Terrorism, the Hidden Factor.

Terrorism is the product of despair. It appeals to the fanatical and the dispossessed.

At first glance it may appear that the two groups I have mentioned have much in
common, but they do not. Fanatical elements feed on the dispossessed.

It is possible, even probable that there will be a small proportion of human race who are
born fanatical, born insane or born paranoid, There are those will always find an excuse
for whatever is wrong in their lives. Who will always find someone to blame. And there
are those who just don’t have any feelings of humanity.

Then come the excuses why it is justifiable to murder and maim in the name of whatever
cause they decide is the excuse. Often they use God, in a fundamentalist way, to justify
their murderous attacks. God is the excuse but not the reason. The reason is that they
need some form of authority to order these acts, and since God is usually silent so who is
to argue?

Who is going to carry out these acts of terrorism? It is not the fundamentalists. Somehow
I cannot imagine Osama bin Laden as a suicide bomber, or any of the hierarchy of Al-
Qaeda wearing dynamite vests as they ride the bus to the markets to blow up innocent
people. Being a Fundamentalist is OK but there are limits,

To carry out terrorist attacks the fundamentalists need the dispossessed. If there is
nothing, no hope, only despair, it is easy to give false hope and reasons to believe. The
less people have the less that have to lose till those who have nothing have nothing to
loss. These are the people fundamentalists feed on.

We need intelligence, we need surveillance and military action to contain terrorism, but
we cannot end terrorism until we find ways of raising the existence of the dispossessed to
a level where there is hope. We cannot end terrorism by act of torture and oppression. We
just become as bad as the terrorist.

The only way to end terrorism is to eliminate the base of fundamentalism, and reduce the
fanatical to social oddities without any power. The fanatical only become powerful when
they are listened to.

We need to end poverty and despair in the human race. Not just because it is a nice thing
to do but because it is the way to deprive terrorism of its base and reduce fundamentalists
to raving on street corners with no one listening.

Aid, reconstruction and support for the dispossessed is not philanthropy, it is the key to
our survival. At the moment the very poor of our world have nothing. And with nothing
comes nothing to lose.
It is impossible for me to imagine living in Gaza, or even more so Dufor. But I can
imagine the despair of nothing. No food, no shelter, no where to go and no hope. That is
what terrorism feed on. We cam never win a guerrilla war against terrorist but we can
deprive them of their power base.

The only way we will ever be safe from terrorists is when the world is free of poverty and
oppression. We cannot achieve that with a gun.