Roots of terrorism

Or one of them any way.   The awfulness of the shootings at Fort Hood are self-evident and I don't have much to say about them in their particularity.  The shooter had Arabic & Islamic origins and I'm sure that's going to be fodder for all kinds of ignorant, boorish & hateful bullshit politics.  Not that I have any great sympathy for the man.  In fact, I partially hope that he dies, not only because it would be emotionally satisying, but also to spare the country a lot of back-and-forth rhetoric that a long, probably complex trial would occasion. On the other hand it would be an opportunity for a vindication of the criminal justice system as a means of dealing with terrorist incidents. 
 

But I submit the following impressions:  what lies at the root of terrorism in some corners of the Islamic world is not something confined to the Islamic world and has little to do with Islam, per se.  It has more to do with the tribal codes in place in the Arabic world before Islam and which colored much interpetation of Islam thereafter.   It is a thing which pre-dates Islam anywhere and which could be found everywhere and  is still with us nowadays just about anywhere, but I would especially indicate the American South, American gun culture,  various street gangs of varying ethnicity. East Asia (insofar as it remains traditional) and among the professional military throughout the world.    What is this awful thing, this mother of blood feuds? 

I think it is a thing variously called "honor" and "face."  It's a matter of taking slights and insults to heart and feeling that one is diminished until one is avenged by the taking of appropriate retaliatory action up to and including violent retribution.  I would note that "appropriate" does not refer to how much objective harm is done, but rather how grievous the insult is felt to be.   Obsession with honor also overrides a concern for self-preservation. 
 
It is bad enough with indivduals when they become mass killers a la Columbine,   but when when a preoccupation with honor becomes collective, through vehicles of nationalism or chauvinisms of race, religion, or culture, it's all the worse. 
 
I believe that what a sense of honor is ultimately is a corruption of a sense of justice. 
 
R.
 

 
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