So a referee with a questionable past is suddenly a ‘terror link’ in the eyes of a US official. The UK Home Office, ever the obedient poodle, is now reviewing his visa status. This is the intellectual decadence of our age: we have reduced every foreigner with a beard and a firm handshake to a potential jihadist.
Artan, the man in question, is accused of nothing more than being born in the wrong place and possessing a surname that sounds too foreign for comfort. We have reached a point where the word ‘terror’ has become a rhetorical cudgel, used to bludgeon anyone who deviates from the bureaucratic norm. It is reminiscent of the late Roman Empire, where ‘barbarian’ was slapped on any tribe that resisted Roman tax collectors.
We are witnessing the collapse of reasoned discourse, replaced by a paranoid taxonomy of threats. If this continues, we shall soon require visa checks for anyone who owns a kebab shop. The Home Office’s review is a farce, a performative gesture meant to pacify the tabloid mob.
But the real terror is the death of nuance, and it has already taken up residence in Whitehall.
