The news that 450 nice British lads are on their way back home after cutting a few throats in Syria is slightly ambivalent.
On the one hand it’s good to welcome back the sheep we feared were lost for ever, or at least our government thinks it’s good. On the other hand there’s this gnawing fear that they are more lupine than ovine. What if they haven’t got throat-cutting completely out of their systems? Doesn’t bear thinking about.
A few other things do, such as today’s useful information that there are 44 million Muslims in Europe already. If they were all gathered together in one country (may I suggest Belgium?), it would be the eighth most populous country in Europe – or seventh, if we finally accept that Russia is typologically more Asian than European.
One would think that this number is already more than adequate even on general principle, never mind the current context in which it’s inevitably being considered. Such a pernicious thought, however, wouldn’t be consonant with Jean-Claude Juncker’s ideas on the subject.
My friend Jean-Claude sees no reason to reconsider his stand on what he calls Europe’s ‘generosity’. That’s one way to describe it, but not the only one. ‘Death wish’ rolls off the tongue more naturally.
A duellist who hands over his pistol to the other chap so that he can have two goes at it may be described as generous at a stretch, but ‘suicidal’ sounds more apt.
Jean-Claude likes a drink, which is the only plausible explanation for his next statement. “There is no need to review the whole European refugee policy,” he said. There’s no link between our ‘generosity’ and the Paris carnage.
Not even a teensy-weensy link, mon ami (or is it mein Freund)? After all, two of the murderers were among the recipients of Jean-Claude’s ‘generosity’. They came to Europe armed not only with AKs and hand grenades but also with Syrian passports.
How many others? I don’t know, and neither does Jean-Claude, though we both realise that there must be many. The difference between us is that I don’t mind saying it, and he does.
That Europe has ever-accelerating suicidal tendencies has been known for at least 100 years, ever since those August guns opened up. But all of us hope that this collective madness will take a while to implode our lives. Our lifetime, as a minimum. Our children’s lifetime ideally.
Such hopes may well turn out to be forlorn. For the lunatics have taken over the asylum, and they are playing Russian roulette with an automatic.
One such unbalanced person is our venerable Home Secretary. All refugees, she said, will be so thoroughly checked by the United Nations that no terrorist will ever slip through.
I do realise that the UN, as its record shows so graphically, is a paragon of brutal efficiency. However, in spite of its sterling performance during – to name just one glaring example – the Yugoslavian wars, does Mrs May seriously think it’s possible to screen hundreds of thousands, possibly millions, of new arrivals?
Individually? So that not even a dozen terrorists would reach our shores? Really, Mrs May. One realises that attending all those cabinet meetings can give a girl a skewed view of humanity, but we aren’t all stupid, you know.
All this unfolds to the ever-present accompaniment of buzzing noises helpfully informing us that most Muslims aren’t terrorists. True, wrote a reader of mine. However, it just so happens that most terrorists are Muslims. I hope he doesn’t work for the BBC, where such witticisms are grounds for summary dismissal.
A man standing on a 10th floor ledge outside his window may be talked out of jumping to his death. Is there anyone out there to perform the same service for Europe? Not Theresa May. Not Dave. Not François. Not Angie. Not even – dare I say it – my friend Jean-Claude.
If history is anything to go by, then a gap thus left by our so-called democratic politicians, is likely to be filled by fascist, or at least fascistic, parties along the lines of France’s Front National or worse. This is a dangerous remedy that can be worse than the desperate disease.
The wicked concoction going by the name of the EU will fall apart sooner or later, and its house will lie in ruins. God only knows what kind of creepy-crawlies will creepy-crawl out of the rabble. The disintegration of an artificial construct always produces natural disasters.
Meanwhile, 450 murderous Muslim thugs, having quenched their bloodlust in Syria, are coming back home, to Britain. Will they be arrested on arrival? Have their passports revoked? Electronically tagged?
Not a chance. They’ll be admitted and sent on their way with mild admonishment, go and sin no more. But they will, you can count on it – with most of their young co-religionists jubilantly dancing in the streets.