In the wake of the failed car bombs in central London last week, every newscast has dwelt on the fact that at least eight of the suspected terrorists are in the medical profession. The Hippocratic oath enjoins a doctor to "first, do no harm," and yet these doctors were intent on killing innocent people. How could they reconcile the good they did every day in the hospital and the evil they were attempting to do outside it? The two men who tried to turn a car full of gasoline into a suicide bomb at the Glasgow airport led the police to a ring of doctors from the Middle East and India that may expand to a sizable conspiracy.
In the meantime there have been forty racially based attacks on Muslims in Glasgow, which tells us that the average person has already solved this mystery. The doctors were evil because of their religion. Yet another black mark was placed against Islam. But I hope we can all back off for a moment and seriously confront the mystery of evil. No question is more important today. The fact that these suspects are doctors reminded me that Al Qaida's second in command, Aymon Al-Zawahiri was trained as an ophthalmologist. Being in the healing profession doesn't make one immune to radicalism. In fact, being highly educated and sensitive to the plight of the suffering poor, along with a conversion to fundamentalist ideology, has become a hallmark of revolutionaries at least as far back as the Russian Revolution.
This brings up the first ingredient of evil, which is perception. These radicalized doctors don't perceive themselves as doing evil deeds, even though violence is involved leading to the death and injury of innocent people. In their perception, they are doing good. Indeed, they feel that they have joined a noble cause that pleases God. They are sacrificing themselves for the greater good of an oppressed people. All around them they see unspeakable oppression of the weak by the powerful, and the situation has grown so grave that only radical means will solve it and bring the world back to an ideal of purity, the sort of purity God originally intended.
The strange thing about perception is that it is so convincing. The reason for this is the blurred line between subjectivity and objectivity. To a fundamentalist of any stripe, not just Islamists, everyday events show the hand of God. Signs and portents fill the air. When a radical ideology seeps into the mind, myths about God and Satan color the most basic facts. The basic fact of an Iraqi suicide bomber killing himself and carrying an American soldier along with him becomes a holy act to the terrorist and a senseless act of barbarity to the U.S. public. Perception leaves room for many conflicting interpretations. And the blurring of subjectivity and objectivity is usually equal on all sides.
This doesn't mean that perception excuses evil-doing, but it does help explain it. There is a psychological component to all aberrant behavior, and we need to keep that in mind before we jump too quickly into religion, nationalism, and xenophobia. For the past six years many American leaders have done the opposite, foisting explanations based on God, civilization versus barbarity, and the satanic irrationality of terrorists. To the extent that we put "them" into the box of religious evil, there will never be a chance for a creative solution. The doctors who became radicalized in a peaceful country like Britain see themselves in a world where anyone who doesn't actively work toward an Islamic state is on the side of Satan. We must change our perceptions so that we don't make the same mistake, seeing every suicide bomber and radicalized intellectual as another proof that these people are satanic.
Where perception is involved, evil can be countered by changing one's own perceptions. This happened after WW II when the Japanese changed in the American mind from atrocious combatants to friendly suppliers of transistor radios and cars. In our present inflamed situation it's hard to believe that Iraqis and Palestinians have that same benign potential, but of course they do. Objectively speaking, there are multitudes of Arabs attempting to live normal lives untouched by radical ideas. We need to allow them into our perceptual field, because until we conceive of "good Arabs" and "good Muslims," they won't exist for us. The doors of perception must be cleansed, as William Blake said, which is an actual process, one that everyone on both sides needs to undertake.
(to be continued)
Click: www.intentblog.com
Comments for this entry are currently under maintenance but will be restored soon.