Editorial
A wounded London
We wish we could understand. Why were blind attacks carried out in London, Madrid, New-York, Bali, Istanbul and Baghdad? What are the victims accused of? They were modest people going to work. Particularly in London, if the main target was Britons, the attacks were not really a success. The city hosts people from more than 200 countries. How can anyone justify killing innocent people? What religion authorises people to judge their peers and take their lives? The killers forget the individuals killed and give themselves a good conscience by embracing an overall vision of society. Certainly terrorists believe that their actions are justified.
The unidentified website on which an Islamic group claimed responsibility for the attacks spoke of "revenge" against the British intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq. Very well. But the victims are not responsible for this in any way. They were probably even opposed to these interventions, as were most of their fellow countrymen. Blind terrorism believes it can strike a blow to the state via its citizens. The only problem is that individuals are innocent people and that the state will probably not change its politics. This is why terrorism is both deeply unfair and totally ineffective.
Is this type of terrorism inspired by a bigger, more nebulous entity, such as "the modern world, as represented by the West"? If it is, and if one takes into account the inhabitants of countries which have seen rapid economic growth in the last twenty-five years, then 5.3 billion people (out of 6.2 billions) are potential victims, and that represents 85% of mankind.
No one created the modern world on purpose. It is a self-made process; the result of human action, but not of human intentions. The success of the modern world lies in the fact that it is very individualistic. This will not change with the death of innocent people. Joining protestors during the G8 and asking – massively, but peacefully – for a new world will help to make it change.
-- Victoria Curzon Price
President of CERMAM
Translated into English by Marguerite Cornu, Research Assistant trainee
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- Origin CERMAM
- http://www.cermam.org/en/logs/editorial/a_wounded_london/
- Publié le 9 August 2005