Posted on 12/02/2006 6:23:18 AM PST by Valin
APOLOGISTS for terrorism (and they are not in short supply) argue that it is a weapon used by people who despair of achieving their goals in any other way. It is a cry from the depths by those deprived of a voice in the political process. The terrorist is not an aggressor but a victim, and we must disarm him not by violence but by addressing the grievance that motivates his deeds. This argument has been used to excuse Palestinian suicide bombers, IRA kneecappers, Red Brigade kidnappers, and even the mass murderers of September 11. Its main effect is to blame the victim and excuse the crime.
If you look at the actual condition of terrorists down the ages, however, you will soon discover that the excuse does not match the reality. Some terrorists have been poor and some have been victims of injustice. But those are the exceptions. The Jacobins, who unleashed the original Terror, were for the most part privileged members of the rising elite. The Russian anarchists of the 19th century were no worse off from the point of view of material and social privileges than you or me, and with grievances that were more the work of the imagination than the result of either observing or sympathising with the ordinary people of Russia. There is no evidence that Osama bin Laden’s entourage is any different, and even the IRA, which purports to represent the “oppressed” Catholics of Ulster, is very far from recruiting from those whose oppressed condition it loudly advertises. As for the Islamist terrorists who have targeted our cities, they tend to be well educated, specialists in medicine, engineering or computer science, people who might have helped to provide the Middle East with the stable middle class that it so badly needs, but instead have chosen another and faster route to glory.
It seems to me that we will be nearer to understanding terrorism if, instead of looking at what terrorists have in common, we look at what is common to their victims. The targets of terrorism are groups, nations or races. And they are distinguished by their worldly success — either material or social. The original Terror was directed against the French aristocracy — soon supplemented by all kinds of real and imaginary groups supposed to be aiding them. The Russian anarchists targeted people with wealth, office or power. The Great Terror of Stalin, initiated by Lenin, was directed against groups alleged to be profiting from the system that impoverished the rest. The Nazi terror picked on the Jews, because of their undoubted material success, and the ease with which they could be assembled as a group. Even the nationalist terrorists of the IRA and Eta variety are targeting nations thought to enjoy wealth, power and privilege, at the expense of others equally entitled. Islamic terrorists bomb the cities of Europe and America because those cities are a symbol of the material and political success of the Western nations, and a rebuke to the political chaos and deep-rooted corruption of the Muslim world.
Success breeds resentment, and resentment breeds hate. This simple observation was made into the root of his political psychology by Nietzsche, who identified ressentiment, as he called it, as the distinguishing social emotion of modern societies: an emotion once ordered and managed by Christianity, now let loose across the world. I don’t say that Nietzsche’s analysis is correct. But surely he was right to identify this peculiar motive in human beings, right to emphasise its overwhelming importance, and right to point out that it lies deeper than the springs of rational discussion.
In dealing with terrorism you are confronting a resentment that is not concerned to improve the lot of anyone, but only to destroy the thing it hates. That is what appeals in terrorism, since hatred is a much easier and less demanding emotion to live by than love, and is much more effective in recruiting a following. And when the object of hatred is a group, a race, a class or a nation, we can furnish from our hatred a comprehensive stance towards the world. That way hatred brings order out of chaos, and decision out of uncertainty — the perfect solution to the alienated Muslim, lost in a world that denies his religion, and which his religion in turn denies.
Of course hatred has other causes besides resentment. Someone who has suffered an injustice may very well hate the person who committed it. However, such hatred is precisely targeted, and cannot be satisfied by attacking some innocent substitute. Hatred born of resentment is not like that. It is a passion bound up with the very identity of the one who feels it, and rejoices in damaging others purely by virtue of their membership of the targeted group. Resentment will always prefer indiscriminate mass murder to a carefully targeted punishment. Indeed, the more innocent the victim, the more satisfying the act. For this is the proof of holiness, that you are able to condemn people to death purely for being bourgeois, rich, Jewish, or whatever, and without examining their moral record.
