Dear Terrorists

Dear Terrorists
I have to say I am not happy. Admittedly I am not normally jumping up and down like some demented puppy at your usual work but this time its got personal. Twice in one week you’ve launched attacks just around the corner from where my friends live, first in Abidjan, Ivory Coast and now in Istanbul. Of course there are a lot more people who are entitled to be far more annoyed with you than I am, after all, it’s not me who has to go to the morgue to see if there is anything left to recognise of my loved ones. However, I am still going to say my piece no matter how useless it may be.
It may surprise you but I understand your anger, I can’t go as far to say I know how you feel but you’ve got a lot of good reasons to feel well fucked off with the way things have been going in recent times. Also, my Turkish friends, who could just as easily have been smeared over a shop front on Istiklal Street understand your anger and probably better than me, as they have to live with a wannabe dictator for a president and know full well how their Kurdish friends have been treated. Don’t you think my Muslim and Christian friends in Grand Bassam, who could have been on that beach are unaware of the injustices committed against their brothers and sisters around the Islamic world? Do you think my Kurdish friends sitting in the rubble of Aleppo are clapping and cheering you on, as they wait to see if the world has truly forgotten about them? Do you know if you killed Muslims and Kurds in Abidjan, Istanbul and Ankara, do you even care? It’s not as if you went round with a questionnaire beforehand to check, is it?
In all your anger you seem to have overlooked how utterly pointless your actions are and how they will only bring more suffering down upon your people, mostly in the form of high explosives far more deadly than the ones you used. The first thing Erdogan did after the Ankara bombing, before declaring to the world who you were, was to get his airforce to drop more bombs on your families and friends. Do you think western governments suddenly realised that they ought to be implementing more meaningful development programs in West Africa or stop supporting all those dictators who oppress your people? No, they don’t give a flying fuck, they will only respond with more bombs and bullets, while banksters and their arms manufacturer clients will be chinking their champagne glasses in your memory. Every victim you create means another Muslim gets beaten to a pulp on a back street somewhere in Europe, another Kurd gets kicked and some retard in the US thinks that justice needs to be done at his local mosque with an assault rifle. All the while, comment sections on news web sites get clogged up with rabid bigotry from righteous patriots, their vicious invective daring your compatriots to do more of the same. If by some chance your victim’s families had the strength of will to see through their tears and anger and demand a response driven by understanding, in search of a resolution, the words would be smothered by the calls for war, more of the same idiocy that got us here in the first place.
If there is one glimmer of satisfaction it is that you are now burning in a hell, but not one of my design or a Christian design but one of Allah’s making, for you clearly know nothing of the faith you allegedly profess. As you’ve obviously not paid attention to the Qur’an and at best only listened to some selective misquotes by some amateur preacher, who never finished his theological studies, let me remind you of the first line in it: “in the name of Allah the most compassionate the most merciful”. Because Allah was quite keen on these things he decided to repeat it quite a few times throughout the Qur’an. Your forefathers also thought it was quite important, so much so that they wrote it above the entrances to mosques or above declarations they made and anywhere else that seemed important. This ought to give you a bit of context, so when you picked out one of your lines that you imagined justified your cretinous ideas, Allah would rather that you approached its meaning with some understanding of these concepts. But, don’t take my word for it, listen to all the great Islamic scholars and institutions that have said killing innocents is a big NO in the eyes of Allah. Even plenty of Saudi clerics have said it and if you can’t convince them you really have lost the plot. You might also like to read up on the example of your prophet Mohamed, remember him? He was actually quite fond of forgiveness and mercy, not because he was some kind of old hippy but he understood, just like Jesus, Buddha, Gandhi and other clever people, that they are the only routes to resolution in a conflict. Of course in the short-term many of your opponents wont get this point either but by breaking the cycle of violence it is your enemies who will have to answer for the morality of their actions. If you want to die for a noble cause, do it in a way that forces the enemy to recognise the nobility of your cause. Just make sure that the video of your heroic demise goes up on YouTube.
Dont think I am just putting all the pressure on you, like so many millions of us in the West we know our shit for brains politicians are just as guilty as you for poking the hornet’s nest. Believe me we are trying to do something about it, but in the meantime a bit of effort on your part wouldn’t go amiss and your fellow Kurds and Muslims will appreciate it as well.
I know this is all probably just pissing in the wind but being a tired old man there’s not much more in this world I can do to contribute but write these words. If there is any wisdom at all in these words it is because I learnt it by traveling and particularly to Muslim countries. It is in these places that I learnt for sure that you were wrong. From the shores of West Africa to the islands of Indonesia I’ve spoken to thousands of Muslims, rich and poor, young and old, foolish and wise but not a single one ever said even one simple word to give me a hint that they might agree with your methods. People will argue forever over lines in a holy book but what counts is what believers take them to mean, so I am going with all the Muslims I’ve met and not you. Maybe you should speak to them to.