If I’m honest, I didn’t start down this road because of any great desire to stand up for what’s right. I only joined National Defence because I was bored. Lonely too, which is a sad thing to admit. After I left school, I found myself isolated at home, spending most of my time playing on the PlayStation and stuffing my face with crisps and beer in my living room. Well, my Mum’s living room.
What else was I supposed to do? I wasn’t going to get a demeaning supermarket job, no matter how often Mum nagged me. Why should I work for minimum wage when foreigners can just saunter into this country and get handed a house and all the cash they need?
On a trip to the corner shop, I noticed one of their flyers. I liked the name – ‘National Defence.’ It sounded strong, masculine. Of course, the lefty press characterises them as a ‘far-right hate group’, which is just rubbish. Anyway, I went along to the hall where they met. I recognised some faces from school, enjoyed the games and the craic.
I didn’t pay much attention at first to all the political stuff. I just wanted to have a bit of a laugh with some mates. Eventually though, it did get me thinking, about my own life, my Mum’s, our estate. I began to see how we’d all been let down, by a Government intent on helping others but not helping its own. It got me really angry.
Some newspapers and some of the politicians were obviously on the side of people in this country, but it wasn’t enough. Someone needed to do something to wake everybody else up. Somebody needed to be the hero that this country needs.
I didn’t try to hide from what I’d done, so the Police caught up with me pretty quickly. Everyone I know says I did the right thing, that it was about time to take a stand. Even the press and some politicians, although they can’t support me directly, said they ‘understood’ what had motivated my actions.
The judge though, I didn’t like him. He kept on going on about the suffering of the immigrants as they burned in the hostel, but they shouldn’t have been here in the first place. This isn’t their home.
Strangely, a lot of his ire was reserved for the press, for politicians and the ‘dehumanising’ language they used. He said that this had radicalised me, which is a lie. Heroes aren’t radicalised.
The last thing he said before he sent me down though, well, I can’t get it out of my head.
“This young man thinks himself a hero,” he said.
“Ask yourself this. If we get the heroes we deserve, then what kind of society creates a hero like this?”