Slave to fear

Oh how the rabble rousers love a good scrap.

Actually they they love the idea of a good fight as long as they get to watch without participation.

So many children around the world end up with a bloody nose after being suckered into thinking that they can take down the big guy. They have watched karaté films and secretly imagine themselves spinning and chopping like Bruce Lee or Jackie Chan as a gasping crowd of their peers stand in open mouthed wonderment at this sudden prowess.

I have both watched and been involved in the half hearted schoolboy fight with two lacklustre combatants circling each other while a baying mob screams for blood like the audience of a cock fight. There is seldom a winner in these situations, it usually fizzles out with a mumbled departure and a dissatisfied crowd voicing their disgust at the lack of action.

In July of 1298, bolstered by his resounding victory at Stirling bridge the previous year, William Wallace decided to engage the English near a town midway between Edinburgh and Glasgow. Truthfully it was the other way round, King Edward had heard that he was going to be attacked while camped in Edinburgh 13 miles away and took the initiative.

It didn’t go well, the vastly outnumbered Scots gamely fought for a time but quickly abandoned the field and retreated. Local tradition recorded that there there were a good number of locals who came to watch the battle. In the 650 years that have slipped away little has changed. As the battle against IS commenced on the Turkish border a good natured group of men took up positions with their lunches laughing and joking as the gunfire and artillery resounded just over the border.

There are many things that can spark the tinder of unrest into full scale conflict; in spite of popular opinion religion is almost never the true reason. Yes that may be the public perception because the radicalised soldier sells better than calling them murderous youths craving blood and glory for a power hungry leader. Having them utter some psuedo religious oath or statement makes for a much better enemy than just plain barbarism, which is closer to the truth.

I remember the fear of an impending conflict; as a boy wars didn’t register much on my fear scale, but having the thought of an imminent confrontation certainly did. Those final moments before you would be faced with a foe and the knowledge that a crowd would gather like a swarm to goad and yell. That was my last fight; I was 15 and decided that it wasn’t worth the effort, I stood there in silence as he circled me jabbing at my head. I never lifted my hands at all, I just looked at him and could see the futility of it all; I just walked away, not upset, afraid or ashamed, just free!

Yesterday two pilots made a decision that cost one of them his life.

Today the rabble rousers are out, the pundits are speculating and fear is rising in the hearts of ordinary people. Two presidents will decide whether to engage and potentially escalate or talk and diffuse, we won’t know which way it will go until later.

The one thing that I do know however is that no pundit, paper, website, retired general or journalist is going to put fear into my heart.

I am no longer a slave to fear.