However, what has not been discussed is whether it is extreme to airlift a huge contingent of the Uk landforces halfway across the world based on a erroneous supposition that if we do not invade Afghanistan we will be the victims of terrorist attacks.

I would hate to be labelled an armchair strategist, so my background of serving and fighting with the commandoes for nine years I hope will carry some sway.

You see I have problems with UK forces undertaking ‘fundamental jobs’ when in fact the whole basis for anyone being there is based not on hard bound intelligence, but lies and subterfuge in order to have the support of an already jittery nation who think that every Muslim or sections of them are extremists ready to kill and plunder the UK. I had the misfortune or fortune of being in Kosovo and witnessing the degree of savegery that the Serbs invested in, so as to divert the ethnic Kosovians away from seeking independence.

The legendary adage ‘one man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist’ runs parallel to one man’s moderate is another man’s extremist.

Dead men don’t tell tales, but the living make up stories. We need to think carefully and rationally before we support or decry a situation labelling one group as this and another as that. My very own real experiences tell me that it is a time when the liar is believed and the truthful mistrusted.

Language is a powerful tool which can sway an emotional mass, but it takes a man of courage to stand up and speak the truth in the face of public opposition. He or she then becomes the extremist in a mass of moderates.

Thank you for this thoughtful analysis. You are of course right that extremism is a very subjective description and yesterday’s extremist can become today’s statesman. I think however that the clue is in the title of my piece. It is when extremism deals with simplicity it is at its most dangerous. The human condition is inherently complex and dynamic.
Extremists who offer simplistic analysis to justify simplistic ‘answers’ seem to be more interested in achieving power than addressing fundamental wrongs. I agree that many of the world’s great change agents have been cast as extremists at different times, but I would argue that they have actually been dealing with complexity when critiquing their age and society.
You rightly point to Jesus who was indeed an extremist, but it is notable how, when asked to define the Kingdom he was proclaiming, he offers the complexity of nature to avoid the simplicity of definition – it is like a mustard seed etc.
I think that people like Mandela gain stature precisely when they begin to work at the complexity of the situation they face. I accept your point however that it is difficult to generalise about extremism, yet I still feel that it is when extremists become convinced by their simplistic analysis that they then begin to justify their own immoral acts, e.g. anti-abortionists murdering doctors, animal rights protesters terrorise the families of vivisectionists, fundamentalists becoming suicide bombers etc. A simplistic, single issue approach allows ends to justify means – and morality goes out of the window. You end up with 9/11, Guantanamo Bay or any of the abuses which are justified by claims of security or stability.
When those who have a moral view point, which others might call extreme, work with the complexity of the situation, then I believe that they are most effective and real agents for the change they desire. On Question Time last week I could not detect any engagement with complexity from the extreme right representative.

Many thanks for engaging with this.

The problem seems to be that those ideas which are cast as extreme or not are in part designated as such by the interests of the powerful. In times past, this depended on the subjugation of women and blacks, and so interest in their emancipation was ‘extreme’. We can debate how this manifests itself now, but the important part is that, in denying the place of extreme ideas to ever lead to flourishing (and it is the absolutism you propose with which I take issue), we fall into the trap of the powerful and affirm their society, not a more positive one that we seek to create.

In fact, we’re seeing this now, where one is labelled a ‘domestic extremist’ even if you have never been convicted of a crime, simply for attending anti-war and climate change demos. It has always been the tool of the powerful to label enemies as extremists. Those we look back on as heroes, moderate heroes like Rosa Parks, Nelson Mandela, John Hume, they were all ‘extremists’ in their day.

My point is that suspicion of extremism shouldn’t lead to a blanked, simple denunciation. When we judge heroes of the past from our own perspective, who we no longer see as ‘extreme’, we miss the social context which surrounded the change they fought for, and we strengthen the chains holding us in so many insecurities in our own terrible world.

John