So be it -- once in a while a column may be "emotional." Why not? Although we live in an incredibly fast-paced world, some past incidents never lose any of their magnitude, and rightly so. Sept.11, 2001 will be remembered as one of the days the world came to a standstill. Not because the world wanted to, but because a small group of people turned terrorists vowed to destroy what they perceived was the center of all evil, America, misinterpreting that actually they were it themselves.I assume most fellow citizens remember the exact moment when he or she first heard the news. I know I do; I can give you the city and the street and the time: I heard it on the radio in Amsterdam.
There are various ways in which loss of life comes about, and this affects how involved we are when it occurs to other people. While, for example, the passing away of the Princess of Wales made me feel sad and full of sorrow, it was after all a (preventable) accident; the attacks on America -- and all of us, for that matter -- on Sept. 11 made me think of revenge, hoping that one day we would catch the computer specialists behind the attacks and bring them to justice. Why do I mention computer specialists? Without technical knowledge no terrorist can mastermind into which floor to crash a commercial plane in order to destroy the twin towers. These terrorists must have had expert guidance and sophisticated engineering know-how. The question remains, obtained from whom, graduated from which university and which country? Someone must have made an illicit computer simulation program showing them exactly where to hit. Someone who helped the terrorists is still out there, leading a camouflage life perhaps in Milan, Munich or Miami. Radovan Karadzic "openly" hiding right amongst his own folk springs to mind.
Someone must have received huge amounts of money to do the technical planning. I truly wish our military would not only destroy the al-Qaeda bases, but at the same time that our intelligence services would continue to hunt down the experts who planned the technical dimension of it all.
Turkey is no stranger to terrorism. Terrorists by now have a global dimension, but who is their enemy? If you destroy cities where many people live you will kill many of your own folk, too. "Terror studies" is a complex subject. It requires minute analysis of the motives behind supporting terror. Is it about money? Is it about the false belief in entering paradise after you and your suicide bomb explodes? Is it because your parents abandoned you at the age of 5? It is not enough to say "I do not understand a suicide bomber's motives." We better start looking around at who could be the next one. Some of our civil society options are controlled immigration and vetting of so-called "future private aircraft pilots," more security at airports and the monitoring of how people pay for their tickets -- and all of these are fine. But what if we do raise the next generation of terrorists ourselves, as they already live amongst us, safely tucked away, attending school until some evil voice tells them to abandon life's comforts and to go on a rampage?
Common wisdom dictates that terrorists hide away in distant countries and in mountainous terrain. This is not necessarily the case for planners of attacks with a global dimension. Modern terrorists use modern means, including technology, not just hand-held weapons. Some of them must have attended university or college. Whenever I see images of Osama bin Laden, or whatever his real name is, I ask myself why on earth we give people like this any airtime. We do not need "celebrity terrorists" becoming the wrong type of role models. We must catch them and their masterminds.
I started with one and will finish with another comforting thought: Let the terrorists and war criminals believe that they are clever -- society certainly is, too.
