Recent developments in Northern Iraq have been very sobering. For the record, I did not vote for Labour in 1997 and I most certainly did not support the decision of Tony Blair to invade Iraq. Still, in the words of modern jargon, "we are where we are". We can't turn back the clock and we must now reap the consequences of that appalling decision.
People being upset I can understand. I'd be pretty upset if a foreign country invaded my country, killed innocent civilians, called the shots for a while and then just left when it suited them. When I heard reports of militant forces issuing ultimatums to captured civilians like "convert to Islam or die", I wondered how far any of us have come since the Middle Ages? Occasionally, I have written about my faith in the context of how it guides me in my everyday life. It is not a subject which I feel very comfortable writing about. Not because I don't profess a faith but because my faith is something very personal to me. I have scores of friends who profess no faith and have the utmost respect for all of them. We must all have the freedom to choose faith on our own terms - or not as the case may be. It is abhorrent to dictate my faith to anyone else - that is a matter for them and rightly so.
The developing situation in Iraq should surprise nobody though. This is what happens when a foreign force like ours takes it upon itself to try and take control. It has never worked and will never work. Any history book tells us this and yet still we persist with this insane approach expecting a different outcome. The UK and the USA have both had ample experience of this to know better. The people of those countries also deserve more mature leadership. Just as few people over here supported Blair when he took it upon himself to go in to Iraq, I know that the majority of Americans did not support Bush. So what did we all do to deserve such pathetic leadership?
For a start, we either didn't bother to vote or we did vote. A majority of those who did vote, voted for Blair and Bush to come to power. This proves just what a big deal voting is. Get it right and we get a moderate country seeing to it's own business and acting with good grace and compassion in the wider world. Get it wrong and we get megalomaniac monsters like Blair. This does not forgive the recent actions of the militant forces in Northern Iraq but it provides a more clear insight as to who poured the petrol to sustain the bonfire of their extremist views. We did.
Mr. Cameron has been quite right to warn of the threat to the UK. As Isaac Newton observed, "to every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction". So too it is in life. The laws of physics often provide a valuable logic for our everyday lives. We know that a great many British men have gone to fight in Syria and Iraq. They have sympathy for the cause of the militants and we need to try and understand why that is. While we would all prefer that they weren't there, the truth is that they are. In time, some of these men will return to the UK and it's reasonable to predict what their mindset will be. For all that, Cameron is quite right distance the UK from any return to the disastrous ground offences of Blair. At least we can get that right.
But back to the mantra of the militants for a moment though. "Convert to Islam or die" is arguably a variation on the "My way or the high way" attitude which still pervades huge swathes of management structure in the UK. It is often easier to be condemnatory of others but usually rather more difficult to see the fault in ourselves. Local government and other agencies in the UK continue to be run by this type of Stalinist intransigence. It is stifling, counter-productive, divisive and it alienates people. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
History has been littered with great people of faith. In recent decades, we have seen some extraordinary examples each of whom have let their words and actions do the talking. Gandhi, Martin Luther-King, Nelson Mandela and Aung San Suu Kyi to name but a few. Mandela once wrote, "until I changed myself, I could not change others". Aung San Suu Kyi has leaned very heavily on her Buddhist faith. Gandhi was a devout Hindu and Luther-King a preacher. So, we can have faith without feeling the need to demand it of everyone around us. It's ok to just be comfortable with ourselves whether or not we have a faith. It's definitely not ok to make people choose between our faith and living.
People being upset I can understand. I'd be pretty upset if a foreign country invaded my country, killed innocent civilians, called the shots for a while and then just left when it suited them. When I heard reports of militant forces issuing ultimatums to captured civilians like "convert to Islam or die", I wondered how far any of us have come since the Middle Ages? Occasionally, I have written about my faith in the context of how it guides me in my everyday life. It is not a subject which I feel very comfortable writing about. Not because I don't profess a faith but because my faith is something very personal to me. I have scores of friends who profess no faith and have the utmost respect for all of them. We must all have the freedom to choose faith on our own terms - or not as the case may be. It is abhorrent to dictate my faith to anyone else - that is a matter for them and rightly so.
The developing situation in Iraq should surprise nobody though. This is what happens when a foreign force like ours takes it upon itself to try and take control. It has never worked and will never work. Any history book tells us this and yet still we persist with this insane approach expecting a different outcome. The UK and the USA have both had ample experience of this to know better. The people of those countries also deserve more mature leadership. Just as few people over here supported Blair when he took it upon himself to go in to Iraq, I know that the majority of Americans did not support Bush. So what did we all do to deserve such pathetic leadership?
For a start, we either didn't bother to vote or we did vote. A majority of those who did vote, voted for Blair and Bush to come to power. This proves just what a big deal voting is. Get it right and we get a moderate country seeing to it's own business and acting with good grace and compassion in the wider world. Get it wrong and we get megalomaniac monsters like Blair. This does not forgive the recent actions of the militant forces in Northern Iraq but it provides a more clear insight as to who poured the petrol to sustain the bonfire of their extremist views. We did.
Mr. Cameron has been quite right to warn of the threat to the UK. As Isaac Newton observed, "to every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction". So too it is in life. The laws of physics often provide a valuable logic for our everyday lives. We know that a great many British men have gone to fight in Syria and Iraq. They have sympathy for the cause of the militants and we need to try and understand why that is. While we would all prefer that they weren't there, the truth is that they are. In time, some of these men will return to the UK and it's reasonable to predict what their mindset will be. For all that, Cameron is quite right distance the UK from any return to the disastrous ground offences of Blair. At least we can get that right.
But back to the mantra of the militants for a moment though. "Convert to Islam or die" is arguably a variation on the "My way or the high way" attitude which still pervades huge swathes of management structure in the UK. It is often easier to be condemnatory of others but usually rather more difficult to see the fault in ourselves. Local government and other agencies in the UK continue to be run by this type of Stalinist intransigence. It is stifling, counter-productive, divisive and it alienates people. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
History has been littered with great people of faith. In recent decades, we have seen some extraordinary examples each of whom have let their words and actions do the talking. Gandhi, Martin Luther-King, Nelson Mandela and Aung San Suu Kyi to name but a few. Mandela once wrote, "until I changed myself, I could not change others". Aung San Suu Kyi has leaned very heavily on her Buddhist faith. Gandhi was a devout Hindu and Luther-King a preacher. So, we can have faith without feeling the need to demand it of everyone around us. It's ok to just be comfortable with ourselves whether or not we have a faith. It's definitely not ok to make people choose between our faith and living.
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