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Dear
Friends,
Once again we have been plunged into panic (though it has
also occasioned more than a touch of cynicism in many quarters)
over apparent threats to life and limb on trans-Atlantic airliners.
The official response has been to place severe restrictions
on all air travel by making it virtually impossible to take
any hand-baggage on board - unless, that is, you subsequently
purchase your weapon of choice in a duty-free shop...
It is all too easy - and I appear to have fallen into the
trap already - to start sniping at the official response,
not least because the alleged plot was (supposedly, therefore)
foiled. No one died; no one was injured; not even by
the police. There - I've done it again...
Apparently, we now need to actually suffer severe casualties
before we can take a threat seriously.
But, in reality, even that is not enough; we have now had
9/11, the Madrid bombings, the Bali bomb, 7/7 and several
other major bombings before that. Just how much provocation
should we take before we, and our government and media, wake
up to the true nature of the threat that is posed - and posed
quite openly - by radicalised Islamic extremists ? Perhaps
we simply got used to periodic atrocities by the IRA over
thirty years; but at least we knew what the IRA wanted.
This new threat is more difficult to define; partly because
most of us don't understand radical Islam, and partly
because those who do simply don't want to believe what
our eyes and ears tell us. We cannot believe that our
country (or other Western countries) could seriously be targeted
to become an Islamic state; that we might one day be subject
to Sharia Law. But it will come to that, unless we develop
a backbone that we currently show no signs of finding.
The dilemma is this: we pride ourselves - and quite rightly
- on our upholding of all human rights; on upholding the human
rights even of those who are sworn to remove those rights
by violence. How long can we hold this line ?
It is in itself a moral teaser, but the likelihood of finding
an answer is made infinitely more difficult by all those who
insist on their `right` to virtually complete freedom
of action despite the perceived terrorist threat - i.e.
"nothing must spoil my flight / my airline's right
to make a profit". The very same people will be
screaming blue murder at the same government when a bomb does
go off.
The extremists can only laugh, because they know that all
this simply aids their cause - it points to that very moral
vacuity that they so despise in Western culture. They
believe that they can simply divide and conquer - and all
in the name of God, so it does not matter to them how many
die in the process, because that must be God's will (especially
if the dead are non-Muslims). Then we will see an end
to the anarchy in our cities and among the young. But
at what cost, and who will survive to see it ?
A chilling start to autumn ? Maybe. Sobering ?
I hope so. The only real answer is prayer. Our
answers have failed, so we need to find God's. The
God of love - not hate.
William
Lang.
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