Much has happened since the Middle Ages, not to mention since the Stone Age. Most of us now have TVs, for instance, and can witness what people are doing in other parts of the world. Many of us enjoy being on-line every moment of the day, except perhaps in the shower. We get healthier food than ever, if we can afford it, better screen resolutions, and faster cars.

Even our species seems to have improved a little, at least according to Steven Pinker: Growing numbers of people are vehemently opposed to torture and death penalties. So-called civilised countries even claim to treat children, prisoners, women and blacks humanely.

Alas, the tide – if there ever was one – seems to be turning. Poverty is eroding large segments of western civilisation, and with poverty comes anger. The Brits decided to leave the EU because they don’t want to share, US Americans are threatening to vote Trump, and xenophobic tendencies are spreading throughout Europe. Meanwhile, the Turks who were excluded from EU on petty formalities (in reality because they are Moslem) in spite of the fact that they met more of the EU’s terms than many of the other new EU nations, are now on a dangerous course. Would the extremely bloody military attempt to overthrow the government have happened if Turkey had been allowed into the EU? Would the Turkish government now be putting thousands of innocent people in prison?

Meanwhile, the French and the Belgians are being decimated by subhuman lunatics. Most of the French are blissfully unaware of the nation’s past crimes in the Levant. The horrors committed there as late as in the third quarter of the twentieth century are not all that well known to me either, nor are the crimes against humanity committed by King Leopold of Belgium and all the other colonial masters of the past, though I know the damage is still crippling. But I doubt that the subhuman minions of ISIS know much about these things either.

It is true that France, and for that matter all of Europe, has a lot to atone for. We are now even negotiating Tkip, the purpose of which is to allow rich people in rich nations to grow richer, regardless of the consequences for the rest of the world.

They say that the mutant who drove over and killed at least 84 people in France was not even religious. He was just angry because he was a failure. He is not likely to have been very well versed in past or even modern history. However, that does not exonerate ISIS.

By advocating the random killing of people, ISIS has instituted a “best practice” that can be applied by anyone, including disgruntled divorcees. They have institutionalised “random killing”. The killing they abet is not idealistic, it is merely foul. What they are doing in Europe brings out, in us – the Europeans – the “them vs us” instincts of the primitive human tribal animal.

I have never heard a level-headed interview of any ISIS leader, so I can only judge them by the deeds they claim are their doing. I therefore have no option but to assume they are all psychopaths of the very worst category, the kind that would not stoop at eating live babies, if there were anything to gain by it. I don’t believe that theirs is an attempt, however mistaken, to create a better world. I don’t even believe they care about their so-called subjects. I believe they are power freaks.

As far as I am concerned, every one of the leaders of ISIS deserves not only life imprisonment, but life in hell, whatever that means (the worse the better).

So what does that make me, if not a blood-thirsty animal? I am not yet willing to embrace the concept of capital punishment, it is true, but my words “the worse the better” would seem to indicate that I am not quite as averse to torture as I claim to be, and I fear I am not alone. If this continues, civilisation will have turned into its anti-thesis within few years.

So what is to be done? Fight back? Alas, they have money, lots of it; any technology can be bought if you have enough money. And they are not bound by any international conventions. But their very greatest strength is that the armies they command far out-number anything we could ever even dream of mustering. They recruit from an absolutely endless reserve of people who are excluded from the good life, people who have nothing but Paradise to live and die for. Their command of innumerable people who long to die, is an unparallelled asset.

So I fear I do not share Stephen Pinker’s optimism about the improvement of the human race. Just as we waited too long to take climate change seriously – we are still waiting, in fact  – we will wait too long to take the great North-South divide seriously. It represents as great a threat to civilisation as the climate change. I fear that every month we wait will claim new lives, blown up in random explosions of depair and rage.

In the mean time, maybe we should harness the services of our own discontents: I suggest the following announcement: If you are one of the very few Western nutheads who suffer from a compelling urge to commit a suicidal massacre – in a school, an airplane, or any other public place – please hold your horses: Your government needs you.