MERVILLE’S DANGEROUS LIFE IN MIDDLE EAST
42 men, women and children with a smile on his face as they stood in a queue at a bank in the eastern city of Jalalabad.
“Up until he launched his attack, he had worked in a quarry. I asked him how old he was and he didn’t know, maybe 16, maybe 18.
“He was just one of an endless supply of angry, under-educated and easily manipulated young men who are fed into the war machine. He had no regrets and was hanged for his crime.
“That was a defining moment in my life and in my career as a journalist as I knew then and there that the war was unwinnable.”
He added: “We must also remember that victims exist on both sides of war. The ‘bad’ people can be victims too.
“Imagine a sudden death in your family. If they died from a knife attack in Scotland or a bomb in Kabul, it makes no difference. The violence in an Iraqi street happens on someone’s doorstep. It’s domestic.
“How do you go from being someone who happily breaks rocks in a quarry for a living to the person who laughs his head off as he shoots women and children dead as they wait in a queue at the bank?
“It’s important to have these questions. There are scores of Zara Ajams out there, willing to kill and maim but how do you stop it over there? How do you stop it on your own doorstep?
“We need to educate and to understand. We must look at it in all of its horror.
“I’ve seen lots of fierce battles which resemble scenes from Apocalypse Now but it’s the moments of human connection that matter.”
Quentin is gearing up to give a TEDx