I used to believe—naively—that even the most rabid ideologue had some dormant ember of common sense buried deep down. Dig long enough, I thought, and reason would eventually surface. Years ago, I had to let that fantasy die. Some people are so thoroughly indoctrinated, so welded to their beliefs, they’d rather die than admit they were wrong—and some do. There’s nothing noble in that kind of martyrdom; it’s just fanaticism in its final form. When I lived in Syria, I used to wonder why Hafez al-Assad had responded with such brutal finality to the Islamists in Hama. A Syrian general gave me the blunt answer: You can’t talk them out of it. They’ll either convert the world to their cause or die trying. Back then, I thought surely there had to be another way. But there wasn’t. Not in Syria. Not at the BBC. Fanaticism doesn’t negotiate—it just waits for you to flinch.
