants to be ‘someone.’ [2]
Jihad mandated by Islam is the key. Murder is just below the surface.
This is of course
extremely depressing, though we should not be surprised. We are primates who in
the great scheme of things have only just emerged from the primordial swamp.
The majority of our most basic instincts are often at odds with and poorly
equip us to live in, the kind of civilization we have constructed for ourselves. Bestial instincts lie within all of us, hunter gatherers who may
need to slaughter others for food or sex.
That said, and despite
our relatively primitive state, we have constructed a remarkable civilization,
one that has learned how to curb these instincts, it is a civilization
defending, worth saving. Additionally some of our most basic instincts also
equip us to protect this civilization, solidarity, compassion, tribal loyalty,
linked to intelligence can be potent weapons. Look no further than the Kurdish
community defending Kobane, to see a demonstration of this. For every head
chopping Neanderthal[3]
there are a dozen young women of the YPG fighting for human values such as
equality, freedom and the right to live peacefully in just communities.
"Haval," is their motto, which means "friendship" in the
Kurdish language.
 |
| Young Kurdish YPJ Resistance Fighter |
It’s as if we have just
woken up to find the primitive Mongol tribes living in our midst intent upon
our slaughter, and now we find ourselves in a fight.
The ideology that would
destroy us is Islamism, and Islamic extremism, as barbaric as Nazism, though
precisely because of its religious attire much more pernicious. Whilst the vast
majority of Muslims around the world are vehemently hostile to Al Quada and IS
they do have a problem since, "…the overwhelming weight of the problem
lies in the world of Islam, and much of it has its roots in the ideological
language of blood and war emanating from the Salafist movement within Islam,
globally backed by Saudi Arabia."[4]
This has to be confronted by Muslims themselves. As far as non-Muslims are
concerned we must speak plainly about these issues, no more obfuscation or
skirting around the issues. We owe it to the next generation and to ensure that
the primitive primates that we are continue to grow and develop.
POSTSCRIPT: Warning not
for the sensitive or easily offended.
I see that yet another
young British
man has died fighting for IS. With his death has come the predictable talk
about him being a good boy led astray, that he had been ‘radicalized’ or even
brainwashed. There is in this a combination of wishful thinking and denial,
that a young British man could go and commit crimes in a foreign country, of
which he probably knew little, can only be explained by his having been ‘abducted
by aliens.’
Nonsense, here are young
men who have made choices, choices governed by their religious faith, which
they, with considerable evidence to back them up, believed required that they
go take part in ‘jihad.’
The boy’s father said
that he had died a martyr’s death. No he didn’t he died the death of a young
mercenary thug who was complicit in the rape, murder or enslavement of poor
Christians and Yazidis, who never had anything like the life opportunities he
had. I for one am with the Kurdish defenders of Kobane who dropped him. One
less for them to bother about.
[1]
See Neighbours Jan T Gross, The Destruction of the Jewish Community in
Jedwabne, Poland, 1941. Arrow books 2003.
[2]
It seems that young British women recruited by IS have proved to be
particularly efficient and zealous members of the all-women al-Khanssaa
Brigade, the IS equivalent of female SS guards. “It is the British women who
have risen to the top of the Islamic State’s sharia police… Aspiring doctor
Aqsa Mahmood, 20, who fled her Glasgow home last November, is understood to be
part of the brigade.” See www.malaysia-chronicle.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=357582:isis-shocker-female-jihadis-running-brothels-allowing-killers-to-rape-kidnapped-yazidi-women&Itemid=4#ixzz3GwcLoHrW
[3]
I realise I am being unfair to Neanderthals.
[4]
My apologies but I have lost the citation for this quote. I am including it
anyway since I think it speaks to an essential truth.
