The mirror talks back. Four extremist knights—they use the term extremist themselves—sit in an occupied castle. They are dimwitted and believe the hype around their organization. So they crowd around the mirror, waiting for it to praise them.
The mirror, it turns out, is a television, airing news from the West. One of them, the leader of this small outpost, leans in toward the TV, “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the greatest of them all?”
A politician who is known as a fire-breathing dragon and magician appears before them. “We should be very afraid of these extremists,” he shouts, “They are truly evil.”
The politician might as well be saying to the knights, “why there you are, my kings.”
The poisoned apples are these knights. They are disposable, rot easily and don’t have much value until someone bites into them. They have become the mythical hydra. You cut off one of a head and 10 fighters grow in its place.
These knight’s idealism travels on flying carpets—unmanned western drones that could kill in an instant. They use fear to keep the population in check. It’s the same technique used by the leaders and the fire-breathing dragons politicians who oppose them (and sometimes help them).
To wield the sword in the stone, to fight back the knights and the dragons, you must be willing to have a level head. You must forge a new Camelot to stand against them. Unite with discourse, and campaign to make them mere mortals; condemn the extremists as cowards, not as ideology. They do not sit on a throne of evil, but hide within their own immoral practices. Remember, genies are imprisoned in bottles and martyrs die in caves—opportunists lives in castles.
Across the world, the western politician yells from a stage, “We will carpet bomb them. We will destroy their villages and families.” He uses parlor tricks to keep an audience hanging on his every word, and it works. People in the West’s extremism incites mobs against those dreaming of Camelot.
The magician turns to his men and shouts, “Mirror, mirror on the wall, who’s the greatest of them all?”
“Why you are my King,” the television will respond into night long after the cheers from this crowd die down.