Peter McKay
PRINCE Feisal (Alec Guinness) tells Lawrence of Arabia (Peter o’Toole) in the eponymous 1962 movie epic: ‘Young men make wars, and the virtues of war are the virtues of young men — courage and hope for the future.
‘Then old men make the peace, and the vices of peace are the vices of old men — mistrust and caution. It must be so.’
now young British men — ‘jihadists’ — are heading for Iraq and Syria. Will they return to bomb, shoot or otherwise punish their fellow citizens for our Government’s actions, or inaction, respectively, in Iraq and Syria?
on a better-to-be-safe-than-sorry basis, we tend to assume the worst. So more resources will be demanded ( and received) by the security establishment.
But are our fears over returning jihadists exaggerated?
If rival muslim sects are at war abroad, what’s to stop them fighting in their UK home?
In Iraq, the battle is being waged by Sunni insurgents against Shia rulers empowered by our defenestration of Saddam Hussein.
We have a total muslim population of about 2.8 million. only five per cent are Shia. The rest are Sunni.
Presumably both Sunni and Shia jihadists have left the UK to fight. could they target each other on their return?
Perhaps, but the percentage of UK muslims volunteering for jihadism abroad is tiny. So is support for them in the muslim community.
The youngsters who volunteer are the exception, not the rule. And they’re not stupid, as we might prefer to suppose.
Gap-year student nasser muthan, 20, was offered places to study medicine by four universities. Instead, he and his 17-year- old brother joined the ISIS insurgency group in Syria.
A former pupil at cathays High School, cardiff, where he attained 13 GcSes, with 12 at grade A, or A*, muthana appears in a video urging British muslims to join the cause.
He boasts of fighting in Syria and heading for Iraq, claiming he’ll go anywhere the ISIS leader, Sheik Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, wants to send him — including the UK, presumably — declaring: ‘Send us, we are your sharp arrows. Throw us at your enemies, wherever they may be.’
At 20, young men live to fight for causes. The rest sublimate their aggression via football, cricket and other sports, even if it’s only as spectators.
ACENTURY ago, young men from the UK went off to fight the Germans in France, some in battalions made up of pals. World War I was later justified — like World War II — as a means of escaping German tyranny.
The politics meant little to the young men who volunteered. They were keen on the fight, even after they’d experienced the rat-infested mud, sudden death and body-shattering carnage of shelling in the trenches.
‘Promise them a regular hell of a time in France and you can’t please them better,’ wrote captain charlie may ( B company, 22nd manchester Service Battalion, the ‘7th city Pals’), killed in the battle of the Somme, in his newlypublished diary.
‘Their keenness to go is marvellous and I trust it will hold when they get there. They are topping fellows and I do hope we can bring the most of them back with us . . .’
most people would say that the Great War was a noble cause, aimed at defending democracy and human freedom, whereas fighting in Syria and Iraq are lowly, chaotic struggles to replace one brand of despotism with another.
But I might not think so if I were a muslim here — even one who abhors the thought of young jihadist volunteers from the UK.
They reject jihadism on a practical basis, but understand what motivates the young people who volunteer. But where are Prince Feisal’s ‘old men who make the peace’ to put an end to the jihadist nonsense this time?