Terrible though the events of Black Friday were they were not so terrible that the rest of the world should simply wring its hands in despair and start making demands for revenge.
First things first: it was clearly an outrage that a young Tunisian man should gun down a host of innocent people on a beach for no other reason than they were "unbelievers". The same stricture applies to another young man who blew himself up in a Kuwait mosque to kill 25 worshippers who just happened to be from a sect that is not his own. Or to the delivery driver in France who decapitated another man in the name of jihad.
There is a common strand to all three crimes: they were committed in the name of the Islamic State, the rogue fundamentalist butchers who commemorated the arrival of Ramadan by appealing to Muslims to turn this holy time into a "month of disaster" for non-believers all over the world. Ever since IS came into being last year with its insane dreams of creating a global caliphate dominated by extreme tenets of Islam it has brought nothing but horror to the world. It has taken over vast swathes of the Middle East bringing with it a regime that is bigoted and fascistic and it operates in a fashion that is both immoral and criminal. It rapes, it enslaves, it tortures, it murders.
At the same time, perhaps because it promotes itself as being righteous and idealistic, IS has attracted to its ranks hordes of young Muslims many of whom feel disenfranchised from western culture and yearn to return to what they believe to be more basic values. The reality is somewhat different. IS has created nothing but a plague of terror and is little more than a vile parody of any true religion. Faced by that kind of nihilism all moderate Islamic clerics and religious leaders are trying to find a unified voice capable of resisting something that besmirches their own beliefs and traduces their young people.
The same holds true for the west which has not been entirely innocent in its dealings with the world of Islam as the invasion of Iraq in 2003 showed only too clearly. Confronted by the evil face of extremism with its decapitations and suicide bombs the response has been of the eye for an eye variety. So far the only reaction has been a bombing campaign which has not only failed to achieve any tangible results but may even have made things worse.
So, how does the world face up to the bloodstained philosophy of the Islamic State? It cannot be destroyed by outsiders and being realistic only a unified global response - including the muslim world - can bring it to an end even though that will take time and patience. A start could be made by trying to understand the dynamics of extreme Islam and by encouraging people of good will to combine in common cause against its worst tenets. Until then there will be more bloodstained beaches and more grieving victims.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article