In an age of high-tech deceit
On almost the same day as Israeli military forces attacked Lebanon and destroyed the 14th century Great Mosque of Khan Younis in Gaza, a knifeman attacked 14 young revellers, killing at least 3, at a Christian festival, celebrating ethnic diversity, in the West German town of Solingen. Within 24 hours it emerged the perpetrator was a 17-year-old asylum seeker who pledged allegiance to ISIS and sought revenge for the German government’s complicity in Israeli war crimes.
The total civilian death toll since 7th October 2023 now exceeds 40,000 and some estimates show that collateral damage to essential infrastructure may have caused 160,000 more deaths. In a parallel timeline, Hamas fighters broke through Israeli defences and killed 1139 military personnel and civilians and took over 100 hostages. Ever since there have been regular protests across the Western world against Israeli war crimes, with reports of attacks against Jewish communities such as the recent firebombing of a synagogue in the Southern French seaside town of La Grande Motte.
This comes only three weeks after riots following the stabbing of 11 young girls, with 3 fatalities, in Southport. Online rumours, labelled misinformation, circulated that the perpetrator was a Muslim asylum seeker, leading some angry local residents to protest outside the nearest mosque. It turns out the perpetrator grew up in Cardiff with Rwandan parents. The official narrative suggests he suffered from a mental illness. Sir Keir Starmer’s administration reacted by clamping down on the alleged far-right with a special focus on social media posts that may incite hatred. It turns out rumours about the Southport killer being a Muslim asylum seeker that spread from the Channel3Now network did not emanate, as initially reported on the BBC and Sky TV, from Russian sources or far-right organisations. The claim actually came from a Pakistani Web developer, Farhan Asi, whose motives may well have been to trigger revenge attacks in the full knowledge that the police would blame anti-Islam protesters. It’s not inconceivable that said operative could have been working for the British secret services, as I doubt normal Pakistanis, many with relatives in the UK, would want to see internecine warfare or more police repression. Western governments are quite happy to play a game of bait and switch between rival ethno-religious groups. The German government has recently arrested the publisher of the right-leaning Compact magazine for publishing official crime statistics as it may incite hatred against new ethnic minorities, while also apprehending leftwing activists, with many from new immigrant communities, for protesting peacefully against Israeli war crimes, under the pretext of antisemitism.
We now have four parallel narratives to explain the breakdown in peaceful coexistence:
- Extreme right-wingers are spreading misinformation to destabilise society.
- Radical Islamists want to eradicate infidels and destroy Judeo-Christianity.
- Israel, along with the Western ruling elites, wants to eradicate Palestinians and subjugate Muslims worldwide.
- We have an urgent mental health crisis among young males.
All narratives lead us in the same direction, towards a more tightly controlled and militarised society with more advanced surveillance, social engineering and censorship. Of course, the mainstream media is the prime source of fake news and the Palestinian/Israeli conflict is much more nuanced than just a straight battle between good and evil and must be viewed in the wider context of the growing concentration of power in Big Tech.
The last narrative may often seem a convenient cover for more sinister motives, but may also empower the state to expand its surveillance grid to every aspect of your private life. We could soon be required to carry a digital health app on our mobile device. Such a device may be as small as wristwatch or even just an embedded microchip. It could contain data not only of genuine medical conditions or vaccines, but also of any mental health conditions and required treatment. Ingestible sensor technology already exists to track your compliance with medication regimes. The spectre of kitchen-knife-wielding maniacs approaching children’s playgrounds could justify the installation of embedded microchip access control (EMAC) systems around all public spaces, either denying access to non-compliant individuals or immediately alerting the police of their presence. While many may welcome such measures to protect children against predators, administrations can abuse such innovations not only to limit medical freedom and privacy, but to track dissidents. Imagine not being allowed to enter your local pub or café because you have not taken your neuroleptic meds to suppress politically incorrect thoughts. This is no longer science fiction.
It hardly matters if some groups fear far-right racists, while others fear Muslim fundamentalists, Zionists, rabid antisemites or psychiatric patients on the loose. Whichever version of reality you choose to believe, more technocracy will be the solution. Once you’re trapped in the digital surveillance grid, your personal worldview is inconsequential to the powers-that-be, a mere character trait that may need medical attention.