Which surely goes a long way towards solving the problem, I presume. This is no news to anybody. We would all, of course, prefer to save our hides when “the rubber hits the road”. But, so what?

“Tell it to those well-educated, rich-boy Saudis who flew the planes, my man.”

Or tell it to the Palestinians. They surely are plenty rich and well-educated, what with the 72 virgins and all. I guess a myopic approach that does not take these people blowing each other (and a bunch of settlers) on a weekly basis as an important actor in international terrorism is very probably informed by a “properly self-interested” worldview that only cares about these kind of things when they hit close to home (arguably for you, being at Stern).

“But do be sure to let me know when you give up the euros you’re spending on your connection to the Net to buy a couple of sacks of sorghum a month for the poor unfortunates. Don’t look now, but your indifference curve is showing. :^)”

Nope, buddy. Not euros, devaluated dollars just like you. I’m in New York City too. And guess what? This internet connection is free. Which should tell you something about me being self interested enough not to use my own, costly dial-up connection. I guess my misuse of these important resources would probably be considered inefficient and immoral, especially when done at work time (!!). Where’s uncle Milton when you need him?

But then so was the number of people in Belfast who headed the conservative Republican’s anti-condom campaign.

I’m from Belfast, and I can’t say I noticed any conservative Republicans, or indeed any anti-condom campaign at all. Oh yes, if you went to a Catholic school you learned that contraception was bad… actually you didn’t, you learned that teachers, even ones who are priests, find it difficult to keep a straight face trying to persuade teenagers of something they don’t believe themselves.

“Why it did not have such international importance before escapes me (insert sarcastic sneer here).”

No need to sneer, I’ll be quite frank about it. It didn’t have much international importance because the U.S. is big and rich, and we didn’t much care. And we didn’t much care because we weren’t the ones getting hit. No apologies, I’m not here for your benefit, I’m here for my own, and I’m pretty damned sure that 99.999% of the human race behaves in precisely the same manner where the “rubber hits the road”, if you’ll pardon a colloquialism.

“I am certainly gonna emphasize the usual lefty arguments of poverty and ignorance as some of the main causes of terrorism”

Tell it to those well-educated, rich-boy Saudis who flew the planes, my man. But in any case, if this were about standards of living most of the dopes currently taking up arms in the name of Allah would be well advised to clam-up and get to work at the local sweat-shop. They’d certainly increase their disposable income by a great deal more than they’ll ever manage to extract via their current methods, and you can’t discount the hereafter. Allahu Akbar.

“(while information about the fact that hunger, for example, kills many more people than a years’ worth of terrorist attacks in a single day is usually buried somewhere else in the paper) to me is a symptom of a navel-gazing society that tends to focus on the wrong issues.”

You say navel-gazing, I say properly self-interested. But do be sure to let me know when you give up the euros you’re spending on your connection to the Net to buy a couple of sacks of sorghum a month for the poor unfortunates. Don’t look now, but your indifference curve is showing. :^)

I appreciate your response to my posts. My idea about this whole situation is that the emphasis is on the wrong issue. Terrorism became a “very significant problem” around the world when the US was attacked. Why it did not have such international importance before escapes me (insert sarcastic sneer here). I am certainly gonna emphasize the usual lefty arguments of poverty and ignorance as some of the main causes of terrorism and advocate for more aid and humane treatment of the huge masses of dispossessed people around the world. It is in the West’s best interest to change the approach towards combating terrorism (by making it an issue of international policing instead of waging “preemptive” wars) while increasing aid to the third World. Unless this shift in policy happens I don’t see us anywhere close to ending or even controlling the effects of terrorism. The fact that this sort of article appears in the front page of the New York Times, (while information about the fact that hunger, for example, kills many more people than a years’ worth of terrorist attacks in a single day is usually buried somewhere else in the paper) to me is a symptom of a navel-gazing society that tends to focus on the wrong issues.

Hi Jose, I really appreciate what you are trying to say, but I it isn’t my intention to be alarmist and scare-mongery, honest it isn’t. I am simply trying to get some realistic perspective on the magnitude of what is happening.

I readily agree I pulled the number 10% out of a hat, but in the end I bet its not a bad guess. Amongst other things it would fit a fat tail opinion distribution which again I bet is what we have here.

The point is if you kick all the sociologists and anthropologists out of the window and then want to prognosticate on what people think you usually end up with nonesense.

What is needed here is some qualitative research. This is just what no-one seems very interested in spending much money on: So we are condemned to ’swatting-flies’, in someones memorable expression. Even if we use a power hammer to swat them with.

I guess the killing of those contractors was a calculated act to draw the response it did, and to cohese the Fallujah population around the ‘resistance’, which the US response also probably did.

So who is winning here?

I’m an economist not an anthropologist, but out of curiousity I did some qualitative research on illegal Bulgarian immigrants in Spain (I wanted to understand immigration a bit better since I think it is an important economic phenomenon).

Can I tell you: not one of the Bulgarians I interviewed did not identify with Milosevic, not one was not anti-American. I found this a surprising result. But then illegal immigrants are ‘losers’, what else would you expect, you might ask. But isn’t this just the problem: we live on a planet where there are so many ‘losers’. Perhaps we should be spending some money trying to put this straight.

Going back to the original question: to what extent are we going wrong in treating this as a religious phenomenon in the first place?

