Angry young men
: When it turned out that the London bombings were carried out by four young Muslim men born in England, it seemed to give a lie to Tom Friedman's theory that Muslim terrorism sprouts from the anger of young men in Arab nations who have no hope of economic prosperity and freedom. dos username password
Here were young men who may not have been born into Windsor Castle, but they were living in a land of freedom and opportunity. So how can they be portrayed as anything other than what they are: murderers? dos username password
Well, today, The Times tries to continue portraying them as angry young men.
"I don't approve of what he did, but I understand it. You get driven to something like this, it doesn't just happen."dos username password
To the boys from Cross Flats Park, Mr. Tanweer, 22, who blew himself up on a subway train in London last week, was devout, thoughtful and generous. If they understood his actions, it was because they lived in Mr. Tanweer's world, too.dos username password
They did not agree with what Mr. Tanweer had done, but made clear they shared the same sense of otherness, the same sense of siege, the same sense that their community, and Muslims in general, were in their view helpless before the whims of greater powers. Ultimately, they understood his anger.dos username password
The news that four British-born Muslim men from neighborhoods around Leeds were suspected of carrying out the bombings in London has made the shared dissatisfaction of boys like these and the creeping militancy of some young British Muslims an urgent issue in Britain.dos username password
The bombers are an exception among Britain's 1.6 million Muslims. But their actions have highlighted a lingering question: why are second-generation British Muslims who should seemingly be farther up the road of assimilation rejecting the country in which they were born and raised?
The problem with that analysis is that though it does not justify their actions -- it tries to understand them -- it gives a tacit logic, even a justification, to the horribly illogical, unjustifiable, uncivilized crime.
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What they did is a crime. That's all it is, nothing more. A crime.dos username password
But when we treat it as something else, when we try to understand it, when we grant the veil of political correctness -- of understanding, even tolerance, invoking fuzzy words like "otherness" -- we risk spreading the crime, making it if not acceptable then at least understandable for others. It is a cousin of glamorizing crime, of turning these scum into ideological, religious Bonnies and Clydes.dos username password
Well, not Bonnies... Which brings up an entirely different question: If terrorism is caused by anger, then wouldn't the women of the Middle East be far more likely to turn into terrorists, since they are even more oppressed than their brothers and husbands, who are also their oppressors? dos username password
So is it about anger at all? Or is it just a crime? And shouldn't we treat it as that? A crime. dos username password
Do we justify vehicular manslaughter under the influence of alcohol because alcoholism is a disease? No, we treat the act as a crime and slap the killer in jail.dos username password
Do we tolerate corporate fraud because the perpetrator was raised in a culture of competition, success, and greed> No, we treat the act as a crime and slap the thief in jail. dos username password
Now it's fine to understand these acts insofar as it helps stop them. Yes, we must understand our enemies to defeat them. And, yes, sometimes we must understand the causes to eliminate those causes -- and I'd argue that supporting democracy in the Middle East is just that. dos username password
But that's not what's happening in the efforts to understand why these young men did this terrible thing in London. This is not a military analysis aimed at finding and killing the enemy before he kills again. This is a sociological effort to understand them. And it begins with the presumption that we should accept their anger as as real.dos username password
Well what the hell do they have to be angry about? They're fed. They're free. They're educated. They have health care. They can say and go where they want. Having problems with bullies on their playgrounds, are they? Well, don't we all? But we don't turn into Columbine killers or London bombers or Baghdad bombers who target children or the perpetrators of September 11th. Nothing justifies that. Nothing makes that understandable. dos username password
Do we try to understand the BTK killer? Not really. Oh, we try to justify the sensationalistic coverage of the case in the media. But no one truly tries to understand him and justify what he did. No one asks whether he was angry (or, as it turns out, horny). We know he is a deranged killer and that's how we treat him. We rejoice at catching him; we throw him in prison; some regret that we can't kill him; and we shake our heads at what a horrid person he is. We disdain him.dos username password
Well, these are crimes carried out by horrid criminals as well. dos username password
They are not insurgents. They are not even terrorists. I am coming to think it is wrong to give them even that bit of explanation and justification. dos username password
They are just murderers. dos username password
Are they angry? Why even ask?dos username password
: LATERdos username password
Yes, to call them "terrorist" gives them too much justification. dos username password
Look at it this way: Would you have tried to understand Edgar Ray Killen, the convicted Ku Klux Klan killer in the Mississippi Burning murders? Would you have explained his cultural shame at losing the Civil War and called him an insurgent or a militant or even a terrorist? Would you have blamed his grandparents for teaching him to have no respect for black people? Or would you simply condemn his hate and his act? The answer, of course, is C. So why should it be any different when condemning the crimes of these murderers?dos username password
LATER STILL:
A suicide bomber in a fuel truck blew himself up beside a Shiite mosque on Saturday evening in a town south of Baghdad, killing at least 58 people and wounding 86, the police said.
And what separates this from the bombing of a Mississippi black church?
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Murder is murder. dos username password
Mac question
: OK, Mac heads, now that you've talked me into this, answer me this:dos username password
How do I change the function of say, the F12 key on my Powerbook to turn it into a normal old forward delete key (FN-DELETE in Macese)? I'm being driven nuts by having to do two-handed deletes. I just want a simple delete key. And I can't believe that Apple devoted entire keys to eject and to bringing up the dashboard (when they have all those pretty icons to do the task for us).
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