There was a report in the UK’s Guardian Online a couple of weeks ago about Anthony Garcia who is currently on trial in England for ‘conspiracy to cause explosions’ under the terrorism laws. One of the pieces of evidence against him was that he had attended an Al-Qaeda training camp in Pakistan. But in his defence, Mr. Garcia explains that he only attended the camp for a couple of weeks, before checking himself out. And why did he leave early? Because he’d learnt all there was to know about blowing up innocent people? Or because he was disappointed to find they still espoused the now-ineffective ‘set fire to your shoes’ attack? No. He left because they didn’t have any monkey bars. Really. His exact comment was: “I thought, you know, it would be like the camps I had heard of, with monkey bars and stuff. But it was just a field on the side of a mountain with really high grass. It was definitely disappointing.” What on earth was this idiot thinking? That he’d get his Terrorism Proficiency badge and be sent on his way with a hearty handshake and a thankyou? What a pillock!
More recently, one evening when I got home from work, I was going through the usual routine of asking the kids what they’d done at school. My daughter was particularly pleased with herself, announcing that at playtime she’d managed to make it all the way across the monkey bars by herself. And that was when it hit me. Monkey bars. She’s training to be a terrorist. Suddenly all of the evidence slotted into place.
For a few weeks now, there has been a strong smell of chemicals coming from her bedroom, which she has been very quick to dismiss as nail varnish, but I can’t be too sure. And then there are the hastily-scribbled notes in an unintelligible script left all over her room, and drawings that could easily be schematics for any number of public buildings. Or aircraft. Or ponies – it’s difficult for untrained eyes such as mine to tell, so I’m thinking of sending them off to CTU for pattern-matching just in case.
There are other things, too. She has developed an uncanny ability to move silently when she needs to; I’ve woken up in the night a couple of times to find her standing by my bed, her hand hovering over my neck (though to be fair, it could have been my shoulder as she wakes me to ask for a drink of water…). She’s also clearly undergone some kind of anti-interrogation training, because whenever anything gets broken or messed up, I can’t get anything out of her other than a stock “It wasn’t me”, no matter how hard I push. Add to this the time she whacked me over the head with a wooden mallet when she was a baby, and the pattern of clear aggression against authority figures is difficult to ignore.
So now I’m eyeing my five-year old daughter with suspicion, and watching for signs of radicalization. Some would call me paranoid, but when we’ve got grown men wanting playtime on the monkey bars with Osama, nothing seems far-fetched anymore. “Watch the skies”, they said, but I think the threat’s a bit closer to home…
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