On real life terror plots and Spooks/MI-5 the TV show...

We don't have a TV. Although I grew up with TV and I watched tons of TV, I don't really want my kids to sit around dinner table just starring at the TV while eating dinner. There's more quality time for the family when there's no TV distraction. Still, from time to time, I would still enjoy a TV show and two.

Earlier this year, I discovered MI-5 (aka Spooks) on netflix. I like the plots, and the production is good and serious. But I normally watch it much like any other TV shows, which is that, it's just a TV show with made-up plots.

And then, real-life news broke, that MI-5 and British police had successfully convicted (on firsts trial and re-trial), 3 local British Muslims who plotted to blow up airliners and cause chaos and mayhem. The most scary part is, the surveillance, plots, arrests, etc, all sound like they came right out of the scripts for Spooks. There's an element of surrealism, of life imitating art.

I have never had real exposure to the plights of the Muslims in those countries in Middle East that have inspired so many young minds (even the highly educated ones like doctors) would crossover to the fundamentalists that advocate maim and killings. There's always been complaints about the sanitized versions of news events in main media. I do not doubt for one moment that those in dire needs are all but forgotten by the media, who drops them from their radar as yesterday's news, and forever chases the flavor-of-the-day. Why these young people decide that violence is the only solution to help is something beyond me, though.

In the decades past, there's the arctic bear of the Russia as the foe of democracy in the Cold War days. Those were dangerous times, no doubt; but at least the Russians were cold, calculating, and mostly rational minds that the West could play mind games (and even dangerous war games) with. The dangerous new world with the Muslim fundamentalists is a whole new ball game.

I'm normally friendly to all ethnicity, and open-minded in listening and discussing issues with others, I sometimes wonder, when bright, intelligent minds have followed each others to convert to fundamentalism and violence, how could one be sure that the ones that we're talking to today is not going to be a mass murderer tomorrow? For all that matters, they could turn around tomorrow and decide that I stand in their way of seeking justice, in the eyes of their Allah, and should need to be annihilated. While that thought might sound dramatic, it was never too far from my conscience. Not that I would treat them any differently (since I do not subscribe to discrimination), I sometimes wonder if befriending an otherwise friendly Muslim is going to somehow turn my life to a TV show one day, when s/he becomes object of interest in some terrorist plot.

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That thought was never very far from me when I come to think of an ex-colleague of mine. He's born in mid-east, but has been a German citizen for a very long time. He got his degree and was looking for a break in jobs in US since unemployment in Germany was (and still is) so high. He told me it's next to impossible for him to get a job or advance in career in business in Germany. Through his relatives, he landed an unpaid internship at the previous company I worked for. I would have to admit that he doesn't have enough business or common sense at times to pick up projects, or sometimes even simple tasks. Slowly but surely, he was sidelined. The CEO just wanted him to leave on his own accord, since the company would not sponsor his green card application. After a little over a year, he had to go back to Germany.

During his last year of stay, I rented him my second home. While he's a fairly decent tenant (payment on time, never made a fuss or noises), the condo manager disliked his presence in the building, most likely for no other better reason than the fact that his skin is too dark in an mostly white neighborhood. The condo manager who happened to own a majority of the unit in the building, even threatened us to change the by-laws to disallow us to rent our condo out. Not that I need the money (and I rented it out to this guy mostly just as a favor), and I hate it when someone like this condo manager would try to push me around for no good reason.

In any case, as his visa expired, he had to leave US. He went back to Germany, but no luck still. It's been almost four years now, and his job situation is still going nowhere. Honestly I feel bad for him. Although he's friendly to me, I can feel this pent-up anger in him, about injustice and his feelings that he could have done more, if he's only given a chance. I had tried to point out to him, in areas where he can use some improvements, but I don't think he heeds the advice. He's still searching and finds nothing.

I normally trust my gut feeling. (My gut feeling has served me very well many times in the past.) I know, at the bottom of my heart, that if this guy has followed the path like those three young Muslim men did, who went to distribute humanitarian aid to distressed Muslims in mid-east but came back converted to fundamentalism after seeing so much injustice, he would have done the same thing. There's a certain gullibility and innocence in him, and his deep belief in justice, that made him particularly susceptible to fundamentalist ideals.

Deep in my heart, I can only pray that he would not turn, like those others before him. But when life deals one bad hand after another to him, I'm not sure how long it'll be before he crosses over. When I read news like this, I always hope that I would not see his name on the news. For whatever the injustice that he sees, I hope he find another way to channel that energy and anger into to make this a better world.