The number of people seriously interested in imposing Sharia in Europe is probably really small.

But then so was the number of people in Belfast who headed the conservative Republican’s anti-condom campaign.

Many of the people who give soft-support for terrorism are not necessarily very religious. Think Northern Ireland. Was this a war between two religious views, or across a cultural divide?

Many of the people who romanticise Osama don’t share his religious convictions, the resonance and association is cultural, I think.

But it would be nice to see some studies.

Part of the problem here is what I mean by soft-support I guess. Maybe letting someone stay in your home without asking too many questions, giving money to someone who is collecting. The IRA did this in pubs (and of course many of those pubs and bars were situated in the US), radical Islam in Mosques, but that may be the only significant difference.

What I am saying is that it is really difficult for many of us Europeans to understand this phenomenon, but maybe if we look at some of the things we do understand a bit better, then we can deduce something useful and non-trivial.

Finally, I was chatting to my Pakistani shopkeeper friend again today: ‘but they are wearing uniforms, they are wearing uniforms’ he told me. He was referring to some of those supporting Al Sadr in Najaf. He was clearly identifying in some way with the Shiite ‘resistance’. I won’t be reporting him to the authorities, I don’t imagine he is any kind of terrorist sympathiser if you put the question to him like that.

But here you have the problem.

That would be nice, wouldn’t it? Unfortunately, things are not that simple. Many people, left and right, confuse identifying with a cause (for which they might have, in some cases, perfectly legitimate grievances) with supporting violent means to achieve the ends they fervently hope for. Hell, they might even endorse genocide if they deem it necessary.

It’s scary how easy it is for some leaders to create a collective state of madness. And you will always find individuals who justify horrendous actions by governments and outlawed groups alike. It shouldn’t be surprising to anybody that most Germans during WWII supported Hitler’s heinous actions, for instance.

But again, people acting in the way you expressed above (by deciding not to support killing and terrorism)would go a long way towards avoiding wars (utopian goal that we probably will neaver reach). The flip side of that warm and cozy feeling of belonging that groupishness confers on each one of us is jingoistic nationalism .

Really? Suppose a 15 yr. old boy is killed by gunfire at a US park, and friends come around weeping and soliciting money for a funeral? Do you contribute? This happened to my wife at her school, and she refused, saying it was a gang fight (which noone denies) and she’s not going to facilitate a gang funeral. She was roundly condemned by EVERYONE else at the school. But someone has to think clear and standup for what’s right. That boy should be buried quietly, without belligerent, ugly, gang members congregating, possibly followed by drinking, drugging and maybe more shooting.

Every person must decide for himself not to support terrorism and killing.

This is ridiculous.

Look, nobody should be surprised that in this kind of circumstances people would identify with a group because they espouse a common cause. This does not translate in “real” support for terrorism. You would probably be surprised at the amount of Americans calling their congressmen on the phone after the slaughter of those four mercenaries in Fallujah and angrily demanding that the USA nuke the place. I’m pretty sure most of these are decent, law-abiding citizen in most circumstances. This does not make them supporters of genocide any more that angry muslims who feel mistreated by the West and misguidedly identify themselves with whom they believe to be a fighter for Islam are supporters of terrorism.
Alarmism and scare-mongering many times has consequences that are much more serious than the perceived threat, and does not really help see the issues in perspective .

Look, what am I trying to say here?

There is a puzzle. If you go to the Basque country, and ask people whether they approve of innocent people being killed to ‘free’ the Basque country, everyone (nearly, including the really hard, hard supporters since they are clandestine and don’t want to be discovered) will say they don’t.

But when you have the funeral of a terrorist who has blown himself up, most of the people from his village follow the cortege. In elections they vote for a party which refuses to condemn killing, and which is really just the ‘political face’ for it.

In the North West provinces of Pakistan many politicians openly support OBL etc etc.

This is the part we have difficulty with, maybe it is just cognitive dissonance, but it is there, and it is a major phenomenon in most terrorist situations. Unfortunately most of those conducting ‘the war on terror’ don’t seem to have understood this.

eg what is the point in ‘rooting out and killing’ 50 gunmen in Fallujah if globally you create another 5,000 volunteers (some of them in Luton) because of the 600 civilians killed in the process.

Is this how to defeat terrorism?

No it isn’t Sam, not at all. I don’t have facts and figures, but I do open my browser on Google news, and the 2 items in the top left hand corner do seem to tell me that the world is on fire I’m afraid. Not only that, the fire does seem to be spreading.

The best hope might be that it is one of these forest fires that burns ever so brighly just before extinguising itself.

“My neighbours”. I live in a quiet Barcelona back street, and just by chance there are a couple of Pakistani boys across the street who have opened a grocery shop (Barcelona is changing, I guess we have the biggest Pakistani community in continental europe just by the Ramblas now). I tend to drop in for something or other once a day, and we talk about all this among other things.

Nice people.

Did you ever meet people from Frankfurt who supported the Red Army Fraction, or from Italy who supported the Brigadi Rossi, or from Kilburn who supported the IRA…….. or from Barcelona who sympathise with Eta. I did.

Why is it difficult for us to understand that many muslims feeling poor, impotent and humiliated can identify with Osama? They are not so different from many young Europeans 20 years ago really.