Sandals or Nikes

Bit of a strange day today.

I woke up to prepare for College. Breakfast is an important meal kids. Your metabolism is very high in the mornings, so anything you eat is fair game. Seize the opportunity to pig out while you can.

Whilst watching BBC News 24, i heard that a boy of 5 had been abducted in Pakistan. The kidnappers were demanding £100,000. As a parent, you seem to instantly zap yourself into the shoes of the parents. Ever seen that Arnie film, Commando? Someone abducts Schwarzy's kid and you'd better believe he does not take it lying down. Grenades and guns feature quite heavily in his revenge plan, and he puts them to good use.

Well, if that happened to me, i think i'd do an Arnie as well. If i was not sedated, i would kit myself out for war in such a fashion as to make John Rambo look like an army cadet. Then i'd walk right up to wherever those people were, and that would be the end of them. Simples.

So here's where i enter dodgy ground. Ready?

Thing is, and i know i'm not alone with this view, but i also know the more liberal, left-wing people i know will go nuts with this, is that in some corners of this planet people are
just
not
civilised.

Before there's any confusion here, let me just explain. The world is a beautiful place, and part of its beauty lies in its diversity. Do what you please, it really is up to you. If you're not hurting anyone, fill your boots. I don't get Morris Dancing, but they're not hurting anybody so i'm not about to launch a facebook campaign to ban Morris Dancing. I don't get stamp collecting either. Or crochet. I don't see the fuss with football, it annoys me because of the huge amounts of money involved, but in a way i admire those people that stick by their teams whether they're Premiership or Division 4. Loyalty is admirable.

Where people go wrong, and where a whole lot of trouble comes from, is religion. I'd like to say, believe what you like, you're not hurting anyone. But religious beliefs do hurt people, and the worst offenders for this are extremist Muslims. Notice i didn't say Muslims, i said extremist Muslims. Extremist Christians are fine, because they drive Morris Minors with the wooden frames and bake cakes for church raffles. That's fine. If an extremist Christian slaughtered a film-maker who dared make a film that slightly insults God, i'd be fearful and critical of them too but it hasn't yet. It did happen in the Netherlands though. A film-maker was murdered for making a film that slightly insulted Allah, so an extremist Muslim killed him in the street. Let's not even talk about that whole Danish cartoon fiasco. There's such a thing as taking yourself too seriously.

To me - and i may be alone here - civilised people don't murder someone they don't know just because they said something derisory about someone who may or may not have existed. To me, that isn't civilsed, it's barbaric. These people need to grow the fuck up. No not everyone else believes what you do, get used to it. You believe in a fairy tale, forgive me if i don't want to. You're prepared to kill for yours, i can't imagine anything more ridiculous than slaughtering someone for saying Snow White didn't exist, but its pretty much the same thing.

I look at the footage on the news of Iraq and Afghanistan and all i can think is there's a lack of civility there. I don't want the world to be Americanised, but i'd like it to be half sensible.

So while i stroll around all pissed off because some poor kid who doesn't know what's going on is being held by a bunch of CUNTS with an agenda, i hear of Jon Venables' return to prison.

Venables was one half of the pair that murdered Jamie Bulger in 1993. I was 17 then, and was certainly not a parent, but even way back then i was deeply saddened at that event despite me being an angry teen oozing with angst.

I'm currently studying to pass an Access to Higher Education course which will enable me to go on to University where i will study for a degree in Psychology. Human behaviour is fascinating and i have an interest in things like regression and influence. I remember talking to my Mother about it and she said to me in her wise and Motherly way, "While you're studying this psychology stuff, and while you're learning how people's minds work, just remember that some people in this world are just plain evil."

Bless her. She's a Christian you know, but i don't think she plans to blow up any planes just yet so she's not an extremist. Thing is, she kind of got me thinking. Where is the line that splits it all up? Free will, influence, cries for help, not knowing any better, the dividing line between what's right and wrong and the ability to recognise it.

Were Venables and Thompson evil? Some say yes. Did they just not know any better? Some say that's ridiculous.

All i know is i don't have the answer. I don't know what to tell you. Would psychologically analysing them do any good? It certainly wouldn't bring Jamie Bulger back to life.
All i do know is that all my anger earlier today about a lack of civility in Pakistan and the Middle East, and at the end of the day i find the same thing on my door step in Britain. In fact it's worse here. Here we kill our kids for amusement, at least in Pakistan they're trying to get some money out of it.

So right now, i'm taking religion out of the question and all my prejudice with it. This country, for all its technological advances and back slapping, scratching and stabbing, is no better than any other. Whether you're wearing sandals or Nikes, you're capable of the same 'evil' as the next man. In my own kind of way i'm saying we're one world and one people. But after the two news items today, i'm not so sure that's a thing to be proud of.