The missing yet necessary role of intellectuals in ME and World Affairs
This is not simply an essay on intellectuals, their role and the dialogue that they need to champion, but an attempt by a young and aspiring ME “intellectual” to present his own personal views and his own personal critique of the way things are in the world today.
We need to determine exactly where we are going and what it is that we are seeking in order to be able to choose the right path.
It is quite simple to understand why a people, who have been living under the humiliating conditions of foreign occupation for decades now, would feel so much frustration, bitterness, anger and hate. It is also simple to understand the need for an emotional outlet in these circumstances. That violence should proceed from this situation is not at all surprising. Continue reading “Whereto?”
A contribution to an electronic forum
Terrorism, in my opinion, has nothing to do with grievances. Terrorists are but nihilistic pariahs that use the “legitimate grievances” of the people to whom they claim to belong in order to justify their own hateful deeds. Terrorism is related more to the personality and character of the terrorist than it is to his socioeconomic and political environment. Continue reading “On the Psychological Underpinnings of Terrorism”
The debate on the potential Islamic roots or parallels for the terrorist attacks that took place on September 11 and before, launched and/or coordinated by groups with Islamic affiliations, is making me wonder now, despite my having taken part in it, whether we are not putting too much emphasis on the issue of supposed roots or parallels in Islamic history. Modern terrorism, when you think about it, seems to have a more western origin than anything else.
The tendency itself seems to have begun with the French Revolution but was launched at earnest with the development of anarchist and fascist groups in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Continue reading “A Brief Note on the Roots of Modern Terrorism”
The Ammar Abdulhamid Archive 