A few random thoughts...Permission to kill. I do not think it is unduly ethnocentric to think that anti-western terrorism has flourished because the west condoned and flattered terrorists. It is true that the motivation in the foreground of the terrorist's mind is more likely to be something written by a radical Egyptian preacher in 1930 rather than by a radical Californian academic in 1970. However their own words supply evidence that terrorists and terrorist-sympathisers spend plenty of time looking over their shoulders to see what the West thinks of them.
They curse themselves for doing it. The asymmetry between how interested they are in us compared to how interested we are in them is further proof of the West's dominance, and part of what makes them burn. But they do it just the same.
What we say probably does not supply the most important part of the terrorists' motivation - but its effect is not negligible, and it is the part that we can change
posted by Natalie at 11:33 PM It's me again, just stepping in for today and tomorrow before I go on holiday.
What stopped me blogging? As I said earlier, first I was busy, then I was ill. However I have been pretty much recovered for the last week. The thing that repeatedly made me decide that I would get back online tomorrow rather than today was the fact that I was frightened of my by-now enormous pile of unread emails. Eventually I realised that the dragon that lay across my path had to be slain if I was ever to return to the blogosphere. So I deleted them.
You may rebuke me. Be assured that I rebuke myself. But it was the only way.
posted by Natalie at 11:16 PM 
