[From article]
What we are dealing with now, is a post-political, post-religious phenomenon, rooted in deep, irreversible and very early psychological damage. People who shoot schoolchildren, by the hundreds, in the head; rape little girls in front of their parents; and behead people who disagree with them, have no feelings about what they do. They are beyond changing and, most sobering, they are beyond containment.
I’ve had two life-changing experiences that qualify me to comment on terrorism. Part of my undergraduate work took place in England (at Leeds University). I was an “American in Residence” in the development of the first American Studies program in the UK. Unbeknownst to me, I discovered, once I arrived in Leeds, that the university and the surrounding intellectual community, was the seat of the Communist Party in Europe, and the preferred school for the children of almost every brutal regime and fanatical movement in the world. (In particular, African, Middle Eastern, and Chinese rulers.)
[. . .]
My friend was getting extremely agitated and hostile. I asked him what was going on, and why he was so angry. His response was indelibly sobering and disturbing. He said, looking me right in the eye: “If I was told to kill you right now, I wouldn’t hesitate.” As stunned as I was, I asked him why, after all our time together, would he kill me? He replied, with no hesitation, “Because you’re an American and a Jew.”
[. . .]
Some were in the Mafia; some were free-lancers. All of them talked about killing people with the routineness and casualness of someone sharing a list of errands with a friend. They had absolutely no feelings about what they did, and when I asked them what they planned to do after their release, they all said the same thing: “Kill people.” A number of them added that killing people is just what they do, and they do it well.
What both of these experiences taught me was that there were people throughout the world that were so evil, disturbed, or whatever label you choose, that for the safety of all of us, they needed to be dead. Whatever residual naivete I had had, was obliterated by these experiences. I also learned that there are two kinds of naivete – humorous naivete and dangerous naivete. We live now, in a time of dangerous naivete.
[. . .]
On the one hand, we’re dealing with a very severe case of domestic pathological denial: Islam is not a religion of peace and it is frozen in time, somewhere around the 12th century. It is the only major world religion that has not undergone a reformation.
Secondly, Arab cultures without exception, have failed their people. I’ve always been amazed by the ability of Arab and non-Arab apologists who gloss over the daily brutality, the relegation of women to the status of domestic animals, and the endemic, grinding poverty of their citizens, who live in countries ruled by genetically blessed tyrants, hording billions of dollars that they’ve done nothing to earn.
[. . .]
Lastly, I’m continually puzzled by our own obliviousness to the connection between tribalism and poverty, as well as the threat we pose to sectarian forces throughout the world. America, with a handful of exceptions, is alone in requiring assimilation as a prerequisite to success and viability in our culture.
[. . .]
The failure of Arab cultures guarantees terrorist groups a constant flow of recruits. When your own society is so thoroughly corrupt and brutal, it is much less painful to demonize someone else, than to look inside and take responsibility for your own misery.
http://www.dailyinterlake.com/opinion/terrorism-ignorance-naive-and-blind-hope-is-true-threat-to/article_a60c1188-b98c-11e4-8006-63d7ed2b1132.html
Terrorism & ignorance: Naive and blind hope is true threat to world safety
Posted: Saturday, February 21, 2015 8:00 pm
By MORRIE SHECHTMAN
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