The Hamburg Cell

[poliphilo]

Young men are very suggestible. They're fragile and they have a great need to belong. And so they're very easily roped into wars, sects, jihads and the like. If the war, sect or jihad is something that pisses Daddy off then so much the better.

I was watching Channel 4's drama about the 9/11 hijackers last night. They were rootless rich boys, most of them, adrift in a society that didn't give them enough respect. Al Quaeda offered them brotherhood, charismatic father figures, dogmatic certainty, a strong sense of purpose. As one of them said as he made his commitment to the Hamburg cell- "I want my life to count."

They weren't demons. At least, they weren't demons to begin with. At some point or other they crossed the line. And the scary thing is it was impossible to say exactly when that happened. When did imagination fail? When did they stop asking questions? We watched as noble idealists morphed into murderous fanatics and it was a smooth, unbroken process.

War on Terror? Bush was right the first time; it's unwinnable. Why? Because it's a war on human nature. So long as there are needy young men there will be recruits for Al Quaeda and the like.

Comments

[glitzfrau.livejournal.com]

You formulated vague and rambling thoughts I've had on the issue for ages. Thank you.

(Though: do you really believe there is such a thing as "human nature", entirely independent of social circumstances? Surely, in a different society, needy young men might turn to other - less or more destructive - means to boost their pride? For example, and this isn't intended personally, but they might seek power in a religious rather than a religio-military hierarchy?)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

Oh yes, I agree. Men are pack animals. They crave that whole Band of Brothers vibe. But you can get that just as much from the Society of St Francis as from Al Quaeda or the Marine corps.

[ibid.livejournal.com]

Similarly I do beleive a lot of it has to do with the unemotional nature of male upbringing. Women are allowed to be emotional, to get attatched to people. Men are supposed to be public animals, unemotional and I think this results in a tendency to seek approval in things like this.

I keep thinking htis when I know more men who are soppy with their sig. oths. than women!

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I think it may go back to the very beginning- when big-brained apes started hunting in packs.

[archyena.livejournal.com]

The problem is that in Middle Eastern society there has not been an adequate social maturation out of the warrior ethic and its attendant mythology. The West matured out of it in a series of wars against itself that involved enough of the population close enough at hand to break forever the notion of "blood and gloy" leave in the collective mind only blood. The Arab world has not yet had that great war where people are plucked by their government from comfortable lives and forced to kill other people just like them. This is why there is no great uprising in Palestine, it is a low intensity affair where only a handful of fanatics that the West would medicate are engaged actively in violence. In the West, these men become serial killers when they reach that point at all and will create another (often psuedo-spiritual) reasoning for wanton death.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

That's a very interesting point. It would explain why Turkey stands apart from most of the rest of the Islamic world in its desire to integrate with Europe. Turkey was a combatant in the Great War.

[archyena.livejournal.com]

Not to mention the destruction of its empire. Once a people give up racial (ie imperial) domination as an avenue of advance, they become much more agreeable. Look at the Deutschmen.