A Complex of Inferiority?

David Aaronovitch argues in an article in today's London Times that there are three basic reasons, which explain why some Brits are willing to blow up other Brits in buses, trains, and airplanes and they are lack of sympathy, envy, and self-pity. He argues that alienation and humiliation aren't what pushes Brits such as Richard Reid (the shoe bomber) or the one who committed the July 7 Terrorist’s attacks to act but rather that Britain owed them something and that since it wasn't giving it to them, they were going to destroy it. I wonder if the answer is that simple. Are terrorists simply bad and self-centered people?

Comments

[Ed Watters]

Thank you for the link to Chopra! I'd never read anything even remotely political by him but he certainly makes some good points regarding the malaise that manifests terrorism.

It wasn't until relatively recently that the US mainstream media even entertained the possibility that there may be some rational underpinning to the senseless violence of terroristic acts, preferring instead to parrot Bush's lame claim that it is mostly 'envy' that fuels thier hatred - specifically, envy of our freedoms. Both Bush and US mainstream media missed the irony of the Patriot Act's encroachment on the very freedoms that allegedly have the terrorists green with envy!

Just one more point: Aaronovitch's quote of the man lamenting that 'we have destroyed Iraq, we are...destroying Lebanon". Aaronovitch believes the 'we' is overextended "a little" but the truth is, Britian supplied troops and material support to the Iraqi conflict and, at the very least, diplomatic cover to the recent conflict. I doubt Aaronovitch would have felt the blame was overextended if he were a resident of either of those two countries.

GREAT WEBSITE! KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!!!!!!!!

[kiki]

Thanks for the good words.