The Terrorist Inside

Posted on May 28, 2003 in Liberty

A free man’s defense depends on the willingness to kill the Hero within himself in order to be able to reject it in others.
John Ralston Saul

I like to take quotes sometimes and flip them around to find new truths. In reflecting on Saul’s quote, I came up with this:

Our best defense against terrorism is to first confront the terrorist within ourselves so that we are no use to those who might be tempted to employ it. There is something more to be said: the terrorist in ourselves not only threatens others, he threatens us with loss of property, family, friends, dignity. He must commit acts of terrorism against us first so that he can use our bodies to wreak his evil in the world.

Every dictator has a terrorist living in himself. The terrorist whispers “You will lose your wealth. You will lose your power. You must listen to me if you are to keep them.” The dictator is the thrall of the inner terrorist who makes him believe that he is nothing without the excesses he acquires. The free man knows better. He knows that one need only to make enough of a living to shelter and feed himself and his family. The terrorist does two things: first, he entices the free human into believing that luxury is essential and, second, he threatens to take even the minimum away.

By this definition, the number of those who might be called terrorists increases. And many of us become terrorists by acceding to the extortions which luxury makes possible. As addicts to excess, we find ourselves fighting to preserve more than we need to just live. We follow dictators unquestioningly. We see as enemies those who preach that maybe we don’t need these things. We create cults of the material, building temples to Mammon and calling Mammon God. And we agree to the evil notion that nonviolent acts of conscience — the mere refusal to take part in bloodletting — exceed acts of carnage and even genocide. Or, better still, we pretend that the acts of conscience are silly and without basis: we deny the carnage, we deny the genocide. We project it elsewhere.

On these simple things the terrorist in us thrives. The free human lives in a way that shows that they are ludicrous.