My New Life As An Enemy Of ISIS

Sure enough, it’s a dangerous world out there. Or at least that’s what the news keeps telling us. But even in the fear-led cycles of 24-hour infotainment it’s not exactly a secret that our Earth has the propensity to be a veritable hotbed of violence, confusion and other nasty, negative things.

One of the main proponents of such Fear & Loathing in 2015 is ISIS – the Salafi jihadi extremist militant group whose origins lie in Iraq and Syria. ISIS haven’t really given any quarter since their rather accelerated rise to the top of the terror network charts. Their relentless program of repression, oppression, beheadings and other shocking methods of execution of their own people and foreigners has left swathes of the globe in a panic over who is indeed next.

There’s plenty of people out there willing to paint ISIS as “neanderthals” for – I assume – the fact that they are from the Middle East. Such views are a Jackson Pollock of short-sightedness, racism and just plain stupidity. Take even the briefest of glances at the world around you: ISIS are an efficient fighting unit who seem to be experts at cyber warfare too. They want the death and destruction of the West… and now it seems they want me too.

Yes, that’s right. Your intrepid BaDoink Chief Writer appears to have incurred the wrath of this rather excitable group. But why? Who knows. Am I scared? Well… honestly? Yeah actually I am a little bit.

It all started so innocently as well. One lazy Friday afternoon – Note to my boss: I’d been working hard before this, obviously – I browsed Twitter when I happened upon a link to Kuffar.net. As the site tells us:

“There is an ISIS subgroup that has amassed vast collections of ordinary Twitter accounts likely to be hostile to their extremist opinions. These names are gathered on block lists created with the Blocktogether.org application created by @j4cob.

These lists contain thousands and thousands of names.”

As you can see from the title image, I too am blocked by them. But why? What have *I* done? Perhaps it was the time I asked for ISIS to intervene during a parade by Queen Elizabeth II:

A quick Twitter search for “Joseph Viney ISIS” reveals nada past that. Did I call the caliphate a ‘cali-fail’ out loud in a dream? Am I – like Winston Smith – a victim of Thought Crime? Or am I simply the victim of racial profiling? The irony could be off the charts on that one.

For now, I believe I am safe. I’ve cancelled my summer vacations to Iraq and Syria, but now face the pitfalls of trying to wrangle a refund from my travel company. And they call ISIS terrorists!

But as for you, dear reader: are YOU safe? Have you incurred the wrath of the latest fundamentalist media sensation? There are nearly 88,000 rows on this spreadsheet. You might well be on there. Still – and fittingly – I recall the words of Rudyard Kipling:

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you…

UPDATE: Turns out I have at least dissed any potential space program that ISIS may have been cooking up…