|
Why terrorism instead of chocolates?
Yes, yes! What could possibly be why the Arab world commits terror? Let's see if the writers get it.The continuing plague of terror attacks around the world seems to have reached another peak of moral indignation and political bewilderment with the arrest of eight doctors and medical workers suspected of being involved in last week's attempted attacks in the United Kingdom. This does not make it any easier to try to understand what motivates otherwise ordinary people to become terrorists; but it does make it more urgent to pursue such an enquiry fully and honestly, so that the world might better fight terrorism and reduce its menace . The contradiction of highly educated professionals who are dedicated to saving human life being involved in attempts to kill and terrorize innocent civilians is difficult to grasp. Yet it seems to be happening, and it is happening mainly among people from the Middle East and South Asia, often during their residence in Western countries. It is important to express deep anger and outrage at the criminal acts that terrorists undertake, to make it clear that no excuse could possibly rationalize their behavior. Attacking hotels, airports, and busy streets in Bali, Amman or London is a brutal crime committed by deeply flawed human beings. The criminals who do such deeds must be vigorously chased down and brought to justice. This is being done in a sophisticated manner by law enforcement agencies around the world - yet the networks of terrorists and criminals just keep expanding around the world. There is a serious and growing gap between the world's commitment to fighting terrorism and the capacity of terror groups to proliferate. Bewilderment and outrage are understandable natural reactions to the terror that plagues us all, in the Middle East, Asia and the West; yet these are inadequate, slightly simplistic and emotional responses to a growing problem that demands a much more sophisticated approach in terms of both analysis and policy. I have spent the past two weeks in various encounters throughout Europe with Middle East experts, public officials and scholars, including distinguished professors, lawyers and other professionals from the US, the Arab world. Everywhere I have been reminded again of a disturbing legacy that seems still to define much of the encounter between the Middle East and the West. This is the tendency to view the Arab and Islamic world as somehow operating according to different values and standards of morality, and thus deserving of different responses to its various national conditions and challenges. This comes through most clearly on the issue of democratization in the Arab world, and how to deal with Islamist parties that seek to play the democratic game of elections. One increasingly hears analyses about how religion is dominating all politics and nationalism in the Arab world, how the Arab-Israeli conflict is turning into a religious war, or even how the terrorists who attack targets in the West wish to instigate a global religious conflagration. I hazard generalization by saying that many in the West, especially in the United States and Israel, have allowed their understandable fears and confusion, and their inexplicable ignorance, to prevail over their rational capacities for analysis and problem-solving. At the same time, some very fine scholarship being done around the world - especially in the US and Europe - is identifying the many different factors that drive terrorists to commit their attacks, individually or in groups. There are as many reasons for people to become terrorists as there are political, social, economic and personal tensions in the world, it seems. These include individual alienation, psychological problems, humiliation, resistance to occupation, political subjugation, religious sensitivities, national vulnerability, and seeking empowerment and self-assertion in the face of victimization and hopelessness, among others. Doctors and engineers are as likely to become terrorists as are poor farmers and unemployed bricklayers. So why is it that much of the most despicable contemporary international terror emanates heavily from the Arab-Asian region? What is it about our part of the world that turns doctors into killers, students into mass murderers, and men and women ostensibly of faith into practitioners of homicide? We should not hesitate to come to terms with the particularities of Middle Eastern terror, precisely because such terror is so loathsome and morally disfiguring to our own societies and has also become the fountainhead of global terror. There is a political and historical dimension to the analysis of terror that remains largely missing from the prevalent approaches used by otherwise fine scholars and analysts around the world. Anger, outrage and revenge, however logical and natural, will not stop terror. Analyses based on more integrity and honesty would be a good place to start. What is it about, say, Iran, Palestine, Lebanon, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Sudan that is so different from Belgium and Switzerland, that terror, rather than fine chocolates, should be among their main exports? Damn! Can't speak the unspeakable. Posted by: Hillary! 2007-07-08 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=192824 |