The tendency to resent lies in all of us, and can be overcome only by a discipline that tells us to blame faults in ourselves and to forgive faults in others. This discipline lies at the heart of Christianity and many argue that it lies at the heart of Islam too. If that is so, it is time for Muslims to organise against those who preach resentment in the name of their religion, and who regard the crimes of last Thursday as virtuous deeds, performed with God’s blessing, in a holy cause.
Roger Scruton is author of The West and the Rest: Globalisation and the Terrorist Threat
The displaced anger of Muslim yoots is exactly the same anger as teenagers who resent the authority of their parents.
It is driven by the same causes.
In Islamic society, there is no outlet for teenage hotbloodedness, other than hostility and violence. The more they act out, the more they feel justified to increase their hateful activities. And their society encourages them to continue displacing their anger.
Muslim "Holy Men" must chortle with insane glee as they send the young men off to their doom, while these "Holy Men" reap the benefit of power, prestige, and access to women denied the young men.
I'd be angry too. That's what is so pernicious about this Satanic cult.
Very clever, to be absolute clear I am advocating a warfare techniques used at least since mankind started writing down history.
Do you believe Nazis' were the only group to use scorch and burn warfare techniques? Of course injecting the word Nazi is somehow supposed to paint an evil picture. BTW during WWII, scorch and burn warfare was routinely used by both both sides at the end. Is it evil yes, Was it necessary, yes. IMO.
Also, no one is advocating this. I was merely pointing out that given the direction Muslim culture is going. ie Muslims school teaching hatred and Jihad, an putrid response to Islamic terrorist at best from Muslim leaders, at sometime in the future the only way to rid the earth of the radical Islamist scum will be to utterly destroy them. In a biblical sense of course.
You're entitled to your opinion. But I'll try once more. I am not advocating this, I was pointing out at some time it may be the only option left. Sorry, but that is a real possibility.
So what would you suggest be done when our friendly local Jihadist community is killing and terrorizing the local secular or Christan neighborhood? When the Jihadist hide behind their women and children counting on you being civilized enough to allow then to kill your family first?
Fzob forecasts a technique (terrorism), not a goal (genocide).
The Allies' terror bombing of German and Japanese cities did not aim at genocide, but surrender. Bush errs in the phrase "War on Terrorism". I don't think he would repudiate WWII's Allied terrorist bombings.
A better phrase: "War on Islamic Nutballs Who Attack the US".
'swhy Europeans dislike America. We saved these butts twice, fed their children and rebuilt their cities.
I disagree with the theory that Moslems resent us and hate us because we are successful. That is a western psychological theory. They attack us by any and all means available to them because they are taught to believe they are good and we are evil.
Thank you for making a salient point.
Valin, thanks for sharing - it's the best "ping" I've received this year! Great find.
They simply don't want to. They would rather build madrasses and exploit the desperation of its impoverished people, convincing them that strapping themselves with bombs will improve their lot.
There is no mercy in Islam. Not even for its fellow adherents.
Wealthier oil states could erase the poverty besetting their Palestinian 'brothers' tomorrow if they so decided.
They simply don't want to.
I know some Palestinians, and yes they know this, and it's a hot button issuse with them.
There is no mercy in Islam. Not even for its fellow adherents
Zakaat
http://www.islam.tc/alhilaal/site/zakat.html
Zakaat is one of the five pillars of Islam. It has been mentioned, along with daily Prayers (Salaat), over seventy times in the Qur'an. Allah's word commanding "........and establish regular Salaat and give regular Zakaat......." are referred to in many parts of the Qur'an. From this we can conclude that after Salaat, Zakaat is the most important act in Islam.
(snip)
Absolutely right.
No. That's a regional rivalry. I live outside NY and I think the Yankess are just fine.
What a great article. And the Nietsche quote is chillingly precisely correct.
No...thats you and about 6 other people it's an American tradition to root against the Yankees.....go ask any hard core baseball fan.
As to those East Coast teams, we choose whichever one on the basis of fancy, or bias, or odds, or the sentiments of those persons surrounding you at the moment in the case of a choice between Sox or Yankees.
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