Let us not allow a few inconvenient facts get in the way of a perfectly good (and long-standing) leftist hypothesis about terrorism’s “root causes”. After all, such “evidence” only indexes the “fallacy of proof” that the (conservative) bourgeois ruling class has traditionally used to maintain the status quo — and to push a dubious and politically-tinged philosophical paradigm that insists, ludicrously, that rationality and objectivity should somehow retain privileged epistemological status. From Tom Gross, NRO’s Media Blog:
After the revelation that two of the terror suspects arrested in Britain over the weekend are doctors, much nonsense is being sprouted by “experts†on British television saying that for terrorists to be educated and middle class is “virtually unprecedented†and that the average terrorist is motivated by such things as “poverty,†“opposition to Zionism,†and so on.
In fact many, possibly most, terrorists and suicide bombers have been educated and middle class – just like many leading communists and Nazis were.
Among several of the more prominent terrorist doctors of recent years:
* Dr Abdel al-Rantissi (who succeed Sheikh Yassin as leader of Hamas): He studied pediatric medicine and genetics at Egypt’s Alexandria University, graduating first in his class and was a certified physician.
* Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri (the No. 2 in Al Qaeda). He studied behavior, psychology and pharmacology at Cairo University, graduating in 1974, and earning a Masters degree in surgery in 1978.
— Then, of course, there are the medical dilettantes, like the amateur surgeons who hacked the heads off children near Baqubah.
Still, such extrapolating out from a few examples does not a trend make. And until such time as we can prove beyond to a statistical certainty that the ranks of terrorists are comprised of a goodly number of middle class and upper class ideologues, we are free to assume that they are instead made up of those uneducated dullards who are simply lashing out at the oppression of their social betters / institutional tormentors — just like Tom Joad did!
Terrorism is simply a Steinbeck novel being played out in sandals and explosives vests; and anybody who tells you differently simply refuses to accept the larger truths that, unfortunately, the tyranny of “facts” often conspire to obscure.
(h/t CJ Burch)
And of course there is Ernesto Guevara de la Serna, MD (UBA, ’53).
Nothing to see here, folks. Move along.
Regards,
Ric
What a narrative-fucking event this was. It’ll take hours to recover from this.
If you’re shopping for a pun/Steinbeck post title, here ya go:
Of M(al)ice and Men
–
Paging Doctor Mengele…
As I posted on CQ, terrorists and revolutionaries are usually from the professional class.
Terrorists and revolutionaires have always come from the privileged class. Most of the members of the Baader-Meinhof were upperclass; Castro was a Phd candidate and Che Guevara was a doctor. Arafat was a civil engineer. Lenin was a lawyer. Mao was a professional student from a prosperous family. Many of our Founding Fathers were lawyers and doctors. Robespierre was a lawyer.
I hate to Godwin, but were the leaders of the Nazi party a bunch of uneducated dolts, or fairly-well educated and cultured, even professional men? Paging Albert Speers…
I think all of this needs to be seen through the lens of the US failure in Iraq and the ongoing and compounding failure of the surge.
Then you will clearly see that amateur surgeons and failed animal husbandry experiments prevail across Iraq due to the destabilizing effect of US imperialism.
Or maybe Islamic fundamentalists are insane and need to be eliminated
PS I just saw the photos of Salman Rushdie’s soon to be ex wife. Talk about overachieving. I’d issue a fatwa too
Indeed. Look at this list [http://www.angelfire.com/ultra/terroristscorecard/index.html] and tell me which of these folks was a “peasant” or “worker”. The very first guy was in a multimillionarie family with a major construction company…
Uh-oh. I’m more at risk for Sudden Jihad Syndrome than my unlearned counterparts in my age group!
More seriously–of course the “terrorists are poor folk” myth persists; it gives wonderful leverage for those who want to saddle us with a White Man’s Burden that includes justifying the Brown Man rising up and slaughtering a lot of uninvolved people. Because of the POVERTY!
You are a man among boys, Mr. G.
The Left sees everything through the lens of economic struggle; it can’t fathom religious ideals. If all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
This is not that far removed from the “global warming caused the genocide in Darfur” idea. Leftists are really insecure. I wonder but that it’s not that they need to have their worldview explicitly validated by an analysis of the nature of the terrorist threat that is in consonance with their views, it’s mostly that they really need, generally speaking, the stuff in the newspapers to not challenge that worldview.
And, of course, Mohammad Atta was an engineering student from a wealthy and well-connected family in Cairo…
It seems Dr’s like Mssr. Abdullah & Masha, aren’t very effective for what clearly required a talent for engineering; if they were more inclined to
a biological solution; their skills would have fit better. To Zawahiri &
Rantisi you have to add Rafir Sabiq; the Columbia trained florida doctor
recently convicted of aiding Al Queda; the Pakistani microbiologist Sidiqqi
tied to Padilla pal El Shukrijumah. On the right, the once and former Iraqi
‘strongman’ Allawi is a cardiologist, the previous prime minister to Maliki
was an eye doctor.
The root cause of terrorism is terrorists. End the root causes of terrorism.
The left’s twisted “noble savage” routine, however, does manage to waste a lot of time.