It is always saddening to read about the death of a young person, a teenager, a child. No matter what the circumstances in which they died were, the fact that a life was extinguished before it even began is heart wrenching.

When I read in the papers this morning that Samara Kesinovic had been beaten to death trying to flee IS, I immediately asked the question, “why on earth would anyone want to go to Syria?”

Samara Kesinovic 17, and her friend Sabina Selimovic 15, traveled to Syria in 2014 to become IS fighters. The girls left the safety of their own homes in Vienna and traveled via Turkey to Syria and ISIS controlled Raqqa.

It is unclear what their exact roles were but there has been reported that they were married off to ISIS combatants and spirited away to locations in their territory.

The two became a ‘poster girl’ for Isis, also known as Islamic State, appearing on social media websites in images showing them carrying Kalashnikovs and surrounded by armed men (Independent 25/11/2015)

David Scharia, a top level UN counter-terrorism expert, wrote in a report last year that a 15-year-old girl of Bosnian origin from Austria had joined Isis had “disappeared”. It is believed that the girl referred to was Ms Kesinovic.

Mr Scharia said: “We received information just recently about two 15-year-old girls, of Bosnian origin, who left Austria, where they had been living in recent years …one was killed in the fighting in Syria, the other has disappeared”.

The teenagers who lived in Austria were children of Bosnian refugees who had fled their country during the Yugoslav Wars in the 1990s. It is alleged that the girls had become radicalised by an Islamic preacher at a Vienna mosque.

The Austrian authorities have accused a Vienna-based Bosnian Islamic preacher known as Abu Tejda – named as Mirsad O under Austrian privacy laws – of recruiting the woman (Telegraph 25/11/2015).

Understanding the girls motives in defecting to IS is something that we in the West have been questioning Ad nauseam. This incident is not unique and its prevalence is being seen more and more in Western society.

Both girls were Bosnian Muslims, with all the trappings of everyday teenage life. They took selfies, wore make-up, fashionable clothing and lived the lives of ordinary Austrian teenagers.

What exactly turned them away from safety of Austria and their own homes, into the arms of the worlds most barbaric and murderous organisation?

Looking at Europe’s history of war and sectarian conflict, there are many incidents of similar activity. Take for example the protracted armed conflict in Northern Ireland.

Many young men and women joined the ranks of armed paramilitaries (republican and loyalist) and carried out attacks on what they deemed legitimate targets.

Similarly ETA, Conspiracy of Fire Nuclei and the Baader-Meinhof groups have all recruited young people into their ranks with idealistic and vitriolic propaganda.

Propaganda plays an intrinsically important role in the inculcation of young people. Take for example the murals and graffiti that adorns gable ends in Belfast or along the separation walls in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The subject and content of the murals and graffiti is almost always emotive, provocative and full of sadness and anger.

From Belfast to Jerusalem and Hitlers Germany, propaganda has been used by one group or another to instill xenophobia, ethnic tension and to encourage inter communal violence.

It is strange to think that religions and devotees to God could inflict so much pain and hatred to another ethno-religious group. But when we consider the origins of propaganda it becomes evident that both it and religion are almost inseparable.

The origins of propaganda do not lie within state institutions, armies, political parties or business interests. Propaganda in fact was the brainchild of the Roman Catholic Church and was instituted under the auspices of Pope Gregory XIII. The Congregatio di Propaganda Fide,
was ―charged with spreading Catholicism and regulating ecclesiastical affairs in heretic, schismatic or heathen lands‖ (Lambert,
1938:07).

Yesterday I was horrified to read in an article by Cormac O’Keeffe in the Irish Examiner which said that up to 40 Irish teenagers and adults had left Ireland to fight in Syria and Iraq.

Dr Maura Conway, lecturer in International Security in DCU said in an interview with Cormac O’Keeffe:

[ ]…….the online strategy of IS has recently shifted into another gear.

“They have begun to reach out directly to internet users who express sympathy with their position.”

She said this was “likely to be quite effective”, for a number of reasons:

It’s more targeted as the individuals have already expressed sympathy with IS;
Those targeted are “oftentimes young and searching for an identity and meaning in their lives”;
IS will often “love bomb” such people, by having online supporters flock around the individual and “bombard” them with messages.

Many if not all of those who left were not radicalised in their local mosque. No, it is too easy to label all Imams with the “radical preacher” moniker. They were radicalised on-line, on social media and on every well known communication and messaging service.

Young people are targeted, groomed and love bombed by an organised network of propagandists. When the young person eventually ends up in the hands of IS at home or in Syria, he very quickly realises that life under IS looks nothing like it did in the brochure.

Many, sadly find their only way out through martyrdom on suicide missions or are killed trying to escape. Others revel in the barbarism that allows them to murder, pillage, rape and raze to the ground an entire civilisation.

How do we tackle on-line radicalisation? There are many schools of thought on this issue with the UK government proposing a ‘Snoopers Charter’. This charter would allow for the monitoring of social media activity, search history and all forms of online activity by suspected terrorists or potential victims.

While this system may be effective, it also poses a greater risk to society at large. Allowing government agents to carry out surveillance of suspected individuals is open to abuse and ‘function creep’ . Is it possible that governments could use their new powers to spy on ordinary citizens?

I am reminded of the British Prevention of Terrorism Act 1974 which gave sweeping powers to the security services. The act was used in the wrongful conviction of the Guildford Four and the Birmingham Six. I am not suggesting that this is what the Snoopers Charter will be used for, but it is fair to say that it is open to abuse.

There is no doubt that governments need to prevent terrorism and radicalisation of younger people, but how can this be done without effecting, the civil liberties and right to privacy of the entire population?

Are we as European citizens open to the idea of a Stasi organisation that would monitor all our electronic activity. Is there not a danger that we are sleep walking into a world like that in the Orwellian novel 1984? Or is this now the price we must pay for our freedom and safety?

“Crimestop means the faculty of stopping short, as though by instinct, at the threshold of any dangerous thought. It includes the power of not grasping analogies, of failing to perceive logical errors, of misunderstanding the simplest arguments if they are inimical to Ingsoc, and of being bored or repelled by any train of thought which is capable of leading in a heretical direction. Crimestop, in short, means protective stupidity.” George Orwell, 1984.