We know from World War I that terrorism can lead to war. World War I and 9-11 are both examples. These were wars caused more by emotion than effect. In each, there was an agenda behind the war, a need by world leaders (the Kaiser in World War 1 and Bush II in 9-11) to accomplish some personal task and sufficient outrage by the public to be led into disaster or perhaps something different.
And WWII was started by an individual who led an entire country to terrorism.
Today we have another terrorist country. It has more or less defined borders, a government which we hardly can comprehend in the west but which would make perfect sense to anyone who wanted to enslave their people with an emphasis on the female population; and perhaps that includes many in the west.
As we approach 9-11 we see various terrorists being arrested in europe and we can be certain that there are plenty of individuals, some probably contributing members of society who are sympathetic, if not in league with the Islamic State, aka ISIS. We can expect them to desire a celebration on a day when anyone who was logically western would mourn.
What Islam focuses on is not entirely unlike early Christianity. It is not on violence, although islamic fundamentalist terrorism gives that impression. Instead it is focused on the afterlife and concentrates on submission of the experienced life for what comes afterwards. There are worse things to submit to, although a confirmed idea of the afterlife as opposed to one based totally in faith is in order here. All religions seem to have a history based on convenience to some group as opposed to observation and the analysis relies on "facts" that are inconsistent from one to the other and no subject to empirical analysis.
But this is about terror and terror, as the Russian showed during WWI need not have religious underpinning. Anyone with an agenda and a sufficiently well defined agenda can sway the will of a dissatisfied people and you don't even need an agenda to create terror, just a willingness to do things that hurt people. Serial killers are terrorist, some terrorists are serial killers. You have to have the intent to create terror to be a terrorist. History brands terrorists as heroes or terrorists depending on the success or failure of their undertaking.
The question of whether terror is something we have to accept, like the long inspection lines at airports, or something we can some day eliminate is perhaps the more interesting question to ponder.
I have no one but my blog to ponder these issues with. I sometimes think I know the answers to the worlds problems, and then I think that a person who cannot deal with their own issues should leave the world alone.
I have moved forward and backwards with my work on going to Mexico, I have seen things the last few days that have given me hope and frustrated me to no end. Occasionally, I imagine I can understand the frustration of the terrorists, wishing I could allow myself to scream at people who sit and wait for things to happen or complain about how things are going without a willingness to act, and then there are people who act in such a way that I cannot accept, like the terrorist who I do not like and who I fear inevitably will harm me and like others who act out of wisdom, but which hurts me just as much.
I have allowed myself to hope for the future, and then dashed it as romanticism. But I am a hopeless romantic, and I have to hold out for the future or I will wither and die. Of course, I am on the edge of withering and dying so perhaps I should not be so surprised. On the one hand, I have shown great strength and endurance, a modicum of creativity, an exceptional amount of potential success (if I could only get everyone else to move apace) in dealing with the issues that limit my personal freedom. But of course the biggest impediment to my personal freedom is me and on the other hand, I am withering on the vine because of my refusal to fertilize my own roots.
The inevitable terrorists are horrible people that harm even when they do not need to. They have, it appears, already started another war in the Middle east where people will die and the US government and its allies will throw their resources and money into the sand which will soak it up as it soaks up the rains that are too rare to bring peace to the inhabitants. This will strengthen our enemies who will supply us, for our wealth, with the means to kill our natural enemies, the source of the terrorism.
We refuse to solve our problems, our hands being tied by our morality or our wisdom, as a western civilization; so perhaps my own willingness to suffer this long death should prevent me from complaining of the waste of the terrorist, our newest war, and my own failings as a lover, a partner and a friend.
No comments:
Post a Comment