Isis - the gates of no return

Peoples in Western Asia (a non euro-centric name for the Middle East) struggle for self-determination in the face of dictatorships supported by the West, and their recourse is to radical Islam, along with its repressive policies against women and freedom of thought. The moribund policies of the West remain transparently clear to young Muslims. Breaking the Geneva Convention to make young ISIS volunteers stateless will bring a bitter harvest.

Many doors are closing: the doors for young ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) recruits to return to their home countries or even to face a court; the doors of 'normality' in the West, and the doors to peace, especially in Western Asia. The Arab Spring died as brutal governments in the region were supported by the West, and we can now include Israel in that poisonous partnership where the holocaust unleashed on Gaza is recruiting a new generation of Islamic and Palestinian militants. Initiatives like the confederalist Autonomous Administration in Syria exist on a razor's edge between Erdogan's repression of the Kurds and the policies of Western countries in the region.

While some Western governments are slowly thinking of apologies for the years of slavery, or returning looted treasures to Greece or Egypt, the cauldron boiling across the Mediterranean is ignored. And the rule of law is gradually being flouted by the countries who imagine themselves as the peak of civilisation: it is illegal under the Geneva Convention to make a person stateless, and war crimes are committed with impunity in Gaza.

As Benedetta Argentieri commented to The Prisma:"I was lucky to have a happy childhood and youth and I don't think it will ever come back for young people now; we live in a perennial crisis".

This article was originally published in The Prisma Multicultural Newspaper, where it can be read in full with links and images, here: https://theprisma.co.uk/2023/12/11/isis-the-gates-of-no-return/