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

Re: humanized

[manfalling.livejournal.com]

collapse of the global capitalist-consumerist order? hmm. i wasn't going that way with it, but i'm sure you've got a point. what i was mentioning it more for was the extents to which people will go to follow a charismatic leader who offers them meaning in life. now, we see in fight club that the leader is seriously flawed, and so is his plan. so while the destruction of the buildings could show the end of the global capitalist etc.. when no-one believes in it, it could also just be because they already made sure the buildings were vacated- and blowing them up just seemed like a cool thing to do. rebellion against any authority/power figure to give life conflict and meaning.
either way.
but what you said is interesting too.
further, in the book fight club, project mayhem doesn't separate so clearly between man and material. i don't remember if the buildings are vacated or not, but they sure kill some dudes and also cut off that guys balls.