The world has become a far more violent place than I remember. Growing up in the 70s, it was not uncommon to hear of a bomb attack in Ireland or mainland Britain. But then a terrorist would do his work on the basis that he wanted to escape. Today, many terrorists see death as martyrdom – in their eyes, a good thing. Of course, there have been many, many atrocities over the years: Rwanda, Bosnia, Vietnam, to name but a tragically small few of the awful catalogue of human catastrophes. Now, we are confronted with Syria, Palestine, Iraq, Ukraine.
I would not pretend to even begin to understand the emotions that create the atrocities we have seen. Whilst I can read briefing notes of what is going on, garner information from news reports, and speak with people who are close to what is happening, it cannot come close to understanding what belief system an individual has that can lead him to blow himself up in the name of his (or her) cause.
It was a year ago that we had a recall of parliament to vote on preparing ourselves to intervene on humanitarian means in Syria. I voted in favour, but that vote was lost and the situation in Syria has worsened inexorably (although the two events aren’t necessarily linked). Were there to be a vote today on the same basis as a year ago, I would vote the same way – to intervene on a humanitarian basis. But were there to be a vote on regime change, I would vote against it unless there were overwhelming humanitarian reasons to do so.
But these atrocities have breached even the level I had thought unpassable. The image of a man kneeling before a black clad terrorist – murderer – waiting to have his head hacked from his body is something that I find truly and utterly desperate. That the black clad individual appears to be British is simply ghastly. The reality is that this round of atrocities seems to be an escalation of something that at the time seemed rather remote to something that has passed the 9/11 attacks to something that is happening on both on our streets last year with Drummer Lee Rigby, and by people from our communities.
Protecting our communities is the first job of a government. But it is becoming increasingly complicated to do so when the enemy appears invisible.