Five years on.

Does anyone remember an “Islam” free day? I certainly do, but then again, at forty years old, I am of the last generation to have lived enough of my adult life pre 9/11 to know what an Islam free day, an Islam free life, is actually like.

It is only a mere five years on, and the taint of Islam, what Islam wants and what Islam says, is so ingrained in our daily existence, that even I have to remind myself that this is utterly abnormal.

That pre 9/11, I barely knew or cared about Islam, nor did my varied circles of friends. Islam was not an issue. Today I actually struggle to remember what used to fill the news hours.

The absurd reality that one religion now fills our news and politics and is attempting to push into our legislation would have rightly been seen as unthinkable.

The new truth that to insult or even joke about somebodies religion, lifestyle, idealism or political view was actually punishable at all, let alone by death. That our Modern Civilisation would accept this as possible or even reasonable, pre 9/11 was unreservedly insane.

Where you one who saw it happen? I naturally assumed the first plane was an “accident”, one didn’t expect full scale slaughter in peacetime in those days, as it was not normal or okay to terrorize pre 9/11.

What of those, who are just eighteen or twenty today? How can these people ever fully understand what was taken from us. What of their children to come, who will not even have us left to tell them what freedom was like.