Another country, another slaughter, another wicked and pointless loss of innocent life, another act which brings shame to the Islamic world, in whose name the suicide bombers claim to be acting. The latest series of international outrages, this time in the Moroccan city of Casablanca has left everyone, not least the Moroccans themselves, shocked and appalled. According to authorities, the carnage had all the hallmarks of Al-Qaeda.
The question that comes back once again to all decent people is what these barbarians think they are doing? How can anyone imagine that the butchery of fellow human beings in such a random and brutal fashion advances any cause one centimeter?
As we have said before, there is absolutely nothing noble about mass murder. These people may claim to be fighting a jihad and embracing martyrdom, but the only martyrs are their pitiful victims. Those who throw away their lives in such a wicked cause are common murderers. It is hard to believe, given their intelligence and cunning, that they do not appreciate the contempt and loathing with which all decent people view their actions. It must therefore be assumed that they welcome such reactions.
In some perverse manner, they see the disgust their actions generate as a measure of their success. The angrier they can make people, the further their cause is being advanced. It is hard to know how to deal with such warped logic. It has long of course been the stock in trade of terrorists down the ages. And it has not been without success. Men who were once branded as terrorists have in time come to political power. Archbishop Makarios in Cyprus and Menachem Begin in Israel were both guilty of heinous crimes earlier in their political lives. But as part of the realpolitik of international diplomacy, in time they became accepted as statesmen on the world stage.
Herein however lies the gaping difference between the reprehensible actions of these terrorists and those of Al-Qaeda. The former were acting for a specific cause, centered on a specific country. Al-Qaeda, by contrast, has less well-defined aims. Its killers are attacking international society in a vicious, inchoate campaign that has at its heart a desire for anarchy and destruction on a scale never before imagined or seen.
There is only one certainty in this horrific, manic campaign of terror and that is that Casablanca will not be the last helpless community to feel the spite of Al-Qaeda killers. Many more helpless people who have the misfortune to be in the wrong place at the wrong time will die. There are misguided individuals at this very moment planning to destroy themselves along with as many of their perceived enemies as possible in the next outrage.
However, from the sick mentality of these killers emerges an opportunity for all those who embrace the normal, pacific values of the world. Just as the terrorists seem to define themselves by the carnage that they can perpetrate, so we must identify ourselves by our stoicism in the face of such great evil.
These sick terrorists will eventually be tracked down, not least the cynical leaders who send young fools to their deaths. However until this happens, our reaction should not be primarily one of fury, but of pity and contempt. To fear and hate them will, by contrast, give a perverse victory to them and their deeply flawed cause.
