This latest development, where bombs has been set off both in Bali and in Finland, show us that there is not many safe spots in this world. Who knows, the next bomb might be set of in my city of the relatively quiet country of Norway.
The latest news is that Australian authorities have found that indeed there
is a link between the Bali bombings and al Qaeda.
In what direction is our world developing? What is really going on here? I say - almost - thank God that there wasnt any indications on the Finnish bombing being the work of mulim fanatics or something, but by some Finnish chemistry student.
In either case, my personal guess is that terrorism
* cant be beaten
* will find its expressions as long as there are people who think that there is injustice in society, And who think that violence is the way to change the power structure of the society (or just wanting some PR..)
The problem is, among other things, that there isnt enough communication between people from different parts of the world, and I dont mean just diplomats from Saudi Arabia or Iraq and the US or Germany, but between the People. But then again, perhaps these fanatical outsider groups has no connection with other groups and Wants no connection with other people. Perhaps they just Want to commit violence; this being their superior goal...
i guess not.
We must remember that those men from mainly Saudi Arabia who were in the attack squad on Sept 11th, were seemingly highly intelligent; at least they could fake it and make an entry into universities in for instance Germany.
Just branding a person as having a few nuts loose, or just being a religious fanatic, is a bit cheap in explaining what is actually going on.
Am I defending terrorism? Of course not. But we must try to understand some of the processes behind terrorism. And we must also allow ourselves to look at our own country and our own administration from another point of view, perhaps...
In Norway, there has been some debate on the case that our Nation is investing money in a company who is producing cluster bombs. What if a certain young child loses his parents to these bombs, and then finds out who produced these bombs, and then perhaps goes as far as to researching who supported/invested in this company. Norway could become a target, we are not a nation of Saints.
I loathe the people who think that terrorism (to cross that Great barrier, to actually turn to violence to achieve one's goals) is a solution. But then again, I have to ask myself:
* What is terrorism? Is it terrorism when an Palestinian "gunman" kills civilian Israelis? (Yes, I think so) Is it terrorism when Israeli soldiers with rifles shoot a palestinian boy aged 12 in the head? (Yes, I think so). Is it terrorism when arab fundamentalists fly big airplanes into buildings, killings thousands of innocent people? (Yes, I think so) Is it terrorism when american companies are using less legal ways of exploiting the natural resources of an area, it be Senegal, Uzbekistan or some other area with lots of poor people who don't know their rights. (Yes, in a certain sense it is so). So, we need to be more subtle in our definitions of terrorism, and not just brand anything as terrorism which threatens US/our allies but when there is something which we do it is Anything but terrorism (military operation, securing the free world, protecting the way of our people, blabla).
There are hundreds of million of people around the world starving, living on less than 1 US$ a day. To them, we are in another world. We are people whose worst worry is if we can afford thit new car, or that vacation to the other end of the world, or whatever. Really, no wonder that some of them start to envy us. If we then also appear arrogant towards them, perhaps even exploit their markets and cheap labor, or just treat them as drooling idiots because they havent got our level of technology/social infrastructure ... Mix in some religious pride, and voila there might soon be some fundamentalism.
the picture is extremely complicated, and it might even become more so if/when the US/UK decide to attack Iraq. Imagine how many more people who would then become radicalized..
-dltq
