Opinion

The West has helped make the Middle East less stable

People, some displaying a Tunisian flag, stand in silence next to flowers during a gathering at the scene of Friday's attack in Sousse, Tunisia
People, some displaying a Tunisian flag, stand in silence next to flowers during a gathering at the scene of Friday's attack in Sousse, Tunisia People, some displaying a Tunisian flag, stand in silence next to flowers during a gathering at the scene of Friday's attack in Sousse, Tunisia

HAVING not yet booked a holiday I was trawling through the internet looking at my options. Amongst my top preferences were Morocco, Tunisia and Jordan.

Being a frequent visitor to the Arabian peninsula I am fascinated with Arab culture. The prospect of adding sun into the mix of rich history and fabulous food was very tempting.

Then came the awful news from Tunisia that 38 people were brutally murdered in broad daylight on a beach by an Islamic extremist.

Coming from Northern Ireland one becomes somewhat case-hardened against acts of terrorism.

We proceeded with a holiday to Egypt less than a week after the massacre of 62 tourists at the temples in Luxor. In fact we went to Luxor amidst high security.

On July 7 2005, I was making my way to Aldgate in London when terror attacks thwarted my plans. Four days later I made exactly the same journey.

Growing up in the north amidst the Troubles one gets used to the fatalism of accepting what comes each day. Age has made me more cautious. Terrorist acts are always random and unpredictable, as the IRA infamously and chillingly reminded Mrs Thatcher after the Brighton Bombing in 1984: "Today we were unlucky. We only have to be lucky once. You have to be lucky always."

The revisionist narrative of the IRA is that they never intended to kill civilians in any mass action and any such incidents were mistakes or simple collateral damage during a war. The legacy of events such as Bloody Friday, Enniskillen, La Mon, Birmingham, Warrington and Manchester says otherwise.

Over four days in November 1978, the IRA set off over 50 bombs throughout Northern Ireland. Loyalist paramilitaries were even less discriminating, often randomly selecting any Catholic, anywhere.

We will probably never know how many horrific events were allowed to progress because of British State collusion with both loyalist and republican paramilitaries.

These days its nearly impossible to recall what it was like to go to work, school or a simple night at the cinema not knowing if there would be a bomb, shooting or hijacking.

That's what terrorism does. It creates an air of mistrust, uncertainty and fear. The notion that there were good and bad terrorists or justified and unjustified acts of terrorism is a fanciful myth created to make it easier to dine with the protagonists when a conflict ends or fizzles out.

Politicians and diplomats rarely suffer from indigestion caused by their choice of company for dinner as the whiff of sulphur has a voyeuristic attraction for some.

Today, fanatical Islamic militants are creating much of the international fear caused by terrorism. And it is not just the random nature of their actions that is frightening but the cold hearted savagery and brutality of acts such as beheadings, setting prisoners on fire, throwing captives from roofs, slavery and the rape of young women.

The grooming and radicalisation of young Muslim men and women to leave their homes to fight as jihadists or become suicide bombers is truly disturbing as it is devastating for the families they leave behind.

There is a real challenge for the fragmented political and religious leadership of the Muslim world to tackle Islamic fanaticism within their own countries and the West.

The warped medieval mentality of Isis was not licked off the ground. It was funded and encouraged by malevolent and sinister individuals from within the wider Islamic community.

The West does not have clean hands in the growth of Isis either. The crazy policies pursued in Iraq, Libya and Syria by Western governments has created a political vacuum in these countries that Isis and other fanatical organisations have been only too willing to take advantage of and cultivate.

Former US president Richard Nixon in his farewell address said that "we made friends with the Arab world because we did not want to see the cradle of civilization become its grave".

The reality is far from that, as successive interventions by the US, Britain, France and Russia has made the Middle East less stable, not more stable. Far from being the cradle of civilization the Levant and the Middle East is becoming a cockpit of inhumanity.

Arab leaders from the Gulf States would do well to re-read the Prophet's letter to the Monks at St Catherine's Monastery on Mount Sinai in 628 where he promised basic human rights such freedom of worship, movement, protection of Christians, women and property.

A bit of Islamic revisionism wouldn't go amiss right now.