A Gentle Man

[smokingboot]

Jihadi John...I'm having problems getting my head around this. So the secret services kinda knew and kinda well sorta were watching him, and he claimed that they approached him to join Intel, and the spokesperson from CAGE says he will release his email exchanges with Mo Emwazi so we can read for ourselves about the man he describes as kind, extremely gentle, soft spoken, humble.

Humble, the man who says he will bring slaughter to the streets of London.

Is it possible that they are letting their imaginations run riot over a balaclava? Are they sure they have the right guy?
Hundreds of images of the villain in black, Jihadi John, one or two of Mohammed Emwazi's face, young, quite soft looking. This is their maniac?

I guess a man may 'smile and smile and still be a villain.' But I just can't quite...how does an ordinary, rather shy guy become what they claim?
How does this happen?
'He got radicalised,' they say, as though radicalisation was a disease, like rabies.
What does it even mean?
And this thing about anger at British/American foreign policy in the middle east, or feeling like an outsider in British society. OK, sure, lots of people get angry, lots of people feel like outsiders. But who gets angry enough to cut people's heads off? How does a gentle man become the killer of gentle men? Do they get drugged in training or are they somehow broken down, distorted psychologically or what?
I have watched two versions of Rapunzel recently. I can honestly swear they make more sense to me than this.

And if this really is him...is there ever a point at which he is once again the ordinary guy who bought baklavas for people? Ever a point at which he recoils from what's been shown in his name? From Mohammed Emwazi to Jihadi John, God knows how he got there, if he really got there. Is there any way back?

I know stories when they tap on my shoulder. There is a fiction in all of this. I don't know who tells it but I know it's there.