Excuses for Violence
Monday, September 13, 2004
I think we might be making a mistake looking for rational or moral justifications for the deliberate blowing up of innocent citizens around the world. Have we forgotten that there are plain, old-fashioned anti-socials in every society?
If you work with criminals, you will find that there are some amongst them who are incorrigibly attracted to mayhem. Some of these anti-socials are eager for the chance to kill, maim, destroy and cause human distress. The violence is already in them. Any excuse will do to vent it.
Publicity encourages them. The more we talk about the assassins as semi-respectable freedom fighters, the longer they will persist. The slenderest pretext will keep them going.
Any justification that have been put forward for murdering innocent civilians in the present wave of 'Islamist' terror are as phoney as a two-bob watch. People all over the world have similar greater grievances. If we all followed the murderers' example, civilisation would be at an end.
Philip O'Carroll