Feb 06, 2012 22:43
All this may indeed be true. Choudary, very likely, is a ridiculous oaf. And many of the home grown Islamist cells now plotting 7/7-style outrages may indeed be made up of the kind of risible incompetents mocked in the Spectator by Rod Liddle and lampooned in the funny, pretend-brave but issue-ducking cop-out movie Four Lions.
But I wonder if this Islamist-terrorists-are-a-joke meme doesn't play into the enemy's hands. Sure, it can sometimes make sense to defang the opposition by diminishing them through ridicule - Hitler has only got one ball, etc - but this smacks to me more like a case of denial and perhaps of moral cowardice. We'd rather not face up to the full political and social implications of the home grown Islamist terror threat, so instead we tell ourselves it's all a bit of a laugh, nothing to get too worked up about.
Those bombs, though, had they gone off would have torn through the flesh of real people, ripping off limbs, tearing apart families, causing untold fear and misery. I doubt any of the victims would have been much consoled to learn that the people responsible were a joke.
тероризм,
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