Civilisation just a very thin veneer
Widdecombe
THE story of the three girls who have gone to Syria in pursuit of jihad is indeed shocking. These are three very bright students who had a sound future ahead of them but have chosen instead to cut themselves off from their families and friends in order to support barbarians.
Whatever else one might plead in mitigation, nobody can say that they did not know the nature of jihad in that part of the world. For a very long time now we have been subjected to pictures of hostages being beheaded, people being crucified and most recently the horrifying spectacle of somebody being burned alive in a cage.
The actual moment of these deaths has not been shown in the civilised world but a little imagination takes you a horribly long way.
How could anybody not shudder? How could not every bone in every civilised body be other than chilled to its marrow? Yet still these girls went. One day they were studying the likes of Jane Austen and the next embracing savagery.
They have less excuse even than the Nazis of 1930s Germany for the horror of the Holocaust was yet to happen but these girls know the horrors of Jihadi John right now and have gone to Syria with their eyes wide open.
How pathetically thin is the veneer of civilisation. To realise how thin we need not confine our gaze to extremist Islam but can switch it to social media, where Nick Robinson has been taunted about having cancer and people are trolled and bullied on a daily basis. The brother of Karen Danczuk, whom she has accused of child abuse, cowers in his home while people outside throw missiles and call out hate. He has not yet been charged with anything but why let innocent until proved guilty get in the way of a good witch hunt?
The Twitter trolls who rejoice in a man’s cancer are no better than the crowds which used to gather to rejoice in public hangings. The crowd outside Danczuk’s brother’s home is no better than the lynch mobs of yesteryear.
Underneath its art and literature, its promenade concerts and fine dining, its science and medicine, too much of Britain is no more civilised than it was under Boudicca. THE NHS is stretched to the limit. To propose therefore that healthy gay men should be given a drug which helps to prevent them getting HIV after unprotected sex is utter lunacy. The cost is estimated at £ 5,000 per year per person. Whether homosexual or heterosexual, safe sex is a personal responsibility and is the duty of the individual not the state.