Terrorism - " Why We need it"

We need terrorizing apparently:

Technology is filling the vacuum left by religion. Consumer technologies like the computer, the mobile phone and most significantly the Internet, connect us to the greater powers of the world. And they are doing so in a way that religion alone could only hope to have done. The consequence of these technologies in short was, “uniting and empowering the individual” .
Uniting us against what though? Terror has always been the unifying force in society. Linda Colley’s penetrating work, Britons – Forging the nation for example, beautifully illustrates the overwhelming impact that terror had in uniting Britain.
Our profound relationship with night, with the darker elements of nature is as old as the human species itself. Moreover, the influence of terror can be traced back through history to the remnants of cave drawings depicting the Moons maleficent influence – right through to our buzzing electronic present, where terrorism, global warnings and a conspiracy underworld capture imaginations in a similar way.
Christianity’s assimilation of South America makes for fascinating research. Fernando Cervantes work, The Devils of Querétaro, details how righteous European missionaries had no sooner succeeded in bringing civility to these lower races, than to find them worshipping the Anti-Christ . The vanquished South American community did not see the point of worshipping a benign lord, when more importantly an all-powerful and satanic entity needed appeasing.
For all the horrors of war, the Universe’s two greatest were to unite our small planet in a way that religion; as a tool, never could. In fact dogmatic religions have done more to separate peoples and cultures.
Terror, however paradigmatic it may seem, has always united. The more global the appearance of threat and malice to basically sociable peoples, the greater will be the bond between nations. We have perhaps then to thank terrorism and its small but growing cult of adherents for the almost global and unifying craving for peace, love and charity, or if for nothing else, then for serving to vanquish the eighth deadly sin*.




[edit on 29-2-2008 by sansiden]

[edit on 29-2-2008 by sansiden]