Each time I see these images, I feel the same: a shock to realise the extremely madness and badness (is that correct?) human beings can do if moved by devilish ideas. Progress and evolution have made our lives different: we can fly in airplanes, go under the sea a lot of miles down, have gone to the moon, can see stars which disappeared several light-years ago, etc. They have really improved our life style. But human beings can still feel hate, be cruel and get satisfaction when harming others. They can sing and dance when someone is killed, raped or maimed.
Luckily, not ALL human beings are equal: there are others who want to make this world a better place, think that being merciful is just to follow a Godly path and get inner satisfaction in helping others, whatever their religion, political ideas, intelligence, etc.
That is, Cain and Abel continue to live with us. But you know: that’s what free will means. And freedom is a very important thing: if there would be no freedom, there would be no good nor bad either.
In this day, I want to remember those who have been killed by Islamic terrorism. It’s truly important to consider that before this unlucky people, there were already people assasinated, killed, maimed… and that afterwards, in this 8 years, nearly 14,000 people have already been killed. Yes, I know, perhaps there are more people dead in car crashes or by lung and heart cancer. But that’s not caused by another human being’s will. It’s just that really awful thought of wanting to kill even killing oneself what makes this more terrible, more powerful. Such extreme hate has been worrying so much people over these 8 years, although I fear that it has not worried enough.
To begin to understand 9/11, you should read Mohammed Atta’s last will. Mysogynist, obsessed with details and with his body… For the most part, it’s just a recollection of what to do in his funeral and burial. He wrote it on 1996, when he didn’t know he was going to be a suicide bomber.
I remember the first time I read that will, it stroke me as cold-hearted. He was a very young man then, and he seemed so absolutely deprived of any inner happiness. Nothing about having sons or having lived a good life. Nothing about his family. Just “don’t touch my genitals without gloves, don’t let women approach by body, wash my body this way”. If there is somebody which can be considered as an example of “There is no fun in Islam”, it’s without doubt this guy. Yes, I understand someone who kills 3000 people must be cold-hearted, but reading what he wrote is very chilling for me: it’s to know what he considered important. He revered his own death, more than his life.
But the photo that impress me the most is this one:
Sept. 11 hijackers Ziad Jarrah, left, and Mohammed Atta laugh in what is apparently their last will and testament in a videotape apparently made in Afghanistan on Jan. 18, 2000.
These guys were at a terror camp…. laughing. I have seen lots of photos of Jarrah having good time. he was a playboy, impacient, deeply in love with his German Muslim girlfriend. He did really doubt about what he was going to do, and Atta was worried about him deserting. Anyway, I have seen very few photos of Atta laughing. Or just smiling. Now compare it with the above photo. His eyes are practically looking the same (his left eye is smaller than the other…). Cruel eyes, hein? I believe he only considered himself a happy man while kidnapping and killing those people. And committing suicide.
Maybe this is just a stupid rant and I should just have blogged the first photo. Maybe. But those photos really make me think. How many other Attas are there? What leads them personally to commit such atrocities? Yes, I understand the ideological reasons for them to kill, but I feel we are just forgetting to look at the guys who kill. Why instead they don’t like to spend their free time baking bread, watching TV or writing poems? Are they bad or are truly mad? What would have happened if they haven’t been born and educated where they were? Are they just brainwashed or are just cruel assassins who use those teachings to kill in Allah’s name, fulfilling at once their own deepest and bloodiest desires and Allah’s hate for infidels?
And the most important one: will this end someday? Or not?
Tea and Politics 
Angry, I honestly don’t know what went through these people’s minds, other than thoughts of getting laid for all eternity.
We always make the same mistake– we assume that Muslims are basically like us in their outlook, and they aren’t. Their worldview is completely other.
Hmmm… well, I baseically don’t think that a psycopath or a serial killer is the same as me, but I do think that understanding their behaviour is really interesting specially when we are confronting them.
I believe that they are basically mobsters and drug traffickers with pretentions of killing for God, so a lot of people enroll to have a good after-life. But I am not very politically correct at this. There are a lof of people making gross benefits out of these crimes (politically, economically…) and till we don’t understand the whole phenomenon, it’s going to be a little difficult to act.
Perhaps these guys in particular weren’t. Mohammed Atta was a real mysogynist, blaming his mother for ruining his parent’s matrimony. I wonder how/if that would explain his enrollment in the Muslim Brotherhood since he was very young (following his father’s place there) and his “faith” in jihad. Certainly it explains his hate/contempt for women.
But well, this post was more to think and to make people think than to defend any theory. Knowing why Jack the Ripper became Jack the Ripper, maybe it would prevent more Jack the Rippers acting in the cities. Perhaps it’s just a stupid post. Perhaps not.
My understanding is that, their ideology or “thinking” is completly alien to us, and therefore I doubt that the West would ever understand them totally. I am not making any excuses for them or their thinking, but I guess the only way forward is to preach peace, treat out human fellow being with respect, kindness irrespective of race, color or creed. Unfortunately what they set to do that only increased the hate towards the middle-east, instead of making the situation better.
I believe that the phrase about a picture speaking a thousand words is very true of that photo of Atta. In the same way that people (correctly) question why the picture of the falling man disappeared from the press, they should question why that photo is the one that has become synonymous with a man whom noone knows much of. Even next to photos of the other hijackers, it stands out. It is the face of what we want to believe that people who commit these uncomprehendable acts are, inside and out. Cold, heartless, evil.
The problem is that is affords assumptions.
Can I recommend you an article?
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/sep/23/september11.education
I only say this, because you are not the first, nor will you be the last to have drawn the comparison between Jarrah and Atta. It is alot easier to allow leverage when a smiling photo of someone is readily available, as is the case with the former.
I’d like to recommend you an article:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/sep/23/september11.education
I am a great believer that photos can speak a thousand words, and I believe that it should be questioned why this is the photo that has become synonymous with Atta. Even next to the lineup of the accomplices on AA 11 and the other flights, it is different. It’s a brutal and severe portrait that embodies what we need to believe terrorists, or anyone who commits such an act of pain, to be. The problem is whether or not the image it affords is correct or whether it simply offers a demonization and detatchment from a conflict that needs to be addressed on a far more human level. In the case of this photo, I sadly believe the former to be true.