Anatomy of Hell

No, I'm not referring to the movie. I'm referring to the world in which terrorism is taking up center stage. A few weeks ago, extremist Briton Muslims bombed subways in London. A year ago trains in Spain were bombed. The US (and most of the western world) has changed dramatically since the September 11 attacks. India has witnessed suicide bombings, whether it was the assassination of Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi in '91 by the LTTE or the recent car bomb (unfortunately, just one of many such occurrences in the area) in Kashmir. The Palestine conflict has been a cause for several suicide bombing attempts. There are several other places which have experienced the brutality of terrorism. What is it that transforms people into terrorists? It is not hard to see how repression can lead terrorism, but what drives four Briton Muslims towards mass murder? Thomas Friedman in his NYT op-ed piece (from July 15, 2005) describes how a large part of terrorist attacks in recent times has been carried out by young extremist Sunni Muslims. The suggestion that ideologies of certain religions makes people practicing those religions more inclined towards violence, is very disturbing. I have, for a long time, resisted such connections, but statistics seem to point in that direction. The very fact that ideology can drive man towards terrorism is sad. But the suggestion that religion is responsible for some of these ideologies, makes things even more tragic.