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Humiliation and Terrorism

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 Humiliation and Terrorism2004-01-14 03:42
11 comments
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Via Metafilter, an article, "Terrorism's new Mecca" by Jessica Stern. It examines the causes of terrorism.
Several possible root causes have been identified, including, among others, poverty, lack of education, abrogation of human rights, the perception that the enemy is weak-willed. I've been interviewing terrorists around the world over the past five years. Those I interviewed cite many reasons for choosing a life of holy war, and I came to despair of identifying a single root cause of terrorism. But the variable that came up most frequently was not poverty or human-rights abuses, but perceived humiliation. Humiliation emerged at every level of the terrorist groups I studied — leaders and followers.

The "New World Order" is a source of humiliation for Muslims. And for the youth of Islam, it is better to carry arms and defend their religion with pride and dignity than to submit to this humiliation. Part of the mission of jihad is to restore Muslims' pride in the face of humiliation. Violence, in other words, restores the dignity of humiliated youth. Its target audience is not necessarily the victims and their sympathizers, but the perpetrators and their sympathizers. Violence is a way to strengthen support for the organization and the movement it represents.
It rings true more than anything else. No, it is not people who "hate freedom". It is people who's family, who's culture, who's religion, who's countries, who's leaders have been humiliated. And it is people who's pride and dignity are more important to them than their lives. It shouldn't be that hard to understand. Stop carrying out programs of organized humiliation. Better yet, help these folks having something to be proud of.


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11 comments

14 Jan 2004 @ 03:53 by swanny : I wonder....???/
I wonder though if that is the problem
of sorts....
Is "pride" worth being "proud" about...
or do we have to get by or around the pride....
into.......???? something else.....
What transcends pride....?????
Pride is sort of self serving afterall...
Us/them .........
Cooperation perhaps......
Cooperative pride.....
Pride in a "collective us"....
though is that pride or
soveriegnty.....
I suppose there is a subtle
distinction betwixt
pride and dignity.

sorry semantics....
Good article though

sir swan  



14 Jan 2004 @ 04:09 by swanny : The Dignity of Being
I...... I think allowing each other
the dignity of and to being a soveriegn person,
group, state, society, globe
in ones or our own right.......is not about
mere pride......
but dignity.....
Allowing perhaps even demanding
we respect and grant each other
the dignity of each others' simply being.

radical perhaps...... bold.....perhaps
but true..... alas


sir swan  



14 Jan 2004 @ 11:19 by sharie : humiliation comes from betrayal
Humiliation comes from human betrayal.

It is a betrayal of humanity to treat human beings as though their lives are worthless, their health is irrelevant, their survival is immaterial, their happiness is pointless...

To feel that you're treated like you're worthless...

while knowing and feeling your life is infinitely valuable...

(everyone *is* infinitely valuable)

and to then choose to die in order to prove your worth...

this is insane.

People - and not just muslims - are driven *mad* by the insanity of the greedy money grubbing going on in this world.

The exploitation, the lies, the betrayal...

We should all put an end to it.

And we can...

simply by choosing wisely where we spend our money.  



14 Jan 2004 @ 13:07 by Mike @138.88.68.203 : Child Abuse?
I was reading this today: 'The History of Child Abuse', at http://www.psychohistory.com/htm/05_history.html . It may be interesting to compare rates of clitoridectomy and terrorist production by country. (However, afaik, it's not a practice in SA, more in Africa, dunno about SE Asia).

Even if not, the two-word solution for terrorism may well be 'empower women'.

There may be a tradeoff here for freedom: some (not all) porn could be cast as implicitly pro-terrorism.  



14 Jan 2004 @ 14:20 by ming : Child Molestation
I somewhere read statistics of how boys who were circumcised were something like 7 times as likely to end up in jail as boys who weren't. And a similar thing for violent crimes. I can't find it right now, however, so I might not have gotten the number right, but it was rather dramatic.

So, yes, ritual violence against and sexual repression of little children is quite likely to have repercussions later on in terms of them being more violent.  



14 Jan 2004 @ 20:24 by taranga @217.158.116.99 : circumcision
That can't be true of all the Jewish communities around the world?

The percieved humiliation may just be a reinterpretation by the individuals concerned of a sense of complete powerlessnes in the face of the relentless globalisation of the large corporations and their complete disregard for any cultural, social or spiritual objections to their activities.  



15 Jan 2004 @ 08:10 by scotty : Perhaps
we simply haven't yet learned to treat others as we ouselves would like to be treated !  


15 Jan 2004 @ 17:01 by Mike @138.88.68.203 : missing the point
Read the article. Main thesis seems to be evolution of child-rearing is like long-term (generational) psychotherapy for the human race. Different societies raise children differently. Some (especially the west) are far better at it than others. Raising children well involves (among other things) not causing childhood traumas on the parents.  


19 Jan 2004 @ 15:52 by bkodish : 'Humiliation'
No 'humiliation' in a vacuum.
If you would understand 'humilation', take a close look at the 'humiliatees'.  



19 Jan 2004 @ 16:14 by ming : Humiliation
Indeed, it is of course not as simple as blaming somebody else for making some folks feel bad. And feeling bad has never been a valid justification for anybody going out and then doing bad things to others. But, still, many bad things can be avoided by trying to avoid deliberately making large numbers of people feel bad in that particularly motivating way that humiliation can.  


1 May 2016 @ 10:44 by Marlie @188.143.232.32 : dLaqAyhYZVUu
Clear, inofemativr, simple. Could I send you some e-hugs?  


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