When my parents generation were young many of them fantasized about a violent revolution that would bring in a global regime of totalitarian class justice, and sympathized with the Bader-Meinhof terrorists and other violent leftist revolutionaries as a way of bringing this about. When my grandparents generation were young many of them fantasized about a pure and vital Nordic race and a global regime of totalitarian ethnic justice and sympathized with the violent brown-shirted terrorists. That is why I am unconvinced when people from my parents and grandparents generations argue that only Islam is capable of radicalizing youths to the degree of violence, and that this is a war between a degenerate Islamic and an innocent Western civilization that is incapable of sympathizing with totalitarianism and terrorism. People from my own generation have witnessed terrorism committed by people who think they know the truth and have the right to kill for it. This includes wahhabi terrorists randomly killing innocent Americans and Europeans, but it also includes German and Swedish Neonazis randomly killing innocent muslims, and a Norwegian nationalist randomly killing innocent youth politicians that he considered to sympathize with muslims. That is why I am unconvinced when people from my generation argue that only muslims are capable of terrorism and killing of innocents, and that this is in essence a war between right and wrong. I am not willing to abandon the idea of social or ethnic justice because these ideas have been tainted by Marxist and Nationalist extremists. I am also not willing to condemn a religion because it has been tainted by religious extremists. But I will condemn terrorism and totalitarianism in all its guises. It is a violent war between right and wrong, to be sure. But it is the ones who are waging the war with violence and rejoice in the death of human beings who are wrong, regardless of why they wage it. And it is the ones who suffer violence yet refuse to become violent who are right.
Posted on: Fri, 09 Jan 2015 18:07:18 +0000